Weekend Cooking: Random Thoughts

Happy Saturday! Hope you're all staying healthy and safe. Today's Weekend Cooking post is an eclectic mix of kitchen-y things that have come to my attention in the last couple of weeks. If look closely, you'll see that each one kind of flows into the next. Maybe something here will grab your attention too.

Abrams Dinner Party: The wonderful people at Abrams Books are continuing their cookbook review partnership with social media foodies. I encourage all of you to consider filling out an application form at the Dinner Party website. There you'll find all the pertinent information and a few testimonials (including one from me). Abrams makes it very easy to meet the terms of your contract with them, even for cookbooks that don't fit your personal style or dietary requirements.

Don't be shy. You have nothing to lose by filling out the application and you just might gain a seat at the dinner party. Don't think about it too long, though, you have only until August 10 to apply.

ckbk.com: My friend Karen (a fellow copyeditor and cook who sometimes links up with Weekend Cooking) drew my attention to the website ckbk, which calls themselves "the ultimate digital subscription service for cooks." I decided to look a little closer because I really liked the publishers the site works with, including Abrams (see cookbook at the right) and Workman, two of my favorite cookbook publishers. The free membership gives you access to three recipes a month from a list of almost 400 cookbooks. I signed up.

Here is my experience. I had a large box of blueberries in my refrigerator last Saturday and was in the mood to make a snack cake, so I thought I could use one of my free recipes of the month on a new cake recipe. I searched for blueberries and found two possibilities, which I saved by clicking "open in new tab." When I went to read the recipes I discovered that each click uses up one of the month's free recipes. Grrr. Only one of the recipes looked close to what I wanted. It came from one of those organization-type cookbooks and was submitted by someone who said it was a family favorite. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I printed out the recipe anyway.

Meanwhile, I decided to check out the premium (read: paid) membership. It costs $5 a month for unlimited access to all the cookbooks. I didn't think I needed to spend $60 a year. Before I clicked off the sign-up page I noticed a faint, grayed-out tab that said "annual." If you pay by the year, it's only $40. In the long run, though, I opted not to join or even to give their 14-day free trial a whirl.

King Arthur Flour: If you subscribe to KAF's free newsletters (and you should), you'll have noticed that the company recently redesigned their logo and adopted a new name: King Arthur Baking Company. I like the new look and name and the story behind them. Anyway, on Sunday I still hadn't baked my cake, but in a stroke of good luck, I found a new KABC newsletter in my mailbox and it was all about baking with blueberries!

I picked the Blueberry Buckle Coffeecake and I'm sooooo happy I did. It was exactly what I was looking for: not too sweet, tons of berries, easy and quick to mix, and perfect for anytime (from breakfast to late-night treat). The photo is from the KABC website, and if you click through the link, you'll find the recipe I used as well as a gluten-free version.

Butcherbox: Okay the flow from KABC to Butcherbox is a bit of a stretch, but I'm going with this link: small company, headquartered in New England with a reputation for excellency and great customer service. Butcherbox is a meat subscription service that delivers only grass-fed, hormone-free, humanely raised beef, pork, and chicken. They sell seafood too. They offer several different boxes and you can customize your delivery schedule.

I get the small Customized Box, which comes to $150 and provides us around twenty-five meals (figuring, for example, a meat-based chili made with 1 pound of beef will last us two dinners, or four meals). As many of you know, we alternate dinners between vegetarian and meat, so one box provides enough meat for two months. You can get different sizes and types of boxes for different prices and you can add on extras.

In this COVID world in which we have chosen not to go to the farmer's market and try to limit our trips to any store, Butcherbox offers a safe and economical alternative to our usual locally produced meats. I know $150 sounds like a lot, but the price per pound is only very slightly more than our local producers, shipping is "free" (that is, it is included in the price), and we get enough meat for two months. Note too that the cost is lower than organic meats from the supermarket.

Shared with Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker)