Photo: geishaboy500/Flickr

Some of the most beautiful Easter Eggs I’ve seen online to date come from TheKitchn. Perhaps what gets me is the shine, but there’s no doubt that these hard-boiled eggs naturally colored using beets, red cabbage, yellow and red onion skins, etc., are gorgeous.

After you read the post and get a handle on what’s involved, cull through the comments left by those who have followed the recipe. You’ll learn that the dyes leave no residual taste. These are, in the final analysis, utterly edible eggs — after the hunt is over, as you sit for Easter Sunday brunch. Sorry, Paas.

Photo: a_b_normal123/Flickr

Early in January Rachael Herz, psychologist, neuroscientist and leading expert on the psychology of smell, was featured on On Point in a discussion about what disgusts us and why – the premise of her book That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion. Herz’s conversation with host Tom Ashbrook was wide-ranging and fascinating, taking into consideration how all five of our senses, the driving emotion of fear and the fact of our mortality come together to shape what we find gross.

Below, Anne Fishel, whom we hear from on occasion at PRK, touches on Herz’s findings and additional studies that attempt to explain why some foods disgust one person and delight another. Fishel shares some thoughts on how to coax the picky eater, especially the young ones, into trying and liking foods once kept at arm’s length.

Anne K. Fishel, Ph.D.
The Family Dinner Project

One of my young adult sons called me recently to rave about a Japanese dinner he’d had with his brother.

“What was the best part of the meal?” I asked. After a pause during which I could almost hear him salivating, he said: “Either the beef tartar topped with raw quail egg, or the raw Kobe beef served with raw urchin. Can’t decide.”

My first thought was, “How disgusting.”

And then, in a more contemplative mood, I wondered why are my sons’ palettes so much more adventurous than mine, when they share my genes and grew up with my cooking? More…

Seder in a Box materials (photo: courtesy of JewishBoston)

If you’re thinking of hosting Seder next week but have cold feet, kiss those nerves goodbye.

What if we told you there are folks here in Boston who have YOU in mind with a product they’re pulling together for a second year in a row in these weeks leading up to Passover. It’s called “Seder in a Box.” And it’s free.

More…

Photo: DaGoaty/Flickr

On this day in…

1860
M.L. Byrn patents a new and improved corkscrew.

(© 2011 Michael V. Hynes)

The Backstory

The history of the corkscrew is interwoven with the histories of gun technology, glass-making and wine storage. Here’s what we learned. More…

Photo: Jaime Lutz

Vegans, gluten-free eaters, health fanatics and the budget conscious — listen up. This post is for you.

It’s also for you if you like sourdough and do-it-yourself projects on the lazier side. Here’s the deal: you can make your own dairy-free, possibly organic, possibly gluten-free probiotic yogurt using only oats and water. Let’s put that in perspective: my favorite dairy yogurt, the Oikos organic plain Greek variety, costs NINE DOLLARS for four servings. Even if you get conventional yogurt, you’re guaranteed to be set back at least three bucks for less than a week’s servings. Making your yogurt from oats, on the other hand, costs PENNIES per serving.

And it’s really, really good. Nice and thick and creamy – with a texture halfway between cooked oatmeal and dairy yogurt. As tart as sourdough.

Here’s how you do it.

More…

Photo: Wolfrage/Flickr

LOCAL BITES

Portsmouth Eats
Restaurant Week in Portsmouth, NH, and The Seacoast begins tonight and runs through next Saturday, March 31 (weekends included). Over 40 restaurants are participating, with lunches at $16.95 and dinners for $29.95. Read more.

Munch Madness
The Boston Globe’s annual spin-off of the college hoop tournament has begun. Have you voted for your favorite restaurant? Munch Madness is your chance to be a taste-setter in Boston! Last year, after fierce match ups, Hungry Mother and East Coast Grill faced off in the final round.

Cooking For An Age-less Cause
An impressive line-up of Boston-based chefs will come together Friday, March 30, from 6-10pm at the Seaport Hotel. They are all Cooking A Cause: proceeds for this fundraiser will benefit the East End House in Cambridge, which supports a variety of programming for infants through to the elderly. Tickets are $125/pp.

Just a Spoonful of Ginger
Joanne Chang, Jacky Robert and Wesley Chen are a few of the chefs who will participate in the Joslin Diabetes Center’s 8th Annual A Spoonful of Ginger fundraiser from 6:30-9:30 p.m. on March 26th. The venue itself is ‘delicious’: the Art of the Americas Wing at the MFA. Proceeds will support the Joslin’s Asian American Diabetes Initiative (AADI). There are lots of ways to donate, including purchasing a ticket ($250/pp). More…

Photo: ReneS/Flickr

When a cause makes this much sense and the working model appears this much fun, it’s hard not to be captivated.

Share Our Strength is a nationwide non-profit whose aim is to end childhood hunger in America. Not just by ensuring enough to eat for our kids, but by ensuring nutrition from the best kinds of food. This means Share Our Strength relies on investments of knowledge, time and money — a bit of each in equal measure — to achieve its ‘No Kid Hungry’ strategy. Plus, willing participants.

The ‘willing participants’ part is why Steve Dunn, a local food writer/photographer, contacted PRK. To all you readers out there, what follows is a ‘right-down-front-street’ request that you volunteer. But don’t get spooked! We figure that if there’s one overriding reason you follow this blog it’s because you love food. This being so, you probably share your passion with others — online and, of course, in person. The latter is where Steve Dunn comes in.

Dunn serves on the board of Cooking Matters Massachusetts, the local arm of Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters. The Cooking Matters initiative, now almost 20-years-old, educates members of low-income communities how to shop economically and cook in a way that is appetizing and culturally acceptable. Classes are dedicated to children, teens and adults, also to expectant mothers and parents with kids, so that all age-groups gain practical skills and knowledge that last a life-time and can be shared down the line. More…

Photo: Dinner Series/Flickr

Readers: who remembers that first dinner with your boy/girlfriend’s parents? Who has hosted their own child’s sweetheart for dinner?

Family therapist Anne Fishel of The Family Dinner Project just did. She shares not only her original thoughts on the topic, but a postscript, too.

Anne Fishel
The Family Dinner Project

It’s hard to be our best, most authentic selves when our children bring a significant other home to dinner. As both generations wonder how they’re being sized up, it’s only natural that the meal feels a little tense and awkward. The parents may be fast-forwarding, wondering whether this interloper could one day be an in-law. The young guest may feel in the hot seat, while also questioning what he or she could be getting into if the relationship becomes a “forever” one.

When I first brought home my 20-year-old boyfriend, my usually stylish mother greeted us in her bathrobe, as if to say, if I dress casually, maybe I can pretend this isn’t such a big deal. She then holed up in the kitchen, sending out one burnt waffle after the other. Meanwhile, in the dining room, my father grilled my boyfriend about his career intentions, his previous job history and his left-of-left political leanings. I raced back and forth trying to do damage control. It was probably another decade before we had another meal together at my parents’ house.

And it didn’t go any better when I went to his house. He had instructed his mother that I didn’t eat red meat, but she interpreted that information to mean that she could serve veal, since pink isn’t red. I so wanted to make a good first impression that I dutifully ate an oversized portion, and then tried to be as quiet as a mouse as I threw up all night in their bathroom. More…

Photo: Jaime Lutz

See those bitters up there? They’re mine — or, my live-in boyfriend’s, really, as he got them for his birthday this year. Now that we have seven — SEVEN — different types of bitters, we’ve been having fun inventing cocktails — Aztec Chocolate Manhattans, anyone?

Since drinks only need a small dash of bitters to impart flavor, we’re going to have those bottles for a long, long time. Because of this, I’ve been trying to think of other ways to use them. My boyfriend’s sister recommended putting a drop or two in seltzer water for a refreshing spritzer. With a dash of grapefruit or Angostura bitters, it’s a refreshing — and unusual — alternative to soda. More…

Photo: Karen Given

WBUR’s Karen Given of Only A Game blogs at Once Upon A Karen. She’s currently taking a course with BU’s Gastronomy program called “Food Writing for Print Media,” and had this to say about learning to cook from her father.

Karen Given
Once Upon A Karen

My mother cooks to feed her family. She produced low-fat, low-salt, balanced meals for four children who grew up healthy and strong.

My father cooks to soothe his soul. He sometimes whistles hymns while he works, turning his kitchen into a Sunday morning church service.

Everything my father cooks begins with a full stick of butter, melted slowly just until it starts to foam. On special occasions, he unearths the faded black stock pot he and my mother received as a wedding gift and makes his “secret” recipe barbeque sauce. The recipe is secret, because it’s always different, made from whatever condiments my mother has in the fridge. But there are three constants: that stick of butter, ketchup and a healthy dose of Liquid Smoke.

When my mother went back to work, some of the family cooking duties fell to me, and I set out to capture the magic I felt when my father was in the kitchen. I knew I’d never get away with using butter by the stick, and my 12-year-old knife skills were no match for my father’s. That left the Liquid Smoke. I put it in everything. More…