BRUCE (AKA The Chef)

MARK (AKA The Writer)

 

DREYDL (AKA The Dog)

Check out this cheeky tome called Ham: An Obsession With The Hindquarter

FINE COOKING calls it "a witty ode to pork's most primal cut." It's our hymn to backsides: American country ham, European dry-cured hams like prosciutto crudo or jamón ibérico, wet-cured hams like the ones from HoneyBaked, and even fresh hams, the best pork roast you'll ever eat. (Click on the cover to get your copy today.)

The Ultimate Cook Book

Our big compendium cookbook--900 new recipes, tons of cooking tips. You'll be an ultimate cook in no time.

Want to see a video on this book. Check it out here.

Cooking Know-How

WINNER OF THE 2009 GOURMAND AWARD at the Paris cookbook show for the "BEST COOKBOOK IN THE WORLD" for "easy recipes." Also starred reviews in both Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal, a main selection of the Good Cook Book of the Month Club, a selection by NPR as one of the best cookbooks of 2009, and a favorite of the San Jose Mercury--that called us "culinary wonks."

Pizza: Grill It, Bake It, Love It!

Our brand-new pizza book. That's the squash, caramelized onion, and pine nut pie. And there are 89 more.

The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book

Cookies galore--and every one of them with chocolate: chips, shavings, cocoa, melted, irresistible.

The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book

America's favorite spread? Yes, but also the world's. Wait until you see all the no-cook Asian sauces, the African stew, the Filipino braise, and a host of favorites from breakfast to dessert!

Cooking For Two

Every dish for just two--and no waste. Cut it, open it--and use it. It's a feast for twosomes.

The Ultimate Muffin Book

Get your muffins! The chocolate chip ones soon became a holiday tradition in our house.

The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

The book that started a whole career. A quarter million copies in print and still going strong!

The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book

And a follow-up to The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, this time with gelato, sherbet, granita, and a groaning board of ice cream cakes and frozen pies!

The Ultimate Shrimp Book

A one-book compendium for America's favorite seafood

The Ultimate Party Drink Book

Up, shaken, frozen, pitcher punches, shooters--here's a guide to drinks to make your next party a splash

The Ultimate Brownie Book

Fudgy, cakey, you name it--even a chapter on brownie mix doctor recipes--here's a book that'll keep everyone smiling!

The Ultimate Candy Book

A reviewer on amazon called it "an evil book." We could only hope so. Gooey, crunchy, a ton of chocolate barks, fudge, divinity, and it just keeps going.

The Ultimate Potato Book

Spuds forever! We love everything about the potato--and in this book, we made our favorite vegetable front and center since every recipe is a main course with spuds aplenty.

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Our Youtube Channel

Want to see more? Come on over to our youtube channel. We're cooking up a storm! Check it out here.

It's all about the recipes!
Get your copy of our seven-step plan to get off processed food!

Click on the book jacket for your copy. Don't miss it. Seven simple steps, a hundred great recipes, lots of motivational help, and all in an easy plan that starts small and could end up changing your life!

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Want to come cruising with us? We're off to Alaska with Holland America on August 4th for a week--leaving from Vancouver (and returning to there) with lots of cruising up the Tracy Arm and through Glacier Bay National Park. We'll be cooking up a storm in classes on board, so come have a blast with us. For more information, click here.

 

REVIEWS OF COOKING KNOW-HOW

Don't take our word for it. Here are some cool reviews of COOKING KNOW-HOW:

weightwatchers.com

In Mama's Kitchen

5 Second Rule

Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Winston Salem Journal

Super Chef

NPR--chosen one of the ten best cookbooks for the summer of 2009

Relish Magazine (although the writer complains that I use too many big words. Heaven forfend!)

And if you want to see an outrageous clip of us on San Francisco TV, check out our appearance on A View From The Bay here.

Or for white bean veggie burgers on the same show--in which I go off on a bizarre jag about the ethics of cruising--click here.

DANCING WITH A COLLIE

brought on no doubt by that empty bottle of wine on top of the fridge

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    Bruce's Blog

    Bruce has his own blog. A knitting blog. Knits Men Want. It's a companion site to his new knitting book: ten rules every woman should know before she knits for a man--plus ten patterns men are guaranteed to like. And I do. I have some of the sweaters. And I wear them. Imagine that. Check on the cover to check it out.

    Entries in chocolate (10)

    Thursday
    Jul152010

    Brown Sugar Brownies

    Comment8 Comments

    For us, the process of writing a cookbook involves finding the middle ground.

    It's ever the dream, no? I once had a discussion once with a sommelier who told me that he tries to gauge the middle bottle of wine and then build the list out from there in both directions. (Unfortunately, he thought the middle bottle ran about $90US. Ah, well!) 

    When Bruce and I write cookbooks, we also try to figure out that illusive middle. Which recipe stakes it out--and which then have the freedom to break it?

    We believe the middle ground is made up of three things: taste, effort, and cost. To give you a little peak into the behind-the-scenes thinking in our latest book, REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, the seven-step plan to get off processed food, we staked out the middle ground with the oven-fried fish fillets, the ones included in the discussion about effort v. cost in our food choices, found in chapter 2, "Make Informed Choices."

    We later included far easier and less costly recipes (like the no-cook peach salsa) and more difficult, challenging ones (like the Mapo Dofou--which you can also find on this blog here).

    That process is perhaps nowhere more evident than in The Ultimate Brownie Book. So many people have their notion of brownies: there's the caky camp and the fudgy camp, for one thing. So we first sat down to try to find something that fell right in the middle, all other brownies moving out to the edges. And believe me, there some out on the edges. Like the caky brownies made with a can of Coca-Cola, a riff on my Cousin Wilma Faye's "co'-cola cake." (Yes, I had a cousin named Wilma Faye. Doesn't everybody?) Or like the fudgy Sour Cream Brownies. Crazy. Barely holding together in the pan. One minute less baking time and you could use them as an ice cream topping.

    So here's the middle ground of brownies, a little bit cakey, a little bit fudgy, with only one kind of chocolate not three or four, certainly indulgent as a treat but not too much so, a little decadent but certainly not too much so.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateThursday, July 15, 2010 at 1:13PM | in , , ,
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    Monday
    Apr052010

    Coffee Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes, Part 1

    Comment7 Comments

    Cakey or fudgy? That's always a question when it comes to chocolate, right? And each side has its many embattlements, its many defenders.

    If you've read enough of this blog, you know I'm all about the crunch. So you might think I was a cakey kind of guy: the little edges that have a bit of crunch.

    Except no, I'm all about the fudgy, moist consistency. Which could explain my devotion to thick, rich chocolate pudding. Or these cupcakes. Today, we're going to make them. Tomorrow, we'll frost them.

    So off to it!

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateMonday, April 5, 2010 at 10:05AM | in , , ,
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    Tuesday
    Mar302010

    Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 2

    Comment5 Comments

    It's a great day to keep making our candied cherries. You've got the fondant ready, right? If not, check it out here. It's fairly easy to make. Just don't substitute the packaged stuff for icings and frostings.

    In fact, don't willy-nilly substitute much in tested recipes, especially in baking. A little here and there is fine. (Readers of this blog have repeatedly commented on successful substitutions to these recipes--and with good reason, too.) But too much and disaster lurks.

    I once spent a whole evening teaching a rather hapless cook how to make a pie crust so she could take pies to work for a company function. We did it over and over again. I left her confident of her skill. I called her later that week to ask her how it went. "Terrible," she said. "Your recipe doesn't work."

    Um, no. I'm a Southerner. Reconstructed, but still. . . . Listen, I KNOW pie crusts. My recipe is my grandmother's and my mother's. Don't even think about questioning it.

    So I questioned her. Turns out, she'd run out of flour and then substituted corn starch.

    "They're both white," she reasoned, still trying to pin it on me.

    Sigh.

    OK, off to making the cherries.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateTuesday, March 30, 2010 at 9:54AM | in , ,
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    Monday
    Mar292010

    Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 1

    CommentPost a Comment

    Yep, you read that title right. In honor of the holidays--or for whatever reason you'd make these, like "it's Monday and raining"--here are the classic candies, a fine finish to any meal.

    We're going to start by making a fondant. Ready?

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateMonday, March 29, 2010 at 8:50AM | in , ,
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    Monday
    Mar152010

    Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Comment5 Comments

    OK, that's my world right now. Or more specifically, my backyard. It's been raining for days. The snow is giving way to rank ugliness. It looks as if we're going to have an early spring in this part of New England, up here in the iron-cold dark where Calvinists sprang full formed from the ground.

    Mostly, it means the brook behind our house is flooding, filling the meadows with water. Not a bad thing, mind you. I'll be glad of it come July when the wildflowers flourish. But right now, it just means mud. And lots of it.

    So it's a good day to stay inside and make cookies. The kind that empty the pantry: maple syrup, coconut, wheat germ, tahini, oats, chocolate chips.

    Wow, are they good! Pour yourself a glass of milk. Whole milk. I mean, what's the point of low-fat? You saved, what?, thirty calories? Really? That's going to save the world? Listen, if you're going to make these cookies, go for broke.

    But before we get to the recipe, a confession. (It is Lent, after all.) I like crunchy cookies. Period. I'm not a soft-cookie guy. Yes, I learned to like a few of the gooey ones for our chocolate cookie book. But mostly, I'm all about the crunch. Because I'm all about the dunk. You realize we're back to the milk discussion, right?

    OK, Let's get started.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateMonday, March 15, 2010 at 1:08PM | in , , ,
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    Thursday
    Dec242009

    White Chocolate Bark

    CommentPost a Comment

    White chocolate is a thing of beauty--although you wouldn't know it from so much of the stuff that's out there. First off, there's all that imitation junk, pretending to be white chocolate: basically sweetened Crisco with vanilla. Or more accurately, hydrogenated shortening and some flavorings. Really, what's the point?

    White chocolate should be cocoa butter, the fat from the cacao pod--pure and simple. Except it's often not. Even the stuff that's sold as pure cocoa butter is often chemically deodorized. Why? Because it's a fat. And fat's go rancid. So the cocoa butter is chemically cleaned up. And thus loses most of its taste.

    That said, there are non-deodorized, pure versions of white chocolate. And let me tell you: taken as a whole they're a revelation with deep hints of the original cacao; as well as nutty, even bitter overtone; all combined with velvety, buttery cocoa butter, sweetened of course, and very creamy. A pure delight. If you want to know more, check out El Rey Chocolates here. Their white chocolate is simply fantastic--and about as much real food as you can get.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateThursday, December 24, 2009 at 3:41PM | in ,
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    Tuesday
    Dec222009

    Chocolate Bark

    Comment4 Comments

    Ours is a mixed marriage. In so many ways. For one thing, I get one of these:

    And he gets this:

    It's what's known in our house as a deconstructed menorah. Every year, we put up eight smaller candles and one large candle, all to celebrate Hanukkah. Basically, it means I've worked my life out to get presents almost every day in December. And people say writers can't figure out how to live in the real world!

    But Bruce and I are mixed in other ways. Some fairly simple. I balance the check book. He tends to go by feel. And others more shameful. He loves chocolate--and I don't care if I ever eat it again.

    OK, don't judge me. I should have said that I used to be indifferent to chocolate. When I met Bruce, I thought chocolate was a big "meh." Then he took me to Maison du Chocolat in New York City. I had one of the earl grey truffles. Holy cow. What did I know, a Texas boy who thought Cadbury eggs were haute cuisine?

    Anyway, now I'm into chocolate. Isn't it funny how a relationship can morph you? I mean: chocolate, me, happy. It was once impossible math. Now it makes sense. I'm sure it's one step on the road to looking like Bruce. You know, those old couples who look alike. They buy matching running suits just to emphasize the obvious. Are we there yet? (Now if I can only grow another half a foot.)

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateTuesday, December 22, 2009 at 4:00PM | in ,
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    Friday
    Apr172009

    Chocolate Coconut Macaroons

    Comment3 Comments

    Someone's going to say I'm a day late and a dollar short for Passover.

    Actually, no. Because we're going to a seder on Saturday night. That's right: a seder after the holiday. Because our hosts were traveling last week during the "real" Passover. So they're having a seder the first night they can.

    Which is about as it should be. (And forgive me if I'm about to step on any toes.) Because the sacred doesn't exist on a calendar.

    In Greek philosophy, there are two concepts for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is the day-to-day, minute-to-minute time, the one that consumes our lives, the fire in which we burn.

    Kairos (KEYE-ross) is elemental time, time in its quintessence, the time at which you forget the minute-by-minute details, the tick-tock-tick-tock, and suddenly exist in a fuller moment, a deeper moment. (We sort of retain the distinction in English: the difference between "a minute" and "a moment.") People try to schedule the sacred, but it's too deeply rooted in chaos and creativity for it to have a calendar.

    Not temporal, not chronological, the sacred abrupts into life with shocking abandon. Like the sudden riot of daffodils, glimpsed as you drive down the road on the way to some boring errand or doctor's appointment. The sacred isn't on schedule; it arrives, like the cloud bursts of robins in spring--while we're going about out other business, making other plans. The minutes evaporate; time shifts from a line to a sphere, a wholeness, a fullness. Maybe that's why Emily Dickinson once wrote "Who has not found Heaven below will fail of it above." It's easy to miss it "below." Because we're on schedule (mostly); it's not.

    And so to our chocolate macaroons.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateFriday, April 17, 2009 at 10:16AM | in ,
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    Thursday
    Mar262009

    Coconut Chocolate Chip Macaroons

    Comment7 Comments

    Bruce teaches knitting. He's even writing a knitting book. (Have I said this a zillion times?) And no, it's not like the cobbler whose children have no shoes. I wear hand-made sweaters. Only. Always. No exceptions.

    Except sometimes. On the sly, I sneak into Gap stores to try on a sweater. You know, just to see what a normal one feels like. I lay my gray, black, and white alpaca/mohair/cashmere/wool/cotton/nylon ragland on the bench in the dressing room and slip into a blue cotton sweater.

    Ah, normalcy, I sigh. This is how everyone looks. I look at myself in the mirror.

    And hate what I see. Because the sweater's not shaped to my shoulders, not made for my neck, not crafted to my dimensions. And there's not much flare. So off the blue sweater comes and I go back in the hand-made one, knowing that normalcy is not for my life.

    Nor for the cookies I eat. Because Bruce likes to mix things up. He's totally about flare. I honestly wouldn't know a ragland from a hole in the ground. But Bruce does. Always has.

    Which may also explain why his cooking can become so wonderfully creative. Sure, sometimes I'd sort of like a plain coconut macaroon. And then he hands me a plate of his own, studded with mini chocolate chips, along with a tall, cool glass of raw milk. (Yep, it's legal to sell raw milk in Connecticut. But that's a whole 'nother story.) And then I know why I married the guy. Because I'd be stuck eating the standard--and he's always breaking the mold.

    OK, the cookies.

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateThursday, March 26, 2009 at 3:34PM | in ,
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    Thursday
    Mar052009

    Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Comment11 Comments

    Now we're talking. Although I would have been dead silent as a kid. Because I hated coconut. Well, the kids in the Peanuts cartoons hated it. I read; I hated. Sheesh. There's a lesson in there for a food writer, no? Anyway, I always blech-ed at coconut--until I met Bruce who made, oh, curries with coconut milk, macaroons, and a host of absolutely divine dishes. Now? Bring it on. I am post-Peanuts.

    This morning, he made a batch of coconut chocolate chip cookies from THE ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE COOKIE BOOK to take to his knitting class tonight.

    At least he claims he's taking them. Let's see how many get out the door at 2:00 this afternoon.

    Here's how the whole thing goes down:

    Click to read more ...

    AuthorMark Scarbrough | Posted on DateThursday, March 5, 2009 at 10:34AM | in , ,
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