Side dish: Flavors to watch

By Janet K. Keeler, Times Food and Travel Editor
Published December 26, 2007

Watch out for these flavors in 2008. Really.

We're not sure where to go with this, but McCormick has issued its "Top 10 Flavor Pairings for 2008."

"America's escalating interest in health and wellness and boundless passion for discovering authentic ingredients from around the globe" has driven the spice company to devise a list of things they say we want to go together this year.

Among them are vanilla bean and cardamon, coriander and coconut water, red curry and masa, orange peel and natural wood, and rubbed sage and rye whiskey. Our favorite is oregano and heirloom beans. Yes, right after heirloom tomatoes make it this way.

Bon appetit, in lower case

Bon Appetit magazine has been redesigned, the most noticeable change being its name on the cover. The all-caps name is now all lower-case letters.

The move, magazine editors say, is to make the publication more attractive to younger readers who apparently like the informal look.

Inside, there are lots of lovely photos, more so than before, it seems. There doesn't seem to be as many articles or instruction, but we've always thought Bon Appetit had the most doable, interesting recipes of all the food mags. That hasn't changed.

Still, we wonder, is the young audience they are interested in really cooking?

This should be on your shelf

Sharon Tyler Herbst and Rob Herbst's Food Lover's Companion (Barron's, $16.99) has served as an indispensable reference to the food world since the first edition was published more than a decade ago.

In 2007, an updated fourth edition with more than 6,700 entries was released, continuing to make sense of techniques and ingredients.

As valuable as the dictionary-style entries that form the core of the book are the appendixes, which include a pasta glossary, a guide for reading food labels and illustrated charts depicting cuts of meat.

Keeping those blueberries afloat

Tossing ingredients with flour is one way to keep blueberries from sinking in batter, but that works best with dry things, such as dried fruit or nuts.

For a blueberry pound cake, try frozen blueberries. Frozen berries are less likely to sink.

Fold them into the batter very gently, or put the batter in the pan in layers, sprinkling in some blueberries before you add more batter.

Wonder why the blueberries leave greenish-blue streaks in your pound cake batter?

That's a chemical reaction that can happen if there's baking soda in the batter. That may not be a problem if it's a more traditional pound cake, which is leavened by beating air into the eggs and butter.

Again, frozen blueberries have fewer problems with streaks than fresh ones.

Janet K. Keeler and Times wires

[Last modified December 21, 2007, 17:04:49]