Sweetheart candies are an essential on Valentine's Day, and recently Williams-Sonoma took the same idea to cookies with Message in a Cookie, a kit that comes with three different cookie-cutter shapes: a heart, a star, and a scalloped square. Each cookie cutter features slots for text, where you can use the accompanying letter stamps to make your own talking sugar cookies. I whipped up a quick Read more

Since day one, Alton Brown's been host of the competition The Next Iron Chef, and this star-studded season, which premieres tomorrow night at 9 p.m., the Food Network favorite will be back and bigger than ever. Earlier this month, I ran into Alton at the New York City Wine & Food Festival, where he talked about what makes The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs different from previous seasons, and Read more

Building a better Big Mac. — A Hamburger Today It's true! Farmers markets really are cheaper than grocers. — The Atlantic Go into Thomas Keller's brand-new Rock Center Bouchon Bakery. — Grub Street NY Taste-tested: healthier new items at McDonald's. — Huffington Post Food Suspects have been arrested in a bank bacon heist. — The Food Section Chefs' all-time favorite meals. — Bites on Read more

The best of the best of the nation's food world glitterati are in New York this weekend for the industry's Oscars, the James Beard Awards. Although the main ceremony doesn't take place until later this evening, the events kicked off on Friday with the announcement of the book, broadcast, and journalism awards. A huge congratulations is in order for our friends at the San Francisco Chronicle; Read more

Crème brûlée, the French vanilla custard with a caramelized sugar crust, is one of my all-time favorite treats. If it's on a restaurant's dessert menu, I can't help but order it. And sometimes, for a special occasion, I'll make it at home. It's not that difficult to make; the technique is similar to homemade ice cream, but instead of putting the mixture in an ice cream maker, it's baked in a Read more

For your best Thanksgiving ever, begin planning for the big day earlier than you normally do. Rather than being daunted with the turkey up front, ease yourself into the holiday by selecting your side dishes first. Start with sweet potatoes, a surefire table topper at any Fall meal. Serve them mashed in place of conventional white potatoes; you'll enjoy the same fluffy texture but also gain Read more

The first time I went to an Alton Brown demo, I was a little disappointed the scientific chef focused on cooking for kids. Luckily, at this year's Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival, Brown was more rated R than PG. Although it was 11 a.m., he got things started by teaching the crowd how to make mint juleps. The theme of his demo was quintessential Southern cuisine with the Read more

I've made a crumble, I've made a cobbler, but I've never made a grunt! So the moment I came across a blackberry grunt recipe, I knew it was a must make. It's a pretty basic concept that involves cooking berries and prepping a dough that's very similar to buttermilk biscuits. Rather than pulling out the baking sheet to cook the biscuits, they go right on top of the syrupy blackberries and straight Read more

This morning, the James Beard Foundation announced the finalists to its annual awards, the culinary world's most prestigious honors. To generate buzz, the foundation live-tweeted the nominations from New Orleans. After releasing a long list of semi-finalists last month, the selection has been narrowed down to three to five finalists per category. The list honors a variety of people in the Read more