It's so easy to just Google a list of ingredients or a specific dish and get a slew of recipe ideas, complete with reviews and suggested modification. But there isn't anything quite like leafing through a cookbook or magazine to be inspired by dishes you never even thought of, using ingredients you’ve never touched before. (While perusing a back issue, preparing for this blog post, I came across a recipe for Sticky Toffee pudding. I'm going to try it out for this year's Thanksgiving. Who would have thought?)
For inspiration or just for pleasure reading, I'm sharing a few of my favorite New England cooking magazines. (Because of copyright, I can't include pictures from the magazines, of which I have many! So please follow the links to go directly to the sites of these great periodicals).
FRESH MAGAZINE by Hannaford Grocery Stores
Hannaford has a great cooking magazine called “Fresh.” And it's FREE with purchase! Otherwise, it's $3, but who doesn't need to pick up a pint of ice cream? Issues can be found on racks throughout the store & at check out. Past issues are also available online.
Why I love Fresh Magazine:
Free!
Heavy on pictures, light on text. Reads very quickly.
Super local -- Includes mini articles with local suppliers, farms, and Hannaford employees.
Focus on family-friendly, "weeknight" dinners and quick recipes, - Highlights ways to get dinner on the table quickly, often using a Hannaford product or packaged item
Real life dining & cooking - Recipes are pretty quick & simple, utilizes leftovers or short cuts like incorporating a prepared item to help skip a step
Highlights organic, healthy, & local
YANKEE MAGAZINE by Yankee Publishing
Not really a cooking magazine per se, Yankee magazine always has a food section with terrific recipes. The recipes have such a sense of place that make them particularly relevant and interesting to any New Englander. Sometimes recipes dive into a season (like mud or sugaring season), some times they highlight a local chef or cookbook author. Other times, they may focus on a locale, like clamming on Rhode Island.
Unlike Hannaford's Fresh, which focuses on every day, weeknight cooking, Yankee Magazine focuses on the feel & culture of New England. True to its moniker, Yankee recipes tend to have a simplicity & frugality that is truly rooted in the New England sense of doing things with intention, detail, and practicality. And the result is beautiful and authentic. I turn to Yankee when I want to elicit an experience or a feeling, when I want to create a "wow" dish that is recognizable but that people have long forgotten. Like that Sticky Toffee Pudding I can't wait to make next week!
The Yankee Magazine WEBSITE is very well organized for those that are just looking for specific recipes or want to explore the New England food scene. The main menu directly navigates FOOD, which then aggregates articles and recipes into categories such as Bread, Beverage, Dessert, Advice, and so on. For example, the Beverage page included links to the Best Ice Coffee in the region and a trip to local distilleries.
COOK'S ILLUSTRATED by American's Test Kitchen
Probably the grandmama of all cooking magazines, whenever I want to try to make “the best” of a traditional, recognizable dish (think meatloaf or apple pie), I turn to Cook’s Illustrated. I also have a well-worn copy of “The Science of Good Cooking” by Cook’s Illustrated. This cookbook is a compilation of many Cook's Illustrated magazines and my go-to culinary textbook.
Based in Brookline, Massachusetts, America’s Test Kitchen publishes Cook’s Illustrated. According to its website, Cook's Illustrated is "the iconic magazine that investigates how and why recipes works." Issues are published every other month and include 10 recipes which are developed through America's Test Kitchen. Each recipe is a little bit of a story, a little bit of science, and a narrative of how the recipe was developed to create the "best" iteration of that dish.
The recipes often include a back story, such as the dish being a childhood favorite or a perennial picnic potluck pleaser. Then it dives into how the recipe was developed. The articles describe the finished product they are trying to achieve, and the many attempts to achieve the desired dish. Do they use kosher salt or sea salt? Should they start with cold eggs or room temperature eggs? Use a glass baking dish or a cast iron skillet? Start with high heat & then drop it down? They bring in food science and chemistry, cooking tips & equipment, technique, and cooking lingo (such as what does "stiff peaks" or “tempering eggs” mean).
Sometimes the trial and error approach attempts to simplify a recipe while still getting the same result, or it confirms that the extra time or expense to do it just exactly so is really necessary. The magazine also incudes equipment and product reviews, such as which is the best food processor or natural vanilla extract. For the scientists among us, they include their methodology and criteria. For example, when testing food processors, they ran each processor through about a dozen tasks such as shredding 8 ounces of cheddar, emulsifying homemade mayo, and mixing pie dough. They rated each processor on performance, easy of use, and clean-up effort.
I love the "quick tips" section which included helpful ideas, many from the magazine's own readers, like using a jumbo pill organizer to portion out spices you might need on a camping trip or using a bundt pan (instead of a vertical roaster) to prop up a chicken. Or the primer section that takes a deep dive into a product. I loved recently learning more about the Blue Stilton cheese we had in The Market over the summer.
I've learned some very interesting cooking techniques that have made a huge difference with very little effort:
To make pie crust that is easy to work with: use vodka instead of water.
To make the best creamy chicken and dumplings, use chicken thighs. Thighs have more joints. More joints have more collagen. More collagen makes the sauce creamier.
To grill scallops: coat them in a slurry of cornstarch, sugar, & water. The sugar will caramelize and the cornstarch keeps the scallops from sticking to the grill.
To roast Brussel sprouts: lightly steam first & then roast.
It's difficult to encapsulate all that Cook's Illustrated truly is. It is such a vast wealth of knowledge and know-how. If you enjoy learning and exploring cooking and baking, Cook's Illustrated is definitely a deep dive into culinary skills, technique, & science. The website requires an annual membership ($50) and provides access to just about everything including America's Test Kitchen's TV show and recipe reviews.
Here's to happy days in The Kitchen!
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