After the storm: a sunny, 21°F Tuesday outside our office here in White River Junction, Vermont. Yesterday’s Northeaster slipped past nearly unnoticed, leaving us just about 6” of new snow.

Remember the “bagel boom” of about 20 years ago, when bagels suddenly left their traditional urban environment and spread across the land, literally from sea to shining sea? Never mind Manhattan’s famous H&H Bagels, with its big, fat, doughy treats, offered right out of the oven in a tiny Broadway storefront on the Upper West Side. National chains like Bruegger’s and Einstein introduced the bagel to Peoria and its counterparts in every state. Meanwhile, Lender’s frozen bagels became a fixture in the supermarket. read the rest of this entry »

Ever make a batch of pizza dough, tip it out of the mixing bowl or bread machine, and have a semi-rectangular blob that completely refuses to be rearranged to anything resembling a circle? Here’s a tip we taught our line cooks in the restaurants I’ve run. read the rest of this entry »