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I’m Cooking and Doing Dishes Nonstop, and This Bamboo Pot Scraper Keeps Me Going

Jaime E. Love

This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.

I’ve been keeping this humble yet mighty bamboo pot scraper perched at my sink for years now. A dear friend of mine gave it to me as a gift, which to be perfectly honest, I thought was a little curious. Then I started using it. It quickly reached permanent staple status, and I didn’t think I could love it more—that is, until I started sheltering at home.

I’ve been cooking a lot and doing the dishes nonstop—or at least that’s what it feels like! These pot scrapers make all that cleaning a little easier by removing stubborn bits of cooked-in food without scratching the surface of your pots and pans. Each corner of the scraper is a different shape, so one edge is more like a right angle and another

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Pillsbury Cornbread Swirls Are Like Southern Cooking in a Can

Jaime E. Love

Have you ever wanted to bake cornbread but were worried you didn’t have the baking skills or the southern bona-fides to make it happen? It’s understandable. Even in this time of our great awakening to baking, you might be worried about botching the recipe and offending any sweet tea sippers in your life.

The good news is that you now can make your “own” cornbread without having to worry all that much about what you’re doing. Why? Because Pillsbury’s Cornbread Swirls can take care of all the heavy lifting for you.

Recently spotted by @SnackStalker at a Walmart, you can get yourself six little swirls of cornbread in each round can, which should hopefully be enough to serve as a sweet and special accompaniment to your next southern-style dinner.

The process of putting these together couldn’t be much easier. Just separate each of the pre-existing swirls, place them in a

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What’s the Best White Wine for Cooking? Here Are the Top Bottles (and How to Choose Them, According to 3 Food Pros)

Jaime E. Love

You’re whipping up a classic chicken Marbella, and the Ina Garten recipe you’re following calls for “dry white wine.” You can’t exactly phone the Contessa herself, but come on, Ina: What the heck does that even mean? Pinot grigio is dry…but so is sauvignon blanc. What gives?

Cooking with wine can be totally confusing. While you might be tempted to grab whatever is hanging out in the back of your fridge, it actually does matter which bottle you choose—to an extent. We asked three food professionals (including a master sommelier, a chef and a nutrition director) to find out once and for all how to choose the best white wine for cooking.

1. Choose a white wine with high acidity and light fruit flavors

Celine Beitchman, director of nutrition at the Institute of Culinary Education, suggests a light- to medium-bodied white for cooking. “Unless you’re making a sweet

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Padma Lakshmi and the Art of South Indian Cooking

Jaime E. Love
Photo credit: Hulu
Photo credit: Hulu

From Marie Claire

“I’m eating rice and dal as we speak,” Padma Lakshmi tells me. As the longtime host and executive producer of Top Chef, Lakshmi has become accustomed to divulging what she’s eating. But today’s recitation of her lunch seems particularly serendipitous. What follows from her admission is a lengthy chat about the food both of us, as South Indian immigrants, grew up eating: rasam (a tamarind-based soup), dosas (a thin rice pancake), yogurt rice (like savory rice pudding). It’s the exact type of conversation—one about families and traditions and homes—Lakshmi hoped would be spurred by her new show, Taste the Nation.

In the 10-part Hulu series, Lakshmi travels the country shining a spotlight on the foods and immigrant communities that so-called “American” cuisine is built on. In Charleston, she explores the culture of the Gullah Geechee people, who influenced Southern dining, and in

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