RecipeMuncher

(Fran Bigelow’s The Reine chocolate torte)
I know what you’re thinking. It’s not looking good, is it? I must be in denial. I’m not a chocoholic, I tell ya. Yet, somehow when I made a list of things I wanted to bake as holiday gifts this weekend, it would appear that at least 80% of the [...]

I’ve never been able to work up much enthusiasm for salad. While the concept may be great, the execution is often painfully poor. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been utterly disappointed by the quality of a salad in a restaurant.

Italian eateries are often the worst offenders. A sad bowl full of limp lettuce and a few token slices of tomato dressed in poor quality oil and cheap balsamic vinegar is not a salad. Nor is a handful of withered rocket with a few dry shavings of Parmesan cheese hastily thrown over the top.

A generic ‘salad’ is too small to be sustaining in any way on its own and too devoid of character to be an accompaniment. A salad that looks pretty is often even more disappointing because it teases you into thinking that it is going to taste good whereas, in fact, it offers no more than a few pieces of what may as well be crunchy water.

I have a friend who maintains that the most dangerous item in any kebab shop is…