Who remembers that jump rope ditty? "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes momma with the baby carriage." So too goes the nutritional lexicon for plant-based foods, where first comes fruit, then come vegetables. But think, who ever talks about 'vegetables and fruits'? It's always 'fruits and vegetables', 'fruits and veggies'. But if we want to improve our health through our diets, vegetables must come first. So first off --

Leftover hard-boiled eggs are plentiful at Easter time, and they' re definitely what my mother used to call "a good problem to have." Of course, they can be eaten in egg salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, or potato salad, probably the three most traditional dishes using hard boiled eggs, at least in America. But if you'd like something a bit more interesting, here are ten very creative ideas from all over the world for using those leftover Easter eggs.

Editor's note: Kenji Alt is a food writer for Cook's Illustrated magazine who takes a special interest in burgers. He is also a madman. You might remember his post on The Blumenburger , where he followed Heston Blumenthal's burger recipe, which takes 30 hours, 4 minutes and requires 32 ingredients. He's back, this time with an epic feat that took only 8 hours but seems far more grueling in our book. I mean twelve burgers ?  read more »

The First Stage: Shock The original plan was to take Craig to see the play "Speech & Debate," which he's been eager to see, and then to dinner at Soto--a Japanese place in the West Village, praised as the...Adam Roberts

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben from What’s Cooking . This is one of the first challenges where I really know each of these bloggers and so I couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with to challenge us this time. I should have guessed from this pairing that we would end of with a pastry! Ben is a master at making Puff Pastry and Kelly is always coming up with great ideas of how to make the DB challenges reflect her culinary style. Therefore, it just made sense when I saw the challenge would be a Danish. On the outset, I must admit that I wasn’t too excited about the challenge, as I generally don’t like Danish. It is always so sweet and the dough is generally plasticy, wet and gummy from the filling sinking into it. But as I have come to learn with these challenges, the things we sometimes buy, often do not reflect what the original homemade variety would taste like. Once I saw that cardamom was involved in the dough recipe they had picked out for us, I began to feel slightly more relieved, as I have a huge love for this spice. Then when I read further that we could experiment with the filling I felt even better!  read more »

I love this time of year. Its often a bit warmer out, the kids are out of school, and zucchinis are in season. Although you can easily get zucchinis all year long, they just arent as fresh when shipped from hundreds of miles away (usually from Mexico) in the winter. As a fan of this versatile squash variety, I have been indulging in its seasonality, purchasing and eating it pretty much every week, all summer long. I prefer to buy zucchini at my local farmers market, where there are a range of varieties (light green, dark green, with a ribbed exterior, with yellow stripes, and the list goes on) that are usually just-picked and on the small side. They are also pretty easy to grow at home. Zucchini is best barely cooked. Baked, fried, or simmered too long, and it looses its moisture content and becomes soggy. Al dente and raw zucchini recipes highlight the squashs naturally subtle sweetness and crisp texture. It’s unfortunate that so many people overcook their vegetables anyway, but with zucchini, it is — as my mother would say — a sin because you lose its innate nutty sweetness. Following are four of my favorite recipes which I think capture the summer flavor of zucchini best. I hope you like them.  read more »

Once, not long ago, I dated a man who traced his lineage back to Italy. He was tall, dark, and handsome. We drank red wine under shooting star showers; he cooked romantic dinners for me; and one day he told me about how his family gathers together each Christmas, to make ravioli. It wasn't the large, warm Italian family of clichit sounded as if they had their fair share of struggles and conflicts, perhaps even more than most, but they all gathered at the end of each year and made ravioli. I loved that. This relationship wasnt destined to lastour timing and needs were disastrously out of kilter.  read more »

There a came a moment on Saturday at The Baltimore Book Festival where I looked out at the crowd and down at the food in front of me and realized: "Holy (expletive): I have to cook something for all...Adam Roberts