Why toast nuts? It brings out full, total flavor. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to do and what a difference it makes in the taste.

Basic instructions are: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread them out in one layer on a baking pan. Stir once or twice with a metal spatula or a long wooden spoon while toasting. Remember that chopped nuts will take less time than whole nuts and halves. And pay attention to the nuts while they’re toasting, don’t leave the kitchen!! Nuts will continue to cook

When you want to make your cakes or cheesecakes look super fancy and professional, here’s the way to do it.

Begin with an 8-ounce block of either semisweet or white chocolate purchased from a specialty shop or your local bakery. Most supermarkets don’t stock these large blocks, and you need this size to create the ribbon like curls.

Place the chocolate clock on a plate in a warm spot, by a sunny window, on top of the stove toward the back (not on a burner), on top of the refrigerator, for

The perfumed outermost layer of citrus fruits is called the zest. In the case of lemons its yellow, limes its green, and with oranges its orange. Underneath the zest is a bitter white pith. Together, the zest and pith make up the rind, which is a general term for the outside of a fruit, that term isn't limited to citrus, for instance watermelon have a rind.

What makes a rind attractive in recipes is its color and the aromatic oils found in it that can life an ordinary flavor in your recipe to

It sounds easy, melt some chocolate, but chocolate can be a clever and finicky ingredient, so here are some helps.

If you must add liquid, chocolate needs more than 1 tablespoon moisture per ounce of chocolate to melt smoothly. Too little liquid will cause the chocolate to seize up and look curdled.

Don’t put a lid on a pan of melting chocolate or the condensation will drip down into your chocolate and will cause it to seize

If chocolate seizes, remove the pan from the heat and try whisking

Making ganache for the first time is an eye-opening experience. You will wonder what took you so long to savor the simplicity of hot whipping cream and chopped semisweet chocolate stirred together in this mysterious and irresistible chocolate sauce.

Ask a pastry chef what ganache is and he or she will answer a chocolate cake filling, frosting, or the center of a truffle. But if you look in a dictionary, a french dictionary, it says the word means “old fool”. Don’t know why, maybe because any

I’ve written about eating dinner together as an extended family before and I probably will again. But this is something I think we have begun to dismiss or take for granted as a people. Eating together as a family is a wonderful thing, eating together as an extended family, even more wonderful.

On Mothers Day my kids and my sister took a poll of the mothers in the family of their favorite foods, and with a delicate hand chose something from each persons list and put together a dinner from the