After a week of researching grills in the early spring, I finally decided on the Big Green Egg. Many of you have asked me how it’s going. After a couple of months of heavy use, I can now report that I have not been disappointed. (more…)

At Serious Eats, Adam has a breakdown of Menu for Hope prizes that haven’t yet seen a lot of action. (One of them is the autographed copy of the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook that we’re offering.)

If you buy one $10 raffle ticket for any of these “overlooked gems,” you have a great chance of winning.

Adam’s list is here. Visit chez pim for the full list of Menu for Hope prizes.

I don’t mind Christmas music all that much. It’s catchy, certainly, and there is a beautiful simplicity in a four-part carol. But the excessive exposure of this time of year sends me running to my collection of favorite albums that have nothing to do with snow or red noses. Add to that all the of “Best of 2007″ lists cropping up, and I start getting reflective about my listening habits over the past year.

There have been a handful of albums that have really drawn me in this year. Some are recent and some are not. Some are ones I cook to, clean up to, eat to, exercise to or just simply sit and listen to.

The album I’ve listened to the most this year is Elana James. I can’t even say how many times I’ve bounced along to it, enjoying her switch from hot-blooded Texas swing to sweet ballad.

The Greencards capture their own style of ethereal Americana, and their latest album Viridian is filled with with spacious instrumentals and intertwined vocals.

Both of those bands are carving their own way within an established genre, but then there are others who break all boundaries. Architecture in Helsinki is indescribable, besides being so over-the-top energetic that you can’t help but pick up on the random joy they espouse. The Seedy Seeds have a similar feeling of spinning happiness, punctuated with a smattering of odd instruments.

For a solid laugh, I come again and again to my Pittsburgh-kin, Ceann. Their “Yankee Irish drinking music” is hilarious. Their “Boom” is the only song I’ve ever heard that makes people blowing themselves up seem funny. This is great drinking music, meant to be listened to with a beer and friends.

When I’m craving something that is active, peaceful, entrancing, steady, engaging, and somehow always “none of the above,” there is only one match — Steve Reich. Nonesuch’s retrospective of his work is an incredible set; with five discs and a thick booklet, it’s an investment for any listener.

Those were in heaviest rotation on my playlist this year. I’m also giving several CDs as gift this Christmas: the new James Taylor album One Man Band; Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand (a combination you’d never think would work, but absolutely does); and Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky.

Any particular albums top your gift list this year (or your “blocking-out-Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer” iPod playlist)?

One more post about cured meats and then we promise we’re done for the year. After last week’s root source on pancetta, we heard from our pals at Heritage Foods USA, who have just started offering fresh pork belly and jowls.

If you’re unfamiliar with Heritage Foods USA, it’s a company that works with small farms around the country to market and sell sustainably raised and grown heritage food.

If you’ve been itching to make your own pancetta and guanciale, HF will ship you one 10-lb. slab of skinless pork belly and two 2.5-lb. pieces of skinless pork jowl. The total is $95, including shipping. (HF also offers a 6-lb. slab of guanciale from Manhattan’s Salumeria Biellese.)

Reference: How to Make Pancetta (Chow)
Reference: The Art of the Cure (Morning News)
Video: Momofuku Noodle Bar’s Steamed Pork Belly Buns (Martha Stewart)

Brys’ tea-helps-with-road-rage post reminded me that I’d been meaning to mention a new book, The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide. It was written by Mary Lou and Bob Heiss, who live in this area and have an awesome gourmet food shop in Northampton called Cooks Shop Here.

The shop’s been around for more than three decades and carries everything from Dutch licorice to 80-year-old Tradizionale balsamic. Mary Lou and Bob have become experts on many things over the years, but the subject they’re most excited about is tea. They take regular buying trips to India and China, and personally select every tea they carry in the store.

The new book’s been getting absurdly positive reviews. The Library Journal reviewer wrote that the book “is the best and only book you’ll ever need on the subject,” and the president of the Tea Association of the USA had this to say: “For more than seventy-five years, William H. Ukers’s All About Tea has generally been considered the bible of the tea industry—that is, up until now. The Story of Tea is a sweeping treatise that will serve as required reading for generations of tea professionals and consumers seeking to expand their knowledge.”

In addition to having written the new bible of the tea industry, the Heisses are really nice people. They’ll be happy to sign any book you buy from their website, and 2% of the proceeds from every book they sell through the store will go to Mercy Corps to assist with their humanitarian work with tea growers in Darjeeling and Assam, India.

A couple of years ago, I commuted every day from D.C. to Old Town Alexandria. It was a reverse commute in that most people were coming into D.C. as I was leaving, but there are many bad drivers in this city (and so many bad roads) that it rarely an unfrustrating drive.

After a while, I started noticing that my road rage was worse on days when I’d had a big afternoon cup of coffee. At the time, I was hanging around with a rabid tea drinker. She was always suggesting that I make the move from coffee to tea, and to support her case, she’d email me article after article about the health benefits of tea.

She and I had parted ways when, after a particularly harried commute, I decided to give tea a chance. I surfed around and found The Fragrant Leaf, an online purveyor of high quality loose-leaf teas. I’ve been hooked since my first order.

The tea buzz is less intense but more consistent than the coffee buzz, and I love tea’s subtle and varied flavors. I find that I explore tea’s flavors and roots in a way I never did with coffee. I check the Fragrant Leaf website several times a week to see if any new teas have come in. (I’m excited to try the Yunnan Golden Buds that have just arrived from China.)

A couple of years after starting with tea, I’m up to a pot or two a day, usually a black or oolong in the morning, and a less caffeinated green or white in the afternoon. I still drink coffee in the morning a couple of times a week and when I travel. But loose leaf tea has become my standard.

If you know someone who might like to try loose leaf tea or who is looking for a new source of it, send them a few bags of tea from The Fragrant Leaf and a Bodum tea press or an ingenuiTEA pot from Adagio.

At Serious Eats, Adam (from Slice) has a nice round-up of the books being offered by “East Coast” bloggers for this year’s Menu for Hope. We’re offering a personalized copy of Barbara Kafka’s “Vegetable Love” and a personalized copy of Matt and Ted Lee’s “The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook.” To find out how you can participate in Menu for Hope, visit chez pim.

At Slate, Simon Hopkinson, Mimi Sheraton and other culinary bright lights suggest cherished cookbooks from this and past years. Highlights include Chris Schlesinger’s plug for Elizabeth Rozin’s The Flavor-Principle Cookbook (an old Cookthink favorite), and Sheraton’s story about the eighty-year-old Anyone Can Bake, the one cookbook her mother owned.

In my space-challenged kitchen, I couldn’t justify buying a full-on coffee pot for the few occasions when I drink the stuff. When I do drink coffee, it is usually of the espresso variety, something that will give me a milk-foam mustache.

So I decided to give a stove-top espresso pot a try. Most are made of aluminum, and all these rumors linking aluminum with various health concerns have made me nervous, so I went for a stainless-steel one from Primula.

At only $20 for a 4-cup model (that’s 4 ounces of espresso), it also fit well in my budget. It’s a simple gadget: water in the bottom, filter on top, screw the two bits together and place it on a stove burner. The water water percolates up through the grounds, making thick, rich espresso.

Actually, technically it’s coffee, not espresso, since it’s not brewed in a pressurized environment and it lacks the crema that distinguishes true espresso. But it’s a much richer brew than drip coffee, and when I make a cappuccino (which is technically, I guess, a café au lait) or other drinks with milk, it’s hard to tell the difference. Add a little milk frother, and it’s a great gift for any space-challenged coffee drinker.

We’re sad to see our friends at Alejandro & Martin closing the doors on their artisanal olive oil business. They’ve been good friends to Cookthink. Though they’ve just about cleared out their remaining inventory, they do still have some 4-bottle gift boxes left. They’ve been discounted to $49.50. Until supplies run out or December 31 — whichever comes first — there will be no shipping on orders of $250 or more.