Gear Patrol

It’s got to be slog (a once-in-a-lifetime slog) to travel through an entire country in just two weeks. But to pare your footage from those two weeks into a three-minute video? Monumentally more difficult. Fortunately, this clever three-minute video employs split screen formats, so your eyes can multitask and take in more than three minutes worth of visuals. Good thing, too, because there’s a lot to take in.

Back safely in the U.S., I removed the cacao ball from my running shoe. I unwound the plastic wrap from the dark brown orb and sniffed it. My best friend, Mycah, and his wife, Ashley, had picked it up at a cacao farm in Baracoa, a small town on the eastern tip of Cuba. This was the good shit. I pictured myself shaving it over ice cream to impress a date or using it to flavor chili. Oh, this chocolate here? I got it from a guy in Cuba. Chef François Payard showed me how I could actually use it.

Cool, moisture-rich dishes are perfectly refreshing in summer. Pulling ingredients from the fridge, or better yet, your backyard, and preparing them sans the uncomfortable added heat of an oven or stovetop is the ideal. In our cold dish primer, we examine five excellent cold-dish recipes, along with the “methodology” of preparing each type of food and optional accompaniments and alternatives to make your (picnic) table sing.

As I write this, I have a Bhut-Pepper Vertigo candy, made with five of the world’s hottest peppers, on my tongue. It is hot.

Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine is a great corn whiskey that we’ve covered before; what really caught our eye recently, though, is their huge range of Moonshine-soaked foods. Soaked isn’t the right word, exactly: each jar contains less than 1% of their 100 proof ‘shine. Still, it’s an entertaining menu.

Customer reviews make or break countless decisions — particularly when it comes to where to dine. But why take the word of all the world’s self-righteous social media whores when you could rely on expert advice? That’s the idea behind Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favourite Restaurants ($13).

Sure, you’ve used an Opinel blade to eat — but that was a skewer of venison charred over a kindling fire under the stars. Enjoy quality cutlery under different circumstances with Opinel’s Bon Apetit Table Knives ($70). These dishwasher-safe, olive wood-handled knives feature Swedish stainless steel blades and handsome, sleek design, somewhere between a paring and a steak knife

Founded on the basic ingredients of love and salmonella, culinary amateurism can be downright frightening. Yet hot sauce producer Adoboloco ($8+) has managed to pull it off, thriving without a Kraft-sized bankroll. This Hawaiian family unit has turned cuisine curiosity, which started as a simple family garden project and a love of spiciness, into a…

Wondermade Marshmallows ($8) shatter the conventional s’mores mold with their diverse line of flavored addiction cubes sugary treats. Boasting a perfect spongy consistency, these handcrafted marshmallows challenge the pallet with a bouquet of unique flavors like gingerbread, peppermint, s’mores (s’mores inception?), pumpkin pie, Guinness and bourbon. A smartly designed box accomplishes the sole mission of…

A key cocktail element hasn’t gotten much love lately, but Woodford Reserve Bourbon Aged Spiced Cherry Bitters brings small batch excellence back to our favorite drinking “dash”. The notable bourbon maker teamed up with Bourbon Barrel Foods, blending standard gentian root with cherry and spices to create a unique alcoholic add in. The bitters are…

Blame Anthony Bourdain and his gallivanting food porn circus. Blame Bravo’s utterly watchable, bro-it’s-not-reality-TV show, Top Chef. Blame the hipsters, the bandwagoners, the trust-funders — and for Guy Fieri’s sake — please, someone, blame Bobby Flay. Because if one thing is certain in today’s chow-crazy culture, it’s that you’ve got a foodie on your holiday…

Pine pollen is a powder that contains the cellular material used to produce male sperm cells in coniferous plants. It’s available on Amazon.com as a supplement to increase testosterone, with some companies marketing it as a source of “perpetual youth”, claiming that it helps with everything from improving endurance to regulating prostate function. As part…

If you’re grilling as much as you can before the blizzard season hits, you may be growing a little tired of beer-can chicken and burgers. For a change of pace, Beefeater brings you their grilltop Pizza Oven ($250). A replacement for the conventional hood on a Beefeater 4- or 5-burner grill, this alternative top gives…

Artisanal condiments are the latest front in the slow food war, and our taste buds are thrilled to be part of the collateral damage. Jojo’s Sriracha ($12) is a new brand of small-batch chili sauce created by Joelene Collins, who became so entranced by the stuff at the age 15 that she now slathers it…

Every kind of meal has its own purpose, its particular ritual and significance. Burgers are meant for tailgating; road trips run on fast food; French restaurants seem fit for special occasions like anniversaries and third dates where you’re really trying to get some. Chief among dining rituals is the steakhouse dinner, when friends and colleagues…

We’ve been blessed with a very high quality supply of meat in this inaugural Month of Beef, but the reality of life is that there isn’t always a Wagyu beef cache and a hot cast iron pan in arm’s reach — especially on the road. We wondered, is it possible to get a good steak…

There are sacred destinations for people of all faiths, religious and otherwise: Mecca, Islam’s holiest city; Paris or maybe Milan for the fashion set; Kona for triathletes. But what about those who follow the beef creed — at which temple do they gather and pray? We’ve been hot on the trail for a full month,…

Next to a steak, anything is a side dish. Serve a beautifully roasted capon on the same table as a steak and you’ve got a side of capon. Traditional accompaniments for steak like garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach and sauteed mushrooms are altogether nothing to scoff at. But this being the Month of Beef, and…

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, the saying goes. The same is true for cooking a steak. Most of the time the way we cook at home is dictated by circumstance: grill when the weather permits; pan fry if it doesn’t (or if we live in an apartment); broil, uh, when the…

We’ve given you a beef baptism in buying beef online, the rules of store-bought beef, beef’s lesser-known cuts and even beef you can drink. Kicking things up a notch (BAM!), let’s explore the breeds of cattle that end up on your plate — putting a face on things, so to speak. Get your breed on…

The problem with fresh herbs is a matter of practicality. Show us a single man that has ever used up one of those giant bunches of cilantro on himself before it’s started to spoil, and we’ll show you a liar. Here to save your salsa accompaniment is the Prepara Herb-Savor Mini Pod ($15+). Made from…

In-N-Out Burger is something of a cult to those living outside of the chain’s west-coast bubble, proselytized by endless waves of sunkissed acolytes devoted to spreading the good burger word. Their brief testaments, filled with whispers of “animal fries”, “secret menus” and multiplied stacks of beef and cheese, speak of a fast-food paradise whose divine…

Editor’s Note: There comes a time during the Month of Beef when you’ve eaten so much, so indulgently, that you’re down on the floor, slamming your palm, shouting “uncle” to visions of uncooked ribeye. That’s before you’ve even talked about bone marrow. We were damn near that point, so we called in the reinforcements. Jodie…

We’re no tartare noobs: Under the guidance of chef Wes Whitsell, we concocted a spicy steak tartare that would send even the most elite of dinner party snobs into a beef tailspin. But in the beef pecking order, the butcher always pulls rank. Need further proof? See above, one of a series of videos produced…

Raw food seems somehow un-American. Maybe it wasn’t always this way. But today, a byproduct of industrialization in the food industry — which prizes efficiency, mass production and a homogenous product with little chance (in theory) of food-borne illness — is a broad uneasiness about undercooked or uncooked food. Growing up, a pink pork chop…

People always ask us, “How do you find time to read when you’re busy eating all that beef?” We kill two steer with one stone — that’s how. The market for beef books is robust, so we’ve winnowed the list of our favorite beef-related cookbooks and resources to only five. That should be easy enough…

You know the rib-eye, T-bone, porterhouse and NY strip, but how about the tri-tip, bavette or flat-iron? Expanding your repertoire of steak choices graduates you from a one trick pony to a culinary stallion of meat mastery. The tenderloin, that prized cut from which the filet mignon comes, makes up half of one percent of…

We can remember a time when cooking a brisket was a gamble of the highest order. Sometimes mom lifted the lid off the pot and produced a cut of meat so tender you could spread it like pâté. Other times, a tough piece of meat produced a quiet, collective disappointment rivaled only by mealtime in…

There’s something to be said for the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. We believe in it. Meat plus bun plus ketchup is a very good meal, indeed. On the other hand, anyone who’s walked into Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers in Cambridge, MA, and sampled the brain-thwacking assortment of burgers, can surely attest…

Buying a steak to grill is as easy as trotting into the Piggly Wiggly, Vons or Safeway down the street and grabbing one of many plastic wrapped Styrofoam packages, right? Not so fast, kemosabe. If you’re the shy type looking to avoid eye contact or a conversation, that might be the way to go. You…