Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

Epicurious' top picks-to give as gifts or to keep for yourself-in nine categories

The one upside to an economic downturn is that cooking at home starts to seem so much more appealing. Tackling it with a trove of new recipes makes it fun, too. Whether you're doing it yourself or just inspiring friends and family with gifts this season, these cookbooks will justify the investment. And at a time when travel is both painful and prohibitively expensive, let these books transport you to places both near and far.

BEST OVERALL

Fish Without a Doubt

by Rick Moonen & Roy Finamore
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Recipe to try: Steamed West Coast Oysters

These days it's not only what you eat but where it came from that matters, especially with seafood-the oceans are desperately very overfished and aquaculture is creating a whole new set of problems. Trust chef/restaurateur Rick Moonen to navigate through the confusion in the fish store; he has long been not just an

Everyone's favorite hair-of-the-dog hangover cure, the Bloody Mary, turns 75 years old today, according to legend.

The most popular theory has it that Fernand Petiot invented the cocktail at Harry's Bar in Paris in 1920, when it was known as the Red Snapper because it was so harsh. But he didn't transform it into the brunch drink we know today until he was at the St. Regis Hotel in New York in the 1933 and added the special ingredient: Tabasco sauce. That's when it became the Bloody Mary. ( New York City officials celebrated with a toast in Times Square at 11:30 am today.)

A competing origin story has it that the cocktail was originally created by actor-producer George Jessel, and that Petiot simply added the finishing touches in 1939. As Petiot was quoted saying in a 1964 New Yorker:

"I initiated the Bloody Mary of today. Jessel said he created it, but it was really nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over. I cover the bottom of the shaker with four large

With a global mix of flavors, our menu is perfect for adventurous cooks looking to break away from tradition

Rockwell-esque Thanksgiving dinner, serving up the same old turkey and trimmings year after year can get seriously tedious-especially for the cook.

So if you feel ready to veer from the well-trodden path of holidays past, we've put together a Thanksgiving menu like none you've ever seen before. Our centerpiece is roasted turkey marinated in a complex Mexican mole sauce and richly stuffed with masa harina, similar to what's pressed inside the corn husk wrapper of a tamale.

A sprinkling of Native American ingredients make apropos appearances as well. Sweet jícama adds crunch to a sprightly watercress and orange salad. Pine nuts get sautéed with elegantly slim haricots verts. Cranberries and zucchini are baked into tender mini-muffins. And chiles grace the table in the mole, stuffing, gravy, and a juicy pineapple and poblano salsa (standing in for cranberry sauce).

Turkey Day recipes from Queer Eye's fab foodie, including a deconstructed roast turkey and plenty of make-ahead sides

If you're anything like Ted Allen-or most Americans-Thanksgiving ranks high among your favorite holidays. According to the Fab Foodie of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame, there are so many reasons to love Turkey Day: "Everybody has the day off. Everybody loves to eat the great traditional dishes. People are beginning to think about the holiday season and getting in the mood for the soothing sounds of football on the telly. It's getting nippy outside in much of the country, signaling that it's time to bake, roast, and braise in a big way." Not to mention, Allen says, entertaining for such a celebration is "a multimedia platform for personal expression" through your food, decor, lighting, and music choices. "Not to sound too much like Christopher Guest in Waiting for Guffman," he says, "but on Thanksgiving you're putting on a show!"

What's not to love about

Answer: If you have purchased an oven in the last ten years or so, you probably have a convection oven feature, allowing you to toggle back and forth between convection and regular baking. But that doesn't mean you actually use convection, as it can be confusing. In every one of my classes, someone asks about how to adjust a turkey recipe for convection. It's easy.

A convection oven has a small fan that circulates the hot air inside of the oven. This helps the food cook more quickly, and definitely improves browning. If you aren't using your convection feature, you are missing out of a great technological advance in cooking.

Whenever I am roasting meat or poultry at home or in a cooking class, I always use convection heat, and the results are excellent. Along with improved browning, I find that the pan juices reduce more quickly than conventional roasting from the blowing hot air, so check the pan occasionally and add more stock or water to moisten the juices. This isn't a big

Epicurious baked 11 supermarket pie crusts and compared their flavor, texture, and appearance. Three winners performed crisply.

by Carolina Santos-Neves, photo by Steven Torres

Making pie crusts from scratch requires a bit more skill and patience than some of us have to offer during the holidays, especially when relatives are in town and we're cooking for a crowd. Enter the premade pie crust, a favorite holiday timesaver. To find out which crusts could pass for homemade, we taste-tested frozen regular, graham cracker, and frozen whole-wheat shells from major supermarket brands. Read on for our methodology and results.

We purchased 11 crusts and baked them according to a basic Pumpkin Pie recipe (we omitted the spiced whipped cream for simplicity's sake). The shells we used are all widely available in the U.S. and are relatively inexpensive, ranging from $2.19 to $4.99 per package. (All the pie crusts except the graham cracker come in pairs and had to be kept frozen.)

Photo by Lara Ferroni The pull of turkey and all the trimmings around Thanksgiving runs deep. Even if you're time-pressed or cooking for a very small group, it's hard to give up the fantasy of a golden roasted bird, savory stuffing, and sumptuous sides -- especially for pale imitations like turkey-cranberry roulade or Cornish game hens.

To satisfy your inner grandmother and appeal to your outer overcommitted self, we've put together a speedy yet classic feast. A split, bone-in turkey breast over a mound of cornbread stuffing gives the impression of a whole bird, but cooks in under an hour. And the rest of the menu -- velvety squash soup, tender broccoli rabe, rich chocolate-cinnamon pudding cakes -- can be put together while the turkey roasts. Compared with the usual marathon cooking session, our abbreviated meal will take you less time, leave you with less cleanup, and, if you are only two people, still stock your fridge with plenty of leftovers.

Timesaving tips:

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In 2007, the U.S. government reversed its 95-year-old policy, once again allowing the sale of liquor products labeled absinthe into the country. Since then a slew of old and new brands hailing from France, Switzerland, Austria, and America have hit the market. All of them have less than ten parts-per-million thujone, the compound in wormwood that's dangerous in high doses but considered safe (and certainly nonhallucinogenic) at these small levels.

Many people do not realize that absinthe tastes like anise, fennel, or licorice, depending on your frame of reference. But bartenders do. They've been using it (and substitutes like Pernod and Herbsainte) in cocktails for more than a hundred years. Below are five cocktails that feature absinthe in different ways: as a primary flavor, as a rinsing agent, and even as breakfast.

Abinsthe Frappe

Absinthe is usually very high in proof, clocking in at nearly 70 percent alcohol compared with 40 percent for most vodka, gin, and whiskey. It