A View to a Thrill

The eye-catching infusion vessel made famous at Grant Achatz’s The Aviary in Chicago and featured on the cover of the September 2011 issue of Food Arts containing a blueberry rye cocktail, is ready for mass production. There are limitless possibilities for the container, as it can be used for any variety of steeped oil, coffee, alcohol, broth, or other type of liquid. The porthole is made available via a Kickstarter campaign. Read more.

A "Wine Country" Is Born

What defines an American Viticultural Area and how can it define a wine? Jeffery Lindenmuth opens a discussion of the most recently established AVAs and how they might impact restaurants’ selection, selling, and service of wine. 

As they set about forging a winemaking nation in the 1970s, some larger American wine producers resorted to familiar French names—Chablis, Burgundy, Champagne—to denote their wines. Read more. 

A Barrel of Drafts

Staying one step ahead of the pulsing scene, busy bartenders are keeping crowds happy and generating buzz by mixing cocktails in kegs and dispensing them on tap.

Would you like your cocktail shaken, stirred, or on draft? Taking their cue from the success of wine on tap, mixologists have expanded upon the popular practice of batching cocktails, placing their compounds in kegs that can be tapped with the ease of draft beer or wine. Read more. 

Cemitas Poblanas Sandwiches from Puebla with Quesillo

As one of its names clearly states, quesillo, or queso Oaxaca, originated in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, although, as you’ll soon see, it’s now part of the culinary fabric of Puebla, its northwestern neighbor. Quesillo is a mild semihard string cheese formed into small yarn-like rounds. It rose to prominence in the small municipality of Reyes Etla, where it’s said to have been created by mistake. Read more.

Playing with Dals

No Indian meal can be considered complete without a leguminous dish. Neela Paniz sorts through the kaleidoscopic variety of lentils and beans available to subcontinental cooks.

On one of my weekly jaunts to an Indian grocery store in Fairfield, California, about a 20 minute ride from my restaurant Neela’s in downtown Napa, I was once again reminded of the number of dals available for sale. The shelves were packed with a plethora of legumes, lentils, and beans, displaying a variety of colors and sizes. Read more.