Articles

Today’s Spotlight is on Peking Duck.
Peking duck is a traditional Chinese dish from Beijing that has been prepared since the Imperial era back to 400 AD. It's made with roasted duck meat and crispy skin, and is served with thin pancakes, spring onion, cucumber, and hoisin sauce. The meat is characterized by its thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook.
The dish is named after the Romanized name for Beijing, where it originated. The duck's skin is so brittle that it shatters like an eggshell. The meat is tender, rich, and slightly sweet. The dish is made with a specific breed of duck called the Imperial Peking. The ducks are force-fed and housed in small cages to ensure tender meat

Celebrating Hot Buttered Rum

Today’s Spotlight is on Hot Buttered Rum.
Hot buttered rum is a mixed drink containing rum, butter, hot water or cider, a sweetener, and various spices. It is especially popular in the fall and winter and is traditionally associated with the holiday season. In the United States, the drink has a lengthy history that dates back to colonial days.

Celebrating Bagels

Today’s Spotlight is on Bagels.
A bagel is a bread roll that's shaped like a doughnut. It's made from yeasted wheat dough that's shaped into a ring, boiled in water, and then baked. Bagels are often served sliced in half, toasted, and spread with butter or cream cheese. Bagels are traditionally made from yeasted wheat dough that is shaped by hand into a torus or ring, briefly boiled in water, and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.

Celebrating Peach Melba

Today’s Spotlight is on Peach Melba.
Peach Melba is a dessert that was invented in the late 1800s by French chef Auguste Escoffier. It's made with poached peaches, raspberry sauce, and vanilla ice cream. The dessert is named after Australian soprano Nellie Melba.
Melba sauce is made from pureed raspberries, red currant jelly, sugar, and cornstarch. It has a smooth, syrupy texture and intense berry flavor.

Celebrating Marzipan

Today’s Spotlight is on Marzipan.
Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar, honey, and almond meal, sometimes augmented with almond oil or extract. It is often made into sweets; common uses are chocolate-covered marzipan and small marzipan imitations of fruits and vegetables. It's often shaped and painted to look like realistic fruits and vegetables.
Marzipan is a common confection in Europe and has been used for centuries as both a sweet treat and a medium for food art. It's also called almond candy dough.
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Celebrating Hot Toddy

Today’s Spotlight is on the Hot Toddy.
Hot toddy is typically a mixed drink cocktail made with liquor, hot water, spices, sugar or honey, lemon, herbs and served hot. It's popular during the cold months and especially around Christmas. A hot toddy is also known as hot whiskey in Ireland.
Hot toddy recipes vary, and hot toddy is traditionally drunk before retiring for the night, in wet or cold weather or to relieve the symptoms of the cold and flu. The hot Toddy is known to alleviate a sore throat and symptoms from the common cold and flu. The hot toddy is made with: Lemon, Honey, Whiskey.
The ingredients in a hot toddy have cough-suppressing properties. The science behind a hot toddy includes:

Celebrating Bittersweet Chocolate

ittersweet chocolate is a type of dark chocolate that contains a high percentage of cocoa solids and less sugar than other types of chocolate. The FDA requires that bittersweet chocolate contain at least 35 percent cocoa. Most bittersweet bars contain 50 percent, with others having as much as 80 percent cocoa.
Bittersweet chocolate has a rich, intense chocolate flavor that can be quite bitter. It also has subtle fruity flavor notes. Bittersweet chocolate is often used for baking and cooking. You can replace the bittersweet chocolate called for in your recipe with an equal amount of semi-sweet chocolate. The two are actually very similar in taste and composition.

Celebrating Apricots

Today’s Spotlight is on Apricots.
An apricot is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus Prunus. Usually, an apricot is from the species P. armeniaca, but the fruits of the other species in Prunus sect. Armeniaca are also called apricots.
Another description is that apricots are a small, pitted stone fruit that are about the size of a golf ball. They are also known as Armenian plums. Apricots are round and yellow and look similar to a smaller version of a peach. They have soft, velvety skin with a light fuzz.

Celebrating English Toffee

Today’s Spotlight is on English Toffee.
English toffee is a hard candy made by cooking sugar and butter until it caramelizes. The mixture is heated until it reaches the hard crack stage, which is 300–310°F (149–154°C).
In America, English toffee is usually coated in chocolate and almonds. It can also be mixed with nuts or raisins. English toffee is crunchy and buttery, with a little stickiness when chewed. It has a balance of caramelly flavor, chocolate, and nuts. Toffee can be made denser and harder, or lightened by adding baking soda when it's almost done cooking.