We're Still Here!

We haven't forsaken you, oh dear devoted Internet visitors. We've just been busy. Really busy. Busier than Courtney Love's lawyers, as a matter of fact, working on our expanded dining site www.dishomaha.com. Check it out!

IACP Cookbook Awards Announced

The International Association of Culinary Professionals (that's the IACP to you, pal) recently announced the winners of their 2009 cookbook awards. Book of the Year went to A16: Food & Wine (which also received the Julia Child/First Book award) and David Waltuck's stunning coffee table book, Chanterelle, also received well-deserved recognition for photography and styling as well as for a book by a chef. If you've been wondering what your next addition to your collection should be, this list is a terrific place to start.

Top Chef Just Got Chef-ier

Bravo, home of the beloved Top Chef cooking competition, announced the lineup for their new spinoff, Top Chef Masters. Twenty-four chefs, including Art Smith, Rick Bayless, Elizabeth Falkner, Wylie Dufresne and others will compete against each other all in the name of charity. With two dozen chefs, it'll take a while til we find out which chef will be triumphant and which charity will wind up with $100,000.

A Free Lunch

Well, at least the sandwich is free. Quiznos is aiming to give away a million subs. To get your coupon for a free one, go to http://www.millionsubs.com/ but do it fast.

And if it's not all about you, each day this March, Quiznos will award free subs for a year to one person as part of its "Making the World Better" campaign. Visitors to the site can nominate a personal hero by submitting a brief description (in writing or video) of how their hero has helped make the world better. Quiznos plans to share the stories on the site and will reward outstanding nominees with free subs for a year to help inspire further great deeds.

Papa John's Founder Tells People To Take it Easy When It Comes to Pizza

In an interview with the BBC, Papa John's founder John Schnatter said you shouldn't eat too much of his product. "Pizza's actually healthy for you if you don't eat too much of it," Schnatter said. "You can't eat five or six slices but if you eat one or two slices it's very nutritious."

He was in the UK to promote Papa John's 188 locations throughout the region.

Cookbook Review: Baking Unplugged

Baking intimidates a lot of people. There's all that fiddling around with yeast, the elusive flaky pie crust and the need for all sorts of special equipment. In addition, almost all baking books assume the reader has a decked-out kitchen filled with spatulas, scales and the all-important stand mixer.

Baking expert Nicole Rees cuts to the chase in Baking Unplugged, offering would-be bakers the opportunity to dip their foot in the pool without getting soaked at Williams-Sonoma just so they can whip up some brownies. Instead of a stand mixer, bakers are encouraged to use a little elbow grease by employing a whisk and a bowl. Depending on your perspective that can be a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, you've got a lot more control over whatever you're mixing and it'll allow you to see the incorporation of ingredients first-hand. But you're probably going to have sore arms. A Kitchen Aid mixer is an investment a lot of readers aren't comfortable making (and rightfully so), but you can certainly pick up a hand mixer for $8 or so. Word to the wise: if you're going to go the purist route and attempt these recipes with a whisk, make sure you get a good one or else you'll find yourself going through cheap whisks like Courtney Love goes through lawyers.

But what about the recipes? Rees has all the standards here: biscotti, tarts, doughnuts, brownies, etc, and offers a lot of riffs on the familiar. There's a chocolate and banana cream tart with a simple chocolate-peanut crumb crust, an apple cake with caramel sauce and chewy peanut butter and oatmeal cookies. There's a lot to like.

But there aren't any photos. Not only do images of the finished recipes draw you in ("oooh, that looks good!"), they also give you an idea of what the finished item should look like, an important detail for beginning bakers unsure of themselves. The cutesy font and jarring electric pink used throughout the book don't do it any favors either.

To be honest, $29.95 for a two-color book with no photos of the final product is a little ridiculous. If you can get past that, this could be a good option to try your hand at baking without committing to a huge investment in terms of time or money. Rees has some good ideas here and you're sure to find a few new favorites.

Baking Unplugged
Nicole Rees
$29.95
Wiley
256 pages

Take that, Italy!

The New York Times has a short but interesting profile of La Quercia, a small salumeria near Des Moines who make what some have called the best prosciutto they've ever tasted. Might be time for a field trip...