GrillGrates amplify heat, eliminate hot spots, and block flareups. This is the concept behind the expensive new infrared grills. A must add-on for all gas grills. 
Best Food, and Cooking Websites, Blogs, and References
By Meathead
The web is brimming with sites devoted to food and cooking covering everything from recipes, to politics, to humor. There are references where you can look up a strange ingredient, searchable databases, sites dedicated to gluten free cooking, Korean cooking, you name it. In fact, half the fun is the names their owners have invented.
Some are great resources by pros, some are first rate home chefs documenting their backyard culinary adventures, and some are just greasy drippings. Many are produced by folks who are not trained as journalists, have no editors or fact checkers. As my editor points out, many apparently were thinking about food during English class. Hmmmm. Could he be talking about me?
Here are my faves, the ones that are most polished and professional and kept up regularly, listed alphabetically. Also, make sure to check out my links to the best forums, cooking schools, restaurant guides, barbecue websites, barbecue associations and competitions, and wine, beer, spirits websites. For some good dead tree buying guides, click here.
The Accidental Chef. Kendra Bailey Morris is a food columnist for the Richmond Times Dispatch and the author of White Trash Gatherings:
All About Pies. Jodi Brogdon knows her pies and there are a lot of great looking recipes on her site, among them classic barbecue desserts: Apple, cherry, coconut cream, pecan, peach, and blueberry.
AmazingRibs.com. Some guy named Meathead writes mostly about the Zen of barbecue and outdoor cooking, but there's a lot of good info about food, ingredients, and techniques. Even has some vegetable recipes.
Artisanal Cheese. Everything you want to know about cheese.
Ask The Meatman is the website of Craig Meyer, a major butcher, and it is chock-full of useful info.
Beefitswhatsfordinner.com is the official website of the beef checkoff, a trade association.
Benjamin Christie Australian Celebrity Chef
Bobby Flay. Successful restaurateur, Iron Chef, grill master, FoodNetwork star, maestro. Many good recipes.
CalorieKing. Calorie counter and more.
Cheese Connoisseur's Glossary.
Chile Database. More than 3000 varieties of chilies listed and described. My go-to reference.
Chocolate & Zucchini. Thoughtful, knowledgeable essays by Clotilde Dusoulier, a Parisian who shares her passion for all things food: recipes, cookbooks, products, tools, restaurants, ideas, and inspirations.
Confessions of a Restaurant Whore
Cooking Contest Central. There's big prize money out there. Go for it.
Cooking For Engineers. Michael Chu is a California-based engineer with an analytical mind, a well-equipped kitchen, a love of food, and a great website. Unwilling to accept the common wisdom, he tests all kitchen assumptions as he wrestles recipes to the ground one at a time. There is a small but growing message board that accompanies it. Fun stuff.
Cooking Metric. What you need to know about the differences between metric and standard US weights and measures.
Cooking Korean food with Maangchi
Culinary Media Network. An elegant site with columns, podcasts, and videos from talented chefs. Good recipes, photos, fun stuff.
Curious Cook. Run by Harold McGee, food scientist, New York Times columnist, and book author (his book On Food and Cooking: The Science & Lore of the Kitchen is the bible).
The Daily Struggles of the Domestic Un-Goddess
David Lebovitz. David Lebovitz is an American in Paris with a lot of frequent flier mileage, fine recipes (he is a master of all things chocolate), and the ability to make food look beautiful with his camera.
Diane Morgan Cooks. A Portland, OR, based cookbook author, teacher, and her instructional videos are top notch. The site is polished and professional.
Eat, Drink, Man... A Food Journal
Eat Me Daily is amazed, puzzled, and bemused by culture, especially food culture, including media, cookbooks, art, design, celebrity, fashion, robots, and cookery.
Eating Our Words - Southern Living
Elana’s Pantry, Gluten Free Recipes
Faith Willinger is one of the top food writers in Italy, and she writes in English. A resident of Florence, she travels all over the Boot, but specializes in her depth of expertise in Tuscany. Here columns on Atlantic magazines website are top notch.
First Press. Nancy Loseke and Tj Robinson teach you everything you need to know about olive oil.
Flagrante Delícia, Leonor de Sousa Bastos' Desserts
Food Buzz. Blogs, recipes, and social networking with other foodies. What more do you want?
Food Safety. The US Government's official food safety website with tips, techniques, recalls.
The Food Section. News and views of what is going on in the world of food. Their Dictionary of Modern Gastronomy is particularly good.
Food Timeline. A history of food.
Good Eater. J. Kenji López-Alt is an Associate Editor at Cook's Illustrated Magazine. His Food Lab is an unorthodox analytical look at food science and he is always questioning and testing conventional wisdom. An MIT graduate, he does stuff like making two burgers, one with salt mixed in and one without, and then photographs cross sections of the cooked meat, weighs them, and smashes them with a frying pan to test tensile strength. The co-editor, Joshua Levin is a vegetarian.
Good Guide. What's in your food and the other products you use.
Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie. The website of the popular TV show from the departed Gourmet magazine. Videos and recipes for serious foodies.
Hungry Girl. Lisa Lillien is obsessed with healthy food, and she is very good at sotting products that are good for you, and bad for you. She deconstructs recipes and reconstructs them to maximize flavor and minimize calories.
Hunter Angler Gardener Cook — Finding the Forgotten Feast
John T. Edge. Nobody but nobody knows Southern Foodways and byways better than Edge. A cultural historian, culinarian, and writer of the highest order.
Julia Child Videos and More on PBS
Just Hungry. Japanese recipes, healthy and fun eating, the expat food life, and more.
Karina's Kitchen, Gluten-Free Recipes
Kitchen Myths by Peter Aitken. Searing meat seals in juices? Myth. Baking soda in the fridge or freezer absorbs odors? Myth. If you put the pit in the bowl, guacamole won't turn brown? Yet another myth. For more kitchen myths, check out this fun site.
Leites Culinaria is a compilation of recipes and articles, may original, and many republished with permission from cookbooks and magazines. Good stuff.
Lets Bake. Home of Cordon Bleu Baking Chef/Instructor Tom Beckman. He knows his dough. This page contains the oputline for his classes. Check out his podcasts, too.
Living Tastefully - Passions to Pastry
Lucullian Delights - An Italian Experience
Meathenge. This Kalifornia kid kan kook kewl. With an attitude.
Meatpaper. Well written and photographed. This professional meatcentric blog/magazine is devoted to "Fleischgeist" which the publishers define as "spirit of the meat". From Zeitgeist, "spirit of the times".
Michael Ruhlman. Ruhlman is a multi-book author, columnist, chef, frequent personality on the Food Network, and one of the world's leading experts on charcuterie, curing meats, and sausages. An eloquent writer.
My Food Diary. There's really good research that shows that people who write down everything they eat lose weight. This site lets you do just that, and shows you how many calories you ate, and more.
National Restaurant Association
New York First. I live in Chicago and we hate NY, so shhhhh, don't tell anyone, but I love going there. This site reminds me why. A great place to buy all things New York. That includes bagels, steak sauces, and more tasty treats.
New Zealand House and Garden, Cuisine
No Recipes. Food, techniques, and inspiration without recipes. Concepts only.
Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen
One For The Table. Ten bloggers all on one site and food is their favorite topic.
Over a Tuscan Stove. Divina Cucina (a.k.a. Judy Witts Francini) lives in Florence and makes you wish you did too. Her handwrittien cookbook is a treasure. She teaches cooking classes in her home town.
Pizzamaking. Recipes, books, glossary, and a lively forum where they will answer all your questions.
The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Ree Drummond lives in Oklahoma, and she knows how to cook, write recipes, and take pix. My favorite part is the fact that she documents the recipe with bright, sharp, well composed photos. Readers ask questions, make comments, and offer suggestions. Fun stuff!
Rasa Malaysia: Easy Asian Recipes
Raw on $10 a Day (or Less). Lisa Cole Viger is a strict vegan, a reformed omnivore, and even a former vegetarian. She lives on a small vegetable farm in southern Michigan, doesn't wear leather, use down pillows, or even eat honey (but she admits to being conflicted about this last one). Fabulous recipes and beautiful photos.
Red Cook - Adventures from a Chinese Home Kitchen
Roadfoodie. Brigit Binns is the author of more than 20 cookbooks, is devoted to pork, and remains slender (that's her to the right, visiting Superdawg in Chicago)! She's an entertaining writer, and her blog follows her meanderings across the nation and encounters with farmers, butchers, chefs, and pork.
Rosa Jackson's Edible Adventures
Rosengarten Chews. David Rosengarten was one of the original FoodNetwork chefs, author of several excellent cookbooks, world traveler, a brilliant chef and teacher, bon vivant, and thoughtful commentator. His free email newsletter is chock full of great advice on where to eat, what to buy, and how to cook. His cookbooks and print newsletter are pretty impressive, too.
Salt & Sodium Information for Daily Health & Nutrition
Seafood Watch. From the Monterey Bay Aquarium, this site has a lot of great info about seafood including ocean friendly recipes from some first-rate restaurants.
Seduction Meals. Igniting Flames of Passion... One Meal at a Time. Beautiful Terry Dagrosa does not need food to seduce. But this site is very tempting. Her premise is that "everyone should learn to master one dish that is their signature dish—a Seduction Meal, to enchant and captivate that special someone in your life." Amen!
Serious Eats. An agglomeration of many first rate blogs, recipes, A NY dining guide, and more. A Hamburger Today and Slice are great fun, as is their Photograzing section with lots of pix of yum.
Simply Recipes. Elise Bauer, her family and friends have compiled an impressive list of recipes, many with beautiful photos. "Many of the recipes are old family recipes, many we make up, and many of them are those that we pull from cookbooks, magazines, and newspaper clippings we've collected over 30 years."
Skyful of Bacon. Some of the best vids about food on the net. Good storytelling and interviews with production values way above average.
Something Different Country Store & Deli. This is the website of a real old-fashioned country store that happens to be world famous because it is owned by folks that know a lot about barbecue, not to mention food and farming in general. Dad, Dan Gill, is the writer in the family, and his musings, called Dan's Blurbs, are well thought out and researched. Definitely something different.
Slice. Pizza lovers review and rate pizza around the country, but mostly in NY.
Southern Foodways Alliance. Southern cuisine is this nation's most interesting and these guys know ALL about it. All about it. The oral history videos are priceless.
Splendid Table. Lynne Rossetto Kasper is a great cook, great teacher, great interviewer, and her laugh is impossible to resist. The podcast of her weekly radio show in NPR usually includes a chat with Jane and Michael Stern, mavens of road food and joints and hangouts from coast to coast. Also a regular guest is Josh Wesson, the most unpretentious of all wine geeks. Her website is a great repository of recipes, tips, and ideas. You can subscribe to the podcast free from her website or via iTunes.
Steamy Kitchen. Jaden Hair is a dynamo who began blogging about modern Asian cooking and has branched out into all manner of tasty arenas including a column in the Tampa Tribune, teaching, and television appearances. She writes great recipes, traditional and original, that are well tested, and scrumptious. And she's a good photographer, so be careful you don't drool on your keyboard.
Suicide Food. Operated by vegans, this site is an amazing collection of signage and advertising featuring cartoon animals that appear delighted in being turned into food. The proprietors are disgusted. I am amazed.
Sweet Marias. Everything you need to know and buy about coffee. Everything.
This Week In Food. In this educational and entertaining podcast Chef Tom Beckman of the Cordon Bleu School in Chicago, talks about food and cooking, especially baking, often with his sidekick Chef Wook. They discuss a topic, or go out to eat, or interview someone. Beckman is a witty fellow and his laugh is infectious. These two are the foodie answer to Click and Clack the PBS car guys. Says Chef Beckman: "I've got butter and I'm not afraid to use it."
Three Many Cooks... in Pam Anderson's Kitchen
US Code of Federal Regulations for Food
Varsano's. Jeff Varsano knows NY pizza, where to buy it and how to make it, and your mouth will water when you see his pix. In 2009 he opened a pizzeria in Atlanta, but his recipes, comments on other pizzeerias, and ruminations are still fascinationg.
Waiter Rant. Home site of the best selling book Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica. Funny stuff and food for thought.
Waitrose Food Illustrated (UK)
What's Eating Carolynn? Carolynn Carreno writes cookbooks and literately about what people eat.
White On Rice Couple. Todd and Diane are cooking instructors and professional photographers. There's lots of good advice on both on this site.
Will Write for Food: Dianne Jacob
Year Of The Cow. Jared Stone of Los Angeles bought a whole steer. Everything he was allowed to take home, he did. Now he is chronicling his attempt to make the absolute best use of an entire cow. Fun stuff.
...more to come (to be notified when new recipes and other articles come online, be sure to subscribe to my free, spam free, email newsletter).
This page was revised 3/18/2010
About this website
AmazingRibs.com is all about the science of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking, with great BBQ recipes and tips on technique. Learn how to set up your grills and smokers properly, the thermodynamics of what happens when heat hits meat, as well as hundreds of excellent tested recipes including all the classics: Baby back ribs, spareribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, burgers, chicken, smoked turkey, lamb, steaks, barbecue sauces, rubs, and side dishes, with the world's best buying guide to barbecue smokers, grills, and accessories, all edited by Meathead.
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