Harold McGee

Happy Star Wars Day: Alton Brown, Blue Milk Death Star Tomatoes

Tomorrow is May the Fourth, which means it is Star Wars Day (say the date quickly if you don't get it, or go to the comic book store for Free Comic Book Day and say the line out loud. Surely someone will fill in the blanks (see also: Pee-Wee Herman in Texas)). Of course, if you, like Disney, would ... More >>

The Chef's Library: M.B. Post's David LeFevre on His Favorite Cookbooks

The Chef's Library is a series in which we ask chefs around town to tell us about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we talk to David LeFevre, chef at M.B. Post. "I have a kind of huge collection that spans a few shelves," LeFevre admits. We asked him to choose a few that stand out in his mind. For ... More >>

Product Review: The New "Ninja" Slow Cooker Put To The Banana Bread Test

Even before the The Ninja arrived on our test kitchen doorstep, friends offered their unsolicited opinions about modern slow cookers. "Anything with Ninja in the name sounds like it could be cool," said one. Another: "Why would anyone need a high-tech slow cooker?" We tend to agree with the latter, ... More >>

Smashburger Opens Next Month In Thousand Oaks

There's another contender in L.A.'s ongoing burger-chain war, expect this time you'll have to visit Thousand Oaks to get a taste. Denver-based chain Smashburger, which derives its name from the way its patties are smashed into the grill to, according to a press release, "seal in the juices," will be ... More >>

Researchers Test Three-Second Rule, With Mixed Results

Depending on how you were raised, food dropped onto the floor was subject to the three-second rule, the five-second rule, the one-minute rule, or the before-the-dog-gets-it rule. That homespun yarn of a law, though, may not necessarily stand up under the rigors of actual scientific research. A few ... More >>

Brooklyn's First Food Book Fair: Books Authors Eats

The food intellectual is not a new phenomenon, but it is a new cliche. The glut of rant-prone gonzo restaurant critic bloggers, armchair sustainability experts, and urban chicken farming gurus reminds us that the importance of caring about food, where it comes from, and who makes it has soaked deep ... More >>

Roy Choi of A-Frame and Kogi on How Cookbooks Changed His Life

Read This Now: Lucky Peach Issue 3

​Okay, it's not out just yet, but it's good to get advance warning for some things. (Obama traffic, windstorms, certain NBA point guards.) On March 13th, the third issue of Lucky Peach hits the stands and kitchen counter tops and behind tsukemen bars (where Ikemen keeps theirs). Lucky Peach, ... More >>

Read This Now: Lucky Peach Issue 2

​If your tonkotsu-stained pages of the first issue of Lucky Peach are no longer functioning reasonably well and you're tired of ramen (okay, right), you can get over to your nearest applicable bookstore (or Momofuku restaurant or Whole Foods) and buy a copy of the new food-as-lit magazine. T ... More >>

Cookbook Of The Week: Alton Brown's Good Eats 3 Is Really Good Nostalgic Eats

amazon​Alton Brown's just-released Good Eats 3: The Later Years is, as we are told on the front jacket flap, The End. Per Brown: "Everyone knows that part three is the end (unless, of course, you're Bond or Potter), and expectations run high." Yes, after ten years of watching Brown investiga ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews L.A. Weekly Pancake Breakfast

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

Flickr/dubh​ What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free), it's where most of ... More >>

Q & A With Lucky Peach's Peter Meehan: Drinking Fernet With David Chang The Food Journal As Dartboard

​As you may have heard, Lucky Peach, the quarterly food journal put together by David Chang (Momofuku), Peter Meehan and the folks at Zero Point Zero Production (No Reservations) and published by McSweeney's, debuted yesterday. Ramen. Anthony Bourdain. Ruth Reichl. Harold McGee. More than enou ... More >>

Lucky Peach: The New Food Journal From David Chang & Friends Is Here

​Lucky Peach, the food quarterly from Momofuku's David Chang, debuted yesterday. It's an enormous amount of fun, as you would expect, kind of like Grand Street crossed with No Reservations. This makes sense once you run down the list of contributors: Anthony Bourdain, Harold McGee, Ruth Reichl ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Reviews Noodle Boy

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

Flickr/dubh​ What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free), it's where most of ... More >>

Cookbook Review: Heavy Metal Mosh Potatoes An Alice Cooper-Worthy Snack Recipe

​There are those cookbooks -- an awful lot of them in recent Food Network years, it seems -- that you pick up and immediately set back down. Then you scout for something of substance to pick up by, say, Diana Kennedy or Harold McGee, to pretend that momentary Rachel Ray EVOO moment never happe ... More >>

Test Kitchen: Horse Fat? The New Perfect French Fries

Farid ZadiNew Perfect French Fries​ No one knows who invented French fries, although most food experts agree that deep fried potato strips were almost certainly invented in Belgium or France. There is a popular internet meme about a Belgian journalist who allegedly documented the existence of ... More >>

2011 James Beard Media Award Winners

​It's a case of local boy makes good -- make that two local boys -- at this year's James Beard Awards. Our own Jonathan Gold won the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award while Patrick Kuh of Los Angeles magazine won the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award. In the first ever ... More >>

2011 IACP Finalists Announced

​The IACP, which would be the International Association of Culinary Professionals and not the International Association of Chiefs of Police -- which comes up first on a Google search, proving maybe that cops can SEO better than writers -- yesterday announced the finalists for both the 2011 Coo ... More >>

Best 2010 Food Reference Books: Salted The Encyclopedia Of Jewish Foods

Your New Low Sodium Diet​Do we really need another food reference book in today's Wikipedia-driven media era? Absolutely -- at least if you're the sort who appreciates well-researched studies by folks who have spent years exploring a single subject (rather than minutes skimming the Internet). ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

Harold McGee's New Book A Chat With the Expert On Food And Cooking Wednesday

​Harold McGee's books are a bit like salt - they always seem to be just what you need. The king of food science long before molecular gastronomy was an everyday word has published a new book, Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. And yes, it's as fantastic as h ... More >>

And Now, A Brief Message From Harold McGee (P.S. That's Right Now)

screenshot of Harold McGee's Twitter page​

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

Plate Spinning: Listings From the Past Week

Some food for thought from local, national and international news sources from this past week: -- Should I Move to France? (28 Questions to Ask Yourself) [David Lebovitz] -- Wendy's pulls disco CD from kid's meals because of "racy" Donna Summer lyrics. So now they can just go home and listen to ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

How To Download Everything: Mark Bittman's New iPhone App

​If your tattered, sauce stained copy of Mark Bittman's encyclopedic (by definition) cookbook, How To Cook Everything, is just too big and wont to drop its pages for you to cart around to the grocery store, you're in luck. Now you can just flip through the digital equivalent of Bittman's 5-pou ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

A Q & A With LOU Chef D.J. Olsen: Cooking For Wine People, Trading Music For Food & The Secret Cult of the Midwest

To get to LOU wine bar, you must drive slightly further east on Melrose than you might expect, past the food corridor of the as-yet-reopened Hatfield's and the happy complex that is Mozza and the technically masterful food of Providence, to a nondescript strip mall off of Vine. You must spot the mal ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Today's Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections on Wednesday. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is ... More >>

Evan Kleiman's Good Food Program Tomorrow: Gold & Parsons on the Demise of Gourmet

Anyone who's been downing Eric Alperin's violet-scented cocktails to cope with living in a post-Gourmet world should get up at least by 11 tomorrow morning and turn on the radio. On KCRW's Good Food program, Evan Kleiman will be discussing the demise of the much-loved magazine with the Weekly's Jona ... More >>