You probably think you already know everything you need to know about chocolate. For instance: The higher the percentage of cacao, the more bitter the chocolate, right? The term “single origin” on the label indicates that the chocolate expresses a particular terroir. And wasn’t the whole bean-to-bar movement started by a couple of bearded guys…
In addition to being obvious testaments to beauty, flowers are often bound up in human ritual. We give blooms to note a birth, a death and many occasions in between, including the, well, blossoming, of romantic love. At a certain point, though, we long for something more surprising and complex than the single stems of…
Morbid curiosity along with a bit of masochism drew me back to Hudson Yards. Many of the restaurants that have been built there have seemed cursed on one level or another, but the latest one sounded uniquely inauspicious, starting with its timing. It opened in November — the 13th of November. The Tavern by WS,…
In food, fermentation — the process by which enzymes from microorganisms break down carbohydrates — is both an ancient practice and a recent trend. Cheese, made from cultured milk, was being produced in present-day Iraq around 7,000 B.C., and the Chinese are thought to have started making sake from fermented rice a couple of millenniums…
If you’re going to spend upward of $8 for a fancy craft-chocolate bar, you really shouldn’t mindlessly gobble it while rushing to catch the B train (not that I’ve ever done that). Megan Giller, the author of “Bean to Bar Chocolate” and a judge for the International Chocolate Awards, gives guided chocolate tastings to help…
SAN FRANCISCO — A wreck of juicy, half-busted Gulf prawns and kapi, the concentration of salted, fermented krill, beats with unripe Meyer lemon — so freshly smashed, so intensely seasoned, it tastes alive. Like much of the unflinching cooking at Nari, which opened last August in San Francisco’s Japantown, the dish is absolutely delicious. Good…
Premade simmer sauces have become a big thing for shortcutting Indian cooking at home. Now, Charles Phan, the founder and chef at the Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, has taken the same approach to Vietnamese fare. He has introduced four braising sauces, two for quick stir-fries and two for slower simmers; each comes with…
Some hard-to-find seafood from across the globe sits alongside the usual fillets of black sea bass and piles of clams at Essex Pearl, a fish market and restaurant in the new Market Line food hall on the Lower East Side from the fishmonger Steven Wong. Tempted by some Maine sea urchins, slender Massachusetts razor clams…
Johan Halsberghe — a Belgian chef who started making fresh chocolate mousse for high-end markets to sell in little plastic cups a few years ago — has outgrown his Brooklyn kitchen and has moved his production to East Harlem. His new space includes a small dessert bar in the front, where he sells the chocolate…
Nick Anderer and Chintan Pandya are among the chefs participating in the coming season at De Gustibus, the cooking school at Macy’s, which, for 40 years, has tapped top chefs for its classes. Mr. Anderer, formerly a star in Danny Meyer’s restaurant group, recently opened Anton’s, a tavernlike spot with some throwback touches. He leads…