Food and Drink Articles

- If you went to China to ring in the New Year , you’d be overwhelmed by a frenzy of family, festivities, food and fireworks! On Jan. 22, as the Chinese say goodbye to the year gone past , you can bring a little bit of China into your home by celebrating the beginning of the new year. Chinese New Year festivities are just as dynamic and spirited and are a traditional part of ancient Chinese culture. Bring Chinese New Year joy into the lives of your friends and family with time-honored cooking, colorful decorations and activities for everyone.

Hunan cuisine shares many commonalities with its close, more well-known cousin, Szechwan cooking, Both cuisines originate in the Western region of China. The climate there is sub-tropical – humid and warm enough to encourage the use of fiery spices to help cool the body, and to require high spicing of food as a preservative. With similar climate

A wedding shower should be fun for everyone involved: the bride, the guests, and even the hostess. A little advance planning ensures that happens.

How to make the perfect cup of tea has always been debated. One of the biggest arguments involves when to add the milk. Should tea drinkers add the milk before or after the tea? Usually, milk only

Summer -- the farmers’ markets are bursting with fresh fruits, heavenly herbs and vividly colored veg., all ripe and ready to drop into recipes. But the easiest summer food is food you don’t have to cook. Instead of turning on the oven, reach inside your fridge for the best fruits and veg. of the summer.

There is more than one way to prepare a swiss steak. More than likely your recipe will call for either round or chuck steak, but you can also use cube steak. The type of steak you use is entirely up to your palate. Swiss steak can also be either baked in the oven, cooked in a slow cooker or crockpot, or even cooked in a large skillet on top of the stove.

The simple homespun fare and plain preparation of most traditional British foods pales when compared to French haute cuisine and it is not uncommon for food critics to sound almost apologetic when writing about traditional British dishes as if there were something shameful in enjoying a good, thick joint of beef with an accompaniment of Yorkshire pudding. If they speak in glowing terms of anything at all, it is a nod to the clever naming of British foods, where dishes like bubble and squeak and spotted dick appear on restaurant menus.

A time honored Southern tradition, the infamous "Cat Head" biscuit has become as much an icon of southern cooking as fried chicken. Just say the words "Cat Head Biscuits"

Easy summer salads are the way to go, now that the winter blues are fading into the distance and salad days are here. The best salads are light, bright and easy to prepare. After all who wants to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen when friends are round for lunch, the garden is in bloom and the wine is chilled and ready to pour. But before you start to cook you save a lot of energy by buying the right ingredients for a simple salad. That way you don’t need the heavy bottled sauces and dressings to make a great flavor

The history of American soul food can be traced all the way back to the days of slavery. More often times than not, the slaves were given the most undesirable part of the meal, the leftovers from the house. Pairing this with their own home-grown vegetables, the first soul food dishes were invented. After the slaves were freed, most of them were so poor that they could only afford the most undesirable, inexpensive cuts of meat available to them. (The leftover, unwanted parts of a pig such as tripe, tongue, ears, and knuckles). As in the days of slavery, African-Americans used their own home-grown vegetables and things they could catch or kill to complete their meals.