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T. Susan Chang T. Susan Chang regularly writes about food and reviews cookbooks for The Boston Globe, NPR.org and the cookbook-indexing website Eat Your Books.

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T. Susan Chang

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Tuesday November 23, 2021

These 5 cookbooks help keep Thanksgiving simple — and focused on family

Catie Dull/NPR

Books

These 5 cookbooks help keep Thanksgiving simple — and focused on family

November 23, 2021 • For many, Thanksgiving will be the first holiday where family gathers since the start of the pandemic. We offer some cookbooks that aim to keep meal prep easy, so there's more time for loved ones.

Wednesday December 16, 2015

Cook Your Own Adventure: 11 Cookbooks For Kitchen Dreamers

Review

Food

Cook Your Own Adventure: 11 Cookbooks For Kitchen Dreamers

December 16, 2015 • This year's cookbooks point to big dreams, and a kind of comfort with concepts once considered the province of professional cooks.

Wednesday December 10, 2014

Best Cookbooks Of 2014 Offer Tastes And Tales From Around The Globe

Andrea Nguyen's Banh Mi Handbook: Recipes for Crazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches is the perfect gift for your friend who has an app tracing the routes of half a dozen food trucks on her phone. Ten Speed Press hide caption

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Ten Speed Press

Food

Best Cookbooks Of 2014 Offer Tastes And Tales From Around The Globe

December 10, 2014 • 2014 was a year for faraway cuisines to take up residence in U.S. kitchens — cookbook authors cast their nets for flavors from Paris, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and points in between.

Best Cookbooks Of 2014 Offer Tastes And Tales From Around The Globe

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Monday June 9, 2014

These 10 Summer Cookbooks Will Make The Good Life Even Better

liz west/via Flickr

Review

Food

These 10 Summer Cookbooks Will Make The Good Life Even Better

June 9, 2014 • Summer is the time for indulgence, whether that means lingering in farmers markets, or partaking in some usually forbidden pleasures — the fried, the icy sweet, the charred and meaty.

Wednesday April 16, 2014

Sous Vide Makes Its Way To The Home Kitchen

A salmon fillet cooked sous vide, with miso-ginger glaze, gets a crisp finish under a broiler or torch flame. T. Susan Chang for NPR hide caption

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T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Sous Vide Makes Its Way To The Home Kitchen

April 16, 2014 • This cooking method — a strange mix of the precise and the forgiving — means never having to worry about rubbery, overcooked meats. But mind your eyebrows while you're holding the blowtorch.

Wednesday March 19, 2014

Oranges: Secret Agents Of The Food World

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Oranges: Secret Agents Of The Food World

March 19, 2014 • Like an international secret agent, the zest of tangerines and mandarins and oranges finds its way into Szechuan stir-fries, Mesopotamian couscous and Iberian sweets.

Wednesday February 12, 2014

Valentine Hearts That Are Meant To Be Broken

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Valentine Hearts That Are Meant To Be Broken

February 12, 2014 • These edible treasures would be too pretty to eat — if they weren't so delicious. Bake a batch of gingerbread or shortbread hearts, bedeck them with royal icing — and if it suits your mood, break them in half before devouring them.

Wednesday December 18, 2013

The Stars Come Out For Holiday Bakers

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

The Stars Come Out For Holiday Bakers

December 18, 2013 • What's cozier than curling up by a window on a starry night, watching a few starry flakes of snow drifting down, nibbling the sugary points of a star cookie one by one? Nibbling three different types of star cookies!

Wednesday November 20, 2013

You Can't Judge A Celery Root By Its Looks

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Kitchen Window

You Can't Judge A Celery Root By Its Looks

November 20, 2013 • The humble celery root probably won't win any beauty competitions. But if you push past its gnarled appearance, you'll find a tuber that's packed with flavors. It's raw crispness is perfect for a winter salad. When cooked, celery root delivers a nutty sweetness with a warm, buttery, earthy quality that is endlessly malleable.

Wednesday October 23, 2013

In Roasts, A Touch Of Fruit Brings Out The Best In Meat

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Kitchen Window

In Roasts, A Touch Of Fruit Brings Out The Best In Meat

October 23, 2013 • The heat of the oven gives fruit's sweetness a syrupy concentration that complements the salty, savory flavors of roasted meats. Many — though not all — fruits can infuse and pair with a variety of roasted meats and vegetables.

Wednesday August 28, 2013

Roasted Tomatoes, The Perfect Accessory For Summer Dishes

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Roasted Tomatoes, The Perfect Accessory For Summer Dishes

August 28, 2013 • Dressed in caramel notes, with a suggestion of salt and a big wink toward vinegar, a roasted tomato's most memorable feature is its long, sensuous, deep and savory finish.

Saturday August 3, 2013

Wandering Appetites: Hunting The Elusive Noodle

iStockphoto.com

Review

Book Reviews

Wandering Appetites: Hunting The Elusive Noodle

August 3, 2013 • Jennifer Lin-Liu's On the Noodle Road takes readers on a journey along the former Silk Road, looking for the origins of the noodle. But reviewer T. Susan Chang says that the book gets tied into knots when the quest turns cold.

Wandering Appetites: Hunting The Elusive Noodle

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Wednesday July 31, 2013

Buttermilk Makes Everything Taste A Little Better

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Buttermilk Makes Everything Taste A Little Better

July 31, 2013 • Buttermilk somehow seems perpetually cool and unruffled. It evokes cream without cream's over-the-top heft; its tanginess goes up to the threshold of yogurt and stops just shy. No matter how you cook it, a little bit of buttermilk has a thousand ways of making life taste better.

Wednesday July 10, 2013

Scape Velocity: Green Garlic Takes Flight

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Scape Velocity: Green Garlic Takes Flight

July 10, 2013 • Scapes are the gardener's dividend. The taste of that green garlic is haunting — biting, fresh, vegetal and verdant. It is to mature garlic what a string quartet is to an orchestra; what a sonnet is to a novel.

Sunday June 23, 2013

Feast For The Eyes: 3 Cookbooks Just For Looking

Ellen Silverman Photography/Courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review

Three Books...

Feast For The Eyes: 3 Cookbooks Just For Looking

June 23, 2013 • Sometimes our eyes are bigger than our baking skills. Reviewer T. Susan Chang recommends three cookbooks with pictures that indulge our senses while sparing our waistlines. Do you have a favorite cookbook? Let us know in the comments.

Wednesday May 8, 2013

Try A Do-It-Yourself Mother's Day

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Mother's Day

Try A Do-It-Yourself Mother's Day

May 8, 2013 • Rather than waiting for someone to give you a treat, why not make one of your favorites for yourself? Something you can snack on all week when no one's around. Or, better yet, something you don't have to share. Food writer T. Susan Chang recommends slow-roasted pecans, salty-sweet matzo candy and more.

Wednesday April 10, 2013

Preserved Lemons: Older, Wiser And Full Of Flavor

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Preserved Lemons: Older, Wiser And Full Of Flavor

April 10, 2013 • Salted and aged, the fruit develops mellow yet intensely lemony flavor, with none of the nose-tickling bright, high notes of the fresh version. Though they do take some time, preserved lemons are easy to make, keep practically forever, and make everything around them seem a little sweeter.

Wednesday February 27, 2013

In Praise Of The Humble Lentil

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

In Praise Of The Humble Lentil

February 27, 2013 • Like many other intrinsically boring foods — say, tofu or grits — lentils shine because they get out of the way. They provide a vehicle and a backdrop for other flavors — whether it's good olive oil and gently gilded onions, or ground spices and lemony pesto.

Wednesday January 30, 2013

Understanding The Brussels Sprout

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Understanding The Brussels Sprout

January 30, 2013 • This humble cabbage relative is undergoing a renaissance. Cookbooks are full of conversion stories and recipes. Food writer T. Susan Chang shares hers: The delectable versions she now enjoys bear no resemblance to the boiled, greenish-yellow sprouts of her youth.

Tuesday December 25, 2012

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks

Nishant Choksi

Review

Best Books Of 2012

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks

December 25, 2012 • The rebels, rule breakers and renegades who rule this year's Top 10 list aren't looking for a Ph.D. in Traditional Cooking. They're pleasure seekers whose books are filled with quirky facts, gorgeous pictures and ingredients deployed in unexpected places.

Recipe Rebellion: A Year Of Contrarian Cookbooks

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Wednesday October 31, 2012

The Hard-Boiled Truth About Egg Soups

T. Susan Chang/for NPR

Kitchen Window

The Hard-Boiled Truth About Egg Soups

October 31, 2012 • When T. Susan Chang was young, her mother would make egg soup for her when she got sick. Now, the food writer poaches a few eggs from her chickens' nests to make these soups when her kids get the sniffles.

Wednesday September 26, 2012

A Roll For All Seasons, Wrapped In Rice Paper

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

A Roll For All Seasons, Wrapped In Rice Paper

September 26, 2012 • You might have had a Vietnamese-style "summer roll," with shrimp and fresh herbs wrapped in translucent rice paper. But what else could you tuck into this versatile wrapper? Sandwich fixings (minus the bread!), leftovers — your imagination's the limit.

Wednesday August 29, 2012

Zucchini You Actually Can't Resist

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Zucchini You Actually Can't Resist

August 29, 2012 • Showcasing the delicate flavor and texture of this prolific squash can be a challenge. But these three recipes will make converts out of even the most ardent zucchini-phobes.

Wednesday July 18, 2012

Just Add Water: The Miracle Of Seaweed

T. Susan Chang for NPR

Opinion

Kitchen Window

Just Add Water: The Miracle Of Seaweed

July 18, 2012 • You may have had nori — the ubiquitous red seaweed that dries to black or green — wrapped around rice in sushi maki, or as roasted, salted crisps. Its popularity makes it a good gateway to an array of sea veggies.

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