Extra Crispy

Piping bags look so simple. I mean, you put your dough or icing into the bag and snip off the tip, and there you have it, right? Even a Ziploc bag will do in a pinch, according to every Pinterest post and baking show I've seen. So why is it that whenever I attempt such a thing I end up with meringue or dough or potatoes or icing all over the place, with gloppy messes on a baking sheet instead of the pristine little swirls they're supposed to be? How, I ask, can you work a piping bag better?

Once upon a time, in 1830s New York City, a woman named Jane McCollick noticed a barefoot 11-year-old selling newspapers at Washington Market. McCollick had an idea for the “plucky young waif”: He should offer to clean up the meat scraps from the butchers and sell them to Indians in Hoboken.

Today marks the swearing in of the 116th US Congress and the return of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Though it will be the most racially diverse and female-dominated House of Representatives class ever elected, no member of the freshman class has inspired the hope of progressives and drawn the ire of the establishment like New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

How often do you use your cookie cutters? And how many times have you pulled them out after a long gap between batches only to find them covered in rust? Though rust can be removed fairly easily by scrubbing the cutters with steel wool, it's a pain to have to deal with that on top of cookie preparations. What if you can just prevent rust from forming on your precious baking implements to begin with?

Eggshells usually go straight into the trash or the compost bin, but, like garlic skins and potato peels, you don't necessarily have to throw them out. They have a lot of calcium, which means they can be useful for gardening. If you're really deft about breaking your eggs, you could use a shell as a planter.

It’s cold outside.

When pound cake became a thing in the mid 1700s, the recipe was as simple and dense as the name implies: one pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour. Butter is the key ingredient for good pound cake since it can affect the flavor, color, density, and moistness of your cake. Because of its fundamental role, I baked and tasted our own (updated) version of classic pound cake with three different kinds of butter: Amish butter, European butter, and regular American butter.

January is rough. You're coming off the momentum of the holidays and the promise of a blank slate. You’re huffing that heady New Year smell that'll keep you fueled through roughly 8 a.m. on January 3.

When Han Wang moved to Bangkok eight years ago, one of the first things he noticed was the coffee.