You can still find information on all my archived food writing here, as well as information about the Level Teaspoon podcast I hosted from 2016-2017.

Listen to The Level Teaspoon podcast by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.

KIDS’ COOKBOOKS recommendations:

  …. and
[not mentioned on the podcast
but also worth considering
for younger kids.]

Jane Kelly is the co-founder of Eat Your Books, the only website in the world that searches through all your recipes – from your cookbooks, magazines and online sources. She was a senior manager and CEO in the music and TV industry in the UK. In the late 90s she started and ran a website selling cookbooks. She loves to cook though is cursed by a family of fussy eaters whereas she will happily eat everything (which is probably also a curse).  She lives near Boston.

This week’s test cookbook #1:   Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Kitchen Victories, by Julia Turshen (Chronicle Books)

This week’s guest #2: Pete Baker

Pete Baker is the Kitchen Manager at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre Massachusetts.  He spends much of his time on food and drink related activities including bread baking and pizza making in a homemade outdoor wood-fired clay oven, keeping bees and chickens, and tending to a very large vegetable garden and small orchard as well as foraging for mushrooms. He also is an avid home brewer.

This week’s test cookbook #2: Bread Illustrated: a Step by Step Guide to Achieving Bakery Quality Results at Home, by America’s Test Kitchen

Episode 15 Music

• “Holiday 2,” by Dave Depper
• “Pixelland,” by Kevin MacLeod
• “Darxieland,” by Kevin MacLeod
• “Avareh,” by Mamak Khadem

Episode 15 Sound Effects

Lethbridge Sounds, and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music: Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

Listen to The Level Teaspoon podcast by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.

ETHNIC/REGIONAL COOKBOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:

This week’s guest #1: Sally Ekus

Sally Ekus is a literary agent and co-owner of The Lisa Ekus Group, a full service culinary agency specializing in literary and talent representation.  She represents a wide range of culinary talent, from first-time cookbook authors to seasoned chefs, professional food writers to bloggers, and internet and television personalities (and she also represented my own book, A Spoonful of Promises!).  Sally loves being the liaison between an author and their publisher, and takes great pride in guiding authors towards their dreams of publication.  Sally has a deep love of phở, anything spicy, and of course TACOS! You can follow her on Instagram @SallyEkus.

This week’s test cookbook #1:   Damn Delicious by Chungah Rhee (Oxmoor Press)

This week’s guest #2: Molly Stevens

Molly Stevens is a food writer, cookbook author, editor and cooking teacher living in Northern Vermont. Her cookbook All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art (WW Norton, 2011) won a 2012 James Beard Foundation Award and two International Association of Culinary Professionals Awards. Previously, her cookbook All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking (WW Norton, 2004) also won a 2005 James Beard Foundation Award and an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award. Molly’s articles and recipes appear regularly in Fine Cooking magazine where she is a contributing editor. She has contributed regularly to Saveur, Bon Appétit, and Eating Well magazines. Her recipes and tips have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Real Simple, Yankee, Easy Living (UK), Drinks, Real Food, and House & Garden (South Africa) magazines.

This week’s test cookbook #2: Taste & Technique, by Naomi Pomeroy

Episode 14 Music

• Sunsearcher, “Latin Rhythm”
• “Devil with the Devil,” by the Underscore Orchestra
• “The Lemur,” by Curha

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music: Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

POWERED APPLIANCES I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

INDISPENSABLE THINGS WITH BLADES

RANDOM STUFF YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED WHICH WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Listen to The Level Teaspoon podcast by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.

Baking Book Recommendations:

This week’s guest: Jenny Hartin

“I am the Cookbook Promotions Manager for Eat Your Books and the founder of The Cookbook Junkies, a Facebook group of 38,000 cookbook fanatics and website of the same name located here. I wrote a column on cookbook reviews for TasteBook and I write a bi-weekly column for Sunday Supper Movement. I also provide reviews for Publishers Weekly. A New Yorker for over 15 years, I moved to Colorado three years ago with my husband and son, Andrew who is 12. I am an avid cook and baker – and have far too many kitchen related items and cookbooks (4000) in my home.”

This week’s test cookbook:   Marbled, Swirled, and Layered by Irvin Lin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The publisher was kind enough to give us permission to reprint the recipes for Chocolate and Brown Sugar Buttercream Rolled Cake with Crushed Pistachios and Double-Chocolate Chunk Blondie Bars with Bourbon Ganache here.

Episode 13 Music

• Songe d’Automne, by Latché Swing
• Morena, by Radio Jerocho and Zenen Zeferino Huervo

Episode 13 Sound Effects

• Corsica_S,, and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music: Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

“Hey Susie, What were those books that you mentioned in that pie episode this week?”

Wanna buy the flakiest rendered leaf lard ever?  Dietrich’s Meats is your answer.  Just give yourself a couple weeks.

This week’s guest:  Becky Selengut is a cookbook author, cooking teacher, dog wrangler, cocktail lover and comedy podcaster. She can be found at http://www.beckyselengut.com.

This week’s test cookbook:   Smashed,  Mashed, Boiled, and Baked – and Fried, too! by Raghavan Iyer (Workman Publishing)

Photographer: Matthew Benson

The publisher was kind enough to give us permission to reprint Raghavan’s Potato-stuffed Chiles Rellenos and Purple Potato Focaccia recipes here.

Episode 12 Music

• ‘Warmer,’ by Andy Cohen

Episode 12 Sound Effects

• reinsamba, timbre, Projects U012, and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music: Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

Something different this week: I begin my annual search for the Best Recipes of 2016.In this episode, we look at one of them: Ningbo Omelet with Dried Shrimp and Chives, from Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop.  Fuchsia and her publisher, W. W. Norton, were kind enough to grant me permission to reprint the recipe here.

Ningbo omelet with dried shrimp and Chinese chives

3 oz (75g) Chinese or garlic chives
3 tbsp cooking oil
3/4 oz (25g) papery dried shrimp
4 large eggs
1/2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
Salt and ground white pepper

Trim off and discard the white ends off the chives, and cut the green leaves into 2 in (5mm) sections. Heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil in your wok or pan, then stir-fry the shrimp until they smell delicious and are faintly golden. Remove and set aside.

Beat the eggs, add the Shaoxing wine, shrimp and chives, and season with salt and pepper. Pour the remaining cooking oil into a hot, seasoned wok or frying pan. When it is hot, pour in the egg mixture. Use a wok scoop to push in from the sides of the omelet several times, allowing the runny egg mixture to fill the space you have created. When there is no longer enough runny egg to do this, leave the omelet to fry over a medium flame until the base is golden and the eggs are nearly set.

Cover the omelet with a plate and carefully invert the pan so the omelet turns out on to the plate, then slide it back into the pan and cook the other side until golden. Slide the omelet onto a chopping board. Cut it into 1 1/2 in (4cm) strips, then cut the strips diagonally into chopstickable slices. Pile up on a serving dish.

Also: assorted breakfast recipes from Rise and Shine, by Katie Sullivan-Morford, with guest Jandro Levins.

Alejandro Levins is an entrepreneur, investor and consultant interested in improving our food system through innovation. His love of eating and feeding others led to his love of cooking, which he does nearly every day.

You can also check out the wicked cool cheese cutter Jandro mentions in the interview while you’re listening.

Episode 11 Music

• Underscore Orchestra, Devil with the Devil
• Underscore Orchestra, Blue Draggish

Episode 11 Sound Effects

• klankbeeld and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music: Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

The Level Teaspoon can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play – or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” on any othenr podcast service you may use.   You can also hear it through your browser at The Level Teaspoon site.

The Superfun Times Vegan   Holiday Cookbook: Entertaining for Absolutely Every Occasion, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz  (Little Brown)
Turkish Delights: Stunning Regional Recipes from the Bosphorus to the Black Sea by John Gregory-Smith, by John Gregory-Smith (Kyle Books)
Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking, by Masahiru Morimoto (Ecco Press)

Noteworthy titles

Food Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Our Edible World  by Julia Rothman (Storey Press)
Toast Hash Roast Mash: Real Food For Every Time of Day, by Dan Doherty (Frances Lincoln)
Poole’s: Recipes and stories from a Modern Diner, by Ashley Christensen (10 Speed)

This Week’s Recipe Tests!

Book tested:  Dorie’s Cookies, by Dorie Greenspan

“Waunobe March,”  by Kevin Macleod
“Fast Talkin'” by Kevin Macleod
“Yegah Sirto,”by Ehl-i Keyif
“Sevdam Olmasa Muhabbet Bagi,” by Wind of Anatolia
“Pyro Flow,” by Kevin Macleod

Episode 10 sound effects
Sound effects by

TerryHancock, timlaroche,, . . .and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music:
Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

The Level Teaspoon can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play – or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” on any other podcast service you may use.   You can also hear it through your browser at The Level Teaspoon site.

Lucky Peach Presents Power Vegetables! Turbocharged Recipes fro Vegetables with Guts, by Peter Meehan  (10 Speed)
Sous Vide at Home: The Modern Technique for Perfectly Cooked Meals, by Lisa Fetterman (10 Speed)
The Indian Cooking Course, by Monisha Baradwaj (Kyle Books)

Noteworthy titles

What Good Cooks Know: 20 Years of Test Kitchen Expertise in One Essential Handbook  by the Editors of America’s Test Kitchen  (America’s Test Kitchen)
30 Ingredients, by Sally Clarke (Frances Lincoln)
Market Math: 50 Ingredients x 4 Recipes = 200 Simple, Creative Dishes, by the editors of Food + Wine (Harmony Books)

This Week’s Recipe Tests!

Book tested:  Amazing Malaysian, by Norman Musa

Episode 9 Music

“Earth and Stone,” by Kevin Hartnell.
“Zanzibar,” by Kevin MacLeod
“Haratanaya Sree,” by Veena Kinhal
“Hackbeat,” by Kevin MacLeod

Episode 9 sound effects
Sound effects by kokopetiyot, JanKoehl, LG, . . .and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music:
Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!

The Level Teaspoon can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play – or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” on any other podcast service you may use.   You can also hear it through your browser at The Level Teaspoon site.

Review titles:
   

Homestyle Vegan: Easy, Everyday Plant-Based Recipes, by Amber St. Peter (Page Street Publishing)
The Gourmet Kitchen: Recipes from the Creator of Savory Simple, by Jennifer Farley (Gallery Books)
Persepolis: Vegetarian Recipes from Persia and Beyond, by Sally Butcher (Interlink Books)

Noteworthy titles

The Magic of Gingerbread: 16 Beautiful projects to make and eat by Catherine Beddall (Peter Pauper Press)
The Moon Juice Cookbook: Cosmic Alchemy for a Thriving Body, Beauty, and Consciousness, by Amanda Chantal Bacon (Pam Krauss Books).
The Monster’s Cookbook: Everyday Recipes for the Living Dead and Undead, by Hoxton Street Monster Supplies (Mitchell Beazley)

This Week’s Recipe Test!
Book tested: Shake. Stir. Sip.: More than 50 Effortless Cocktails Made in Equal Parts, by Kara Newman
Guest: Peter Stuart

Peter Stuart has worked as a radio broadcaster, and producer, a community development provocateur, environmental technology champion, news editor and recently in the aged care sector. He reads voraciously, eats and drinks safe in the knowledge his metabolism is just super and still dances to disco music. Oh and he plays with tarot cards too.

Episode 8 Music

“Chillin Hard,” by Kevin MacLeod
“Lake in the Woods,” by TRG Banks
“Chat Fetiche,” by Glockabelle
“Cotton Candy Monster,” by Chase Alan Willis
“Witchcraft,” by Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh [performed by Susie Chang (piano)]

Episode 8 sound effects
Sound effects by CGEffex, ShotgunPicker, Hybrid_V,  Akrythael, madumcc, MWLANDI, RobinHood76,  . . . and others hosted at freesound.org, soundbible.com, and looperman.com, as well as my own recordings.

The Level Teaspoon’s theme music:
Não me touques, performed by The Bees Knees International Café Orchestra

Hear it all on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or find it by searching for “The Level Teaspoon” any other podcast service you may use!