The Splendid Table

◦One 11- to 12-ounce log fresh goat cheese, cut crosswise into 4 even pieces
◦1/2 cup fine dried bread crumbs
◦1/3 pound thick slice of pancetta, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch pieces
◦3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
◦2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
◦1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
◦1 teaspoon finely chopped shallot
◦1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
◦1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
◦2 cups frisée greens, washed, dried, and torn into 1-inch pieces

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

I must admit something embarrassing. Whenever I think of chicken salad, I think of the recipe for Waldorf salad that a customer keeps screaming at Basil Fawlty: chicken, apples, celery, and walnuts! I have that frantic scene locked in my head. Chicken salad = Fawlty Towers. Except, I went back to see that scene again to write this headnote (and get a little comic relief) and realized there's no chicken in a Waldorf salad. Oops. Well, this one's still great.

3 cups cubed cooked chicken, taken from roasted legs and thighs
2 large green apples, peeled and cubed

I rarely dress up asparagus; it has such a wonderful flavor that it feels silly to complicate it in any way. But, as the first warm months carry on, cooks and farmers, all eagerly anticipating the next wave of crops, begin to grow a little weary of asparagus. For this dish, I drizzle the grilled spears with a sauce that I made up one day when my wife was desperately hungry and the pickins were slim in the kitchen. We had olive oil, hot sauce, and a little grated Parmesan. I mixed them all together to make a dipping sauce for bread, and she loved it!

Simple but delicious! Wrapped in a sheet of newspaper, this is a popular breakfast for people on the run. Often, the Vietnamese will simply pull up with their motorcycle at their favourite banh mi cart to pick one up on the way to work. 

12 eggs
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
pinch of salt
1/3 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
oil, for frying
6 small baguettes
2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
1 handful coriander (cilantro) sprigs
1 long red chilli, sliced
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Is saffron — the legendarily expensive, hand- harvested spice — worth the money? Yes, if it's allowed to be the star. 

Reposted from www.splendidtable.org

Croque Monsieur is essentially a toasted cheese and ham sandwich. Put a fried egg on top and you've got a Croque Madame (the egg is supposed to resemble a lady's hat). What makes the difference between a toasted cheese and ham sandwich and a Croque Monsieur is the cheese – in a Croque Monsieur it comes in the form of a creamy cheese sauce. And boy, does this make a difference!

This soup tastes like it comes from Provence's culinary central casting. All the usual (and lovable) characters are here: the tomatoes, the garlic, the goat cheese and those herbs that actually do scent the air the way hyperventilating travel writers say.

Cook to Cook: Resist substituting fresh herbs for the dried ones called for here. They should be dried (but never powdered), just as they are in Provence's famous blend, Herbes de Provence. The ready-made blend is often stale. Here, you will be making your own.

via www.splendidtable.org 

This colorful pasta dish has been on restaurant menus as far back as I can remember. Patrons love the two-tone pasta, crispy peas, prosciutto bits, and creamy sauce. Your family and guests will ask for second helpings every time. But, as traditional as this dish is, feel free to change the vegetables according to seasons; for example, I love adding fava beans in the spring, corn in the summer, mushrooms in the fall, and cooked chestnuts in the winter. 

Ingredients 

On Thursday, November 22, help is on the way for Thanksgiving cooks, kitchen helpers and dinner guests on this, the biggest cooking day of the year. Lynne Rossetto Kasper will be available to answer listener questions throughout the live, two-hour program. Quickly becoming a Thanksgiving morning tradition, past shows have included everything from a cross-country trucker cooking his Thanksgiving dinner on the manifold to a panicked first-time cook who didn't realize a turkey needs to be thawed. Lynne handles all questions with wit, expertise and laughter.

Yes, organics is a $29 billion industry and still growing. Something is pulling us toward those organic veggies that are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

But if you're thinking that organic produce will help you stay healthier, a new finding may come as a surprise. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds scant evidence of health benefits from organic foods.

When you hear the word chia, you probably think of chia pets. Maybe you even mutter that catchy slogan: "ch-ch-ch-chia."

Or maybe not, but lately, chia seed has been getting buzz beyond those terra cotta figurines. It's becoming a popular health food. Rich in fiber, protein and the highest plant source of Omega 3s, the little seeds pack a major nutritional punch.

Wayne Coates grows and sells chia seeds and has a book called Chia: The Complete Guide to the Ultimate Superfood.

When the mercury's soaring, a cold, refreshing beer can be the best part of summer. As part of our occasional Taste of Summer series, we asked beer expert Graham Haverfield to recommend a few of his seasonal favorites.

Haverfield is the beer director for the Wine Library in Springfield Township, N.J. He's also a certified cicerone, or beer server. "Summer beers are typically lighter in body, they're typically a little lower in alcohol," he tells NPR's Scott Simon.

Supermarkets have spent decades catering to the needs and wants of baby boomers, and now the millennial generation is disappointed with what they're finding at traditional grocery stores, and are shopping elsewhere in greater numbers.

In fact, a new market research report called Trouble in Aisle 5 reports that millennials buy only 41 percent of their food at traditional grocery stores, compared to the boomers' 50 percent.

If you're watching a sports game at home, at a bar or at an arena, what better way to enjoy it than with some nachos, pretzels or hot dogs?

As a former baseball player, Josh Chetwynd knows a thing or two about stadium grub. His new book, How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun: Accidental Discoveries and Unexpected Inspirations That Shape What We Eat and Drink, features 75 short essays that trace the history of popular food and dispel common misconceptions.

When the 2012 Summer Olympics begin in July, a culinary starting gun will go off: Fourteen million meals will be prepared for spectators and athletes during the Olympic and Paralympic games in London.

The criticism is already pouring in.

Jacquelin Magnay, the Olympics editor at The Daily Telegraph wrote a recent article calling the food to be sold at Olympic venues "bland and over-priced." In response, an Olympic caterer sent her a custom bento box of gourmet delicacies.

If it hasn't happened to you, count yourself as lucky. For many people, eating ice cream or drinking an icy drink too fast can produce a really painful headache. It usually hits in the front of the brain, behind the forehead.

The technical name for this phenomenon is cold-stimulus headache, but people also refer to it as "ice cream headache" or "brain freeze."

The good news is that brain freeze is easy to prevent — just eat more slowly. The other bit of good news is these headaches don't last very long — a minute at the outside.

If you listen to my story on Morning Edition, you'll understand the generational divide that has led to my fear of making a pie crust.

So when I decided to overcome my fear, I did it the right way. I hopped on a train to the Culinary Institute of America, the nation's premier cooking school, in Hyde Park, N.Y. There I learned the foolproof pie crust formula that chef George Higgins teaches his students. "It starts with 3, 2, 1," he explains.