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My family adores beets and so do I. A beet salad can be not only chunky and down-home, but also paper-thin and elegant. I love the former, but have never made the latter. And the only thing standing between me and that elegant salad is a mandoline.

Lacking a professional chef's knife skills, I have had my eye on a mandoline for a long time, though I've probably only really needed it occasionally. But to turn potatoes into chips, cabbage into slaw or tomatoes into Caprese, it would be the bomb.

I've got a birthday on the horizon, and I'm making a list of the kitchen tools I've lived without for just too long. Is a mandoline one of them?

If you have one, how often do you use it? What do you use it for? And which one is the best to buy? My husband needs to know!

--Tracy Schneider

My battered old cast iron skillet did a fine job, but this version is deeper, deep enough to fry chicken without making a huge mess on my stove top. As much as I appreciated how golden, crispy my old pan turned many a bird, I always thought of it as a kind of one trick pony.

Then, I recently got the chance to pick chef Tom's noggin about his favorite uses for cast iron, casting this humble pan in a whole new light.

"It's great for searing steaks and seafood, for cooking hash browns," he said. "You can make wonderful cornbread in it. My wife, Jackie, gets the pan hot in the oven and pours in the batter. It sizzles and makes the best brown crust."

Taking poultry on a different flight path, Tom also likes to do a stove-top version of roast chicken, weighing a whole bird down with the top pan. Like the ultra-moist chicken cooked under a brick diners go cuckoo about in restaurants around the country.

I can wait to experiment with these dishes and continue my hunt for the best fried chicken. Got any cast iron favorites to share?

-- Leslie Kelly

You may know that Jamie Oliver has a show coming out on March 26 called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution aimed at getting Americans to improve their diets, thereby improving their health. What you may not know is that Oliver was awarded the TED Prize (Technology, Entertainment,Design) for 2010. What is TED, you ask? It's non-profit organization that brings together the world's brightest thinkers and doers to exchange ideas, with the ultimate goal of making the world a better place. Learn more here.

Here are some things about Jamie Oliver that I didn't know. I have to say, even the jaded cynic in me is impressed (from the TED website):

• 12 television series, seen in 130 countries
• 10 cookbooks, translated into 29 languages, and sold almost 24 million copies in 56 countries
• His School Dinners/Feed Me Better campaign pressured the UK government to invest $1 billion to overhaul school lunches
• Founded the Fifteen Foundation, a social enterprise and chef apprenticeship for 18-24 year olds. Based in London, it has been replicated through franchising in Amsterdam, Cornwall and Melbourne

Suddenly, I am feeling a little inadequate.

Will you be tuning in to watch Jamie's show? Do you think this boisterous Brit has what it takes to cure America of its dietary woes?

Follow me on Twitter@pomodorista

For both professional reasons, wanting to keep up with the new nonfiction, and personal ones, wanting to figure out just what the hell happened, I've been reading a lot lately about the financial meltdown in 2008. Most of those accounts take place in board rooms and Senate chambers, and on cell phone calls between Sun Valley and the Caribbean: CEOs talking to CEOs, or to cabinet members or to committee chairs. Things happen at a lightning pace, entire white-collar armies are mustered into conference rooms to do overnight due diligence, and billions of dollars in debt are shifted between balance sheets.

It's all glamorous and horrifying and thoroughly unreal, which made turning next to Harry Markopolos's No One Would Listen--well, I wouldn't say refreshing, but it does make you feel like you've come back to earth. Markopolos, as you likely know, especially if you've been watching television (e.g. last night's Daily Show) the past few weeks, is the mid-level securities executive who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme throughout the last decade like he was Joey Crawford reffing a Spurs game. While there are a few cameos by minor European royalty in his account, it's definitely a story of the the other side of Wall Street: not the celebrity CEOs and the big Manhattan investment banks, but the midsized firms out in the suburbs with interchangeable names like Rampart and Benchmark and people like Markopolos who work under pressure in the (still relatively well-paid) trenches to put together "investment products" with returns (or at least strategies) that will catch the eye of institutional and wealth-management investors. That's what first tipped Markopolos to Madoff: word got out about Madoff's freakishly consistent and robust yearly returns, and Markopolos's bosses pushed him to figure out what Madoff was doing so they could do it too. After about "five minutes" of looking into it, Markopolos was sure something was fishy, and he spent most of the next 10 years trying to find out more, and find someone in authority who would do something about it.

I remember when the Madoff story first came out, I read a bit of Markopolos's original expose memo to the SEC--famously titled, "The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud"--and thought, "That guy should write a book." The memo is full of math, but it's as wonderfully direct and readable as you might expect from a title like that (and yes, you can't fathom how professional securities regulators could have possibly ignored its relentless logic and evidence). Now he has written a book--with the help of his team of fellow investigators and writer David Fisher--and it is indeed direct, and fascinating. Markopolos, as he'd be the first to tell you, is blunt and rough around the edges, and his book is too. It's not polished by any means, but it's clear, and you can feel the author's still-seething anger running just below the surface throughout. By the end of it, he's as angry at the SEC as he is at Madoff--who he once assumed would have him killed if he knew what Markopolos was doing--and when you see the case that he repeatedly laid out over the years, which showed that Madoff was crooked far beyond even the standards of what Markopolos paints as a congenitally--if not completely--shady industry, you'll be just as furious. --Tom

Check out these ideas:

--Lisa Kothari
Peppers and Pollywogs, Inc.
www.pepperspollywogs

Sometimes the simplest toys are the most popular...and, sometimes, they aren't really "toys" at all.  Case in point: magnets.  Magnets have been always been fun to play with but, this year, magnets seem to be making a comeback.  For example,  Buckyballs are small magnetic spheres which can be used to build various 3D shapes.  Simple, yet highly addictive...and very popular.  (We saw a few knockoffs of it at Toy Fair in New York this year.)

Another popular magnetic toy is Magna-Tiles.  Magna-Tiles are multi-colored plastic tiles with magnetic edges that allow kids to build all kinds of structures.  (It also comes in a both solid and translucent versions.)  They can also be used to help kids understand shapes, basic geometry and basic physics as well.

There are lots of other magnetic toys out there (including puzzles, games, and more) at a variety of price points.  But, the end result is the same -- magnetic toys will be "sticking around" for many years to come. -- E. Christian Moore

I hit the Cleveland Auto Show on Saturday, March 6. Like last year, there was a classic car show in a side gallery. The coolest thing there was this 1950 DeSoto.

Powered by a big flathead straight six, it's a lovely example of a the postwar superdreadnought four-door sedan. DeSotos of any sort are not terribly common, so this car was already in the running for the coolest thing in the room just by virtue of showing up. The owner was there with his wife, and they were displaying an old photo album and publicizing an Easter craft project they are involved with.

He bought it used in 1953 with 36,000 miles on it, and it's still going strong at age 60, with 158,000 showing on the odometer. What really makes it special, though, is its place in their life story:

It's a little early, but so what? Happy 55th wedding anniversary to Ron & Betty from all of us here at Car Lust, and may you and your DeSoto enjoy many more years and miles together.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

New York Times:

• Sunday Book Review cover: Susann Cokal on Angelology by Danielle Trussoni: "With 'Angelology' she revisits the subterranean burrows and the concern with paternity and inheritance, twisting them into an elegantly ambitious archival thriller in which knowledge dwells in the secret underground places, labyrinthine libraries and overlooked artifacts that have been hallmarks of the genre from 'The Name of the Rose' and 'Possession' to 'Angels and Demons' and 'The Historian.' 'Angelology' is richly allusive and vividly staged, with widescreen-ready ­visuals, a dewy but adaptable heroine and a dashingly cruel villain."
• Kakutani on The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee: "With 'The Surrendered,' Mr. Lee has written the most ambitious and compelling novel of his already impressive career — a symphonic work that reprises the themes of identity, familial legacies and the imperatives of fate he has addressed in earlier works, but which he grapples with here on a broader, more intricate historical canvas. Though the novel has its flaws, it is a gripping and fiercely imagined work that burrows deep into the dark heart of war, leaving us with a choral portrait of the human capacity for both barbarism and transcendence."
• Lydia Millet on The Ask by Sam Lipsyte: "What makes 'The Ask' work so well is the way it dovetails its characters’ self-loathing with their self-consciousness. For instead of making its characters blind — a strategy upon which much farcical writing since 'Don Quixote' has depended — it gives them 20-20 vision but endows them with perfect impotence. Milo and Don and Maura and their colleagues have more depth than many of the celebrated satirical characters of the past, and Lipsyte’s great accomplishment is to pull this trick off without trumpeting it. His characters are intelligent, even hyper­intelligent — they’re nobody’s fools, clearly — but finally their weakness is near-infinite."
• Laura Miller on The Infinities by John Banville: "If 'The Infinities' has the bones of a novel of ideas, it’s fleshed out and robed as a novel of sensibility and style. Its drapery is velvet and brocade — sumptuous and at times over-heavy. Banville is the sort of writer, drunk on Joyce, who wants to nail down every fleeting moment and sensation with some strenuously unprecedented combination of words: the 'slurred clamor' of a startled heartbeat, the 'humid conspiracy' of a grandmother, the 'lumpy wodge of stirabout' that is cereal left too long in its bowl of milk.... Fortunately, lavish demonstrations of literary virtuosity don’t bog down 'The Infinities,' as they often did with 'The Sea,' the novel that won Banville the Man Booker Prize in 2005. Things, mostly farcical, happen at a regular clip."
• Allison Glock on Tammy Wynette by Jimmy McDonough: "While Wynette the singer warrants extravagant praise — her unique interpretations fortifying every song, taking lyrics that would otherwise seem cheesy and transforming them into little odes of devastation — Wynette the person is a letdown. If you drained Dolly Parton of her swift wit and Loretta Lynn of her winning pluck, you’d get Tammy Wynette, a fairly plain, small-minded gal whose searing ambition and begrudging temperament kept her from any lasting contentment. As McDonough ... describes in striking detail, Wynette’s life may have been a heaping helping of trouble, but it was trouble, with few exceptions, she brought on herself."

Washington Post:

• Donna Rifkind on Lee's The Surrendered: "Serious readers these days are not so unsophisticated as to expect a novel like 'The Surrendered' to provide any sort of uplift -- which it certainly does not -- or to teach them Very Important Lessons about war and its catastrophic effects. They will read this book to share the life that's in it, and they have every right to expect that it will offer life in return. With one full-hearted portrait out of three, Lee has only partially but rather magnificently succeeded."
• Curt Suplee on The Science of Liberty by Timothy Ferris: "It is clear that modern science and modern democracy have evolved in striking parallel over the past 350 years. Can that epochal concurrence really have been a mere coincidence? Absolutely not, says Timothy Ferris in this important, timely and splendidly written book. In fact, he says, history shows exactly the opposite.... 'The Science of Liberty' is a profound delight whether one puts it down convinced or not. Either way, contemporary civilization won't look quite the same."
• Steven Levingston on Courage and Consequence by Karl Rove: "Rove addresses far more of his personal life than one would expect from a man who so effectively controlled information in the White House. That the drama is so touching and convincing leaves one to wonder if the master is again spinning with ease or, more fairly, if he isn't entitled like anyone else to a compassionate ear for his sorrows."
• Kristi Jemtegaard on Bunny Days by Tao Nyeu: "How much trouble can half-a-dozen bunnies get into in only seven short sentences? That's how long it takes to tell the tale of 'Muddy Bunnies,' the first of three effervescent escapades in this jolly romp, and the answer, apparently, is 'lots of trouble.' ... Tao Nyeu's fat fluid lines capture every emotional nuance from freshly washed joy to tail-clutching concern. Her backdrops resemble nothing so much as rumpled quilts, and her palette modulates with each episode. It all adds up to a dreamscape in which every chapter's final sentence seems not only believable but inevitable: 'Everyone is happy.'"

Los Angeles Times:

• Scott Esposito on The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe: "Oe's next novel, 'The Changeling,' has just come out in English, and it offers evidence that the Japanese master has regained his footing.... Chatty and casually indulging in cliché, the narration at times feels closer to the minimalism of Haruki Murakami than to Oe's once ostentatious prose. But 'The Changeling' is not a bland novel -- far from it. It is a richly imagined, complex story full of the oddity, irony and existential angst that have long been at the heart of Oe's writing, only here they are seen more often on the level of plot and structure than on that of sentence and image."
• Dinah Lenney on Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt: "Innocence and beauty restored then, with this gem of a memoir, deceptively simple in its proportions, but in truth: sad, funny, brave and luminous -- see how it catches the light.... Without self-pity or sanctimony, the author reminds us in this rare and generous book that there is no remedy for death. The way to live, he concludes, is 'to value the passing time'; the best we can do is to pay attention and to love each other well."
• Tim Rutten on Rove's Courage and Consequence: "Rove has produced -- that seems the right word -- a curious memoir, clear in its antipathies and in its constrained but obvious affection for the Bush dynasty, particularly George W. The why of those antagonisms and affections is more obscure. Can it really come down to the geographic accident of birth and a feisty little girl down the street? Perhaps -- or, maybe both are fruits of a largely unexamined life lived entirely within the hothouse of contemporary electoral politics."

Globe and Mail:

• Vivian Moreau on Deloume Road by Matthew Hooton: "The woods may be lovely, dark and deep, but in Matthew Hooton’s Deloume Road, the woods are also luminous, melancholy and vicious. Four pre-teen boys – two brothers, one friend and a misfit shunned by the first three – anchor the story set on forested southern Vancouver Island over a few days in what is supposed to be the early 1990s. But there is an otherworldliness to the story that could place it in any decade that includes boys riding bikes with skidding flourishes and adults with their own silencing troubles."

The Guardian:

• David Hare on The End of the Party by Andrew Rawnsley: "No dispassionate reader of Andrew Rawnsley's thumping 800 pages could doubt that we have lived through a strange and fascinating passage of British history which is still obscure. Our fate – through the lie-infested trauma of Iraq, the resultant general loss of faith in democratic politics and the clinching catastrophe in the money markets – has all the while been determined by a couple of the weirdest people ever to attain Downing Street.... This lively Shakespearian account is far too important to be remembered only for the stupid headlines it generated. When the smoke of mock-battle clears, we shall be left with the most thorough, the most enjoyable and the most original book yet written about New Labour."

The New Yorker:

• James Wood on David Shields's Reality Hunger: "His complaints about the tediousness and terminality of current fictional convention are well-taken: it is always a good time to shred formulas. But the other half of his manifesto, his unexamined promotion of what he insists on calling 'reality' over fiction, is highly problematic. A moment’s reflection might prompt the thought, for example, that Tolstoy (who so often reproduced reality directly from life) is the great 'reality-artist,' and a powerful argument against Shields’s anti-novelistic religious fury." And Lee's The Surrendered: "Shields may be imprecise and overwrought, but I found myself thinking of his useful skepticism while reading Chang-Rae Lee’s new novel, 'The Surrendered'—a book that is commendably ambitious, extremely well written, powerfully moving in places, and, alas, utterly conventional.... Many of these scenes are piercingly evoked, and the novel is so spacious in design and reach, so sensitive to historical catastrophe, that it seems churlish to bridle. Yet in the aggregate this slabbed magnificence seems, if not melodramatic, then certainly stagy, even bookish, a livid libretto, something made for the novel rather than made by it."

The Atlantic:

• Hitchens on Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: "On the origins of this once-world-shaking combat, with its still-vivid acerbity and cruelty, Hilary Mantel has written a historical novel of quite astonishing power.... The means by which Mantel grounds and anchors her action so convincingly in the time she describes, while drawing so easily upon the past and hinting so indirectly at the future, put her in the very first rank of historical novelists.... Wolf Hall is a magnificent service to the language and literature whose early emancipation it depicts and also, in its demystifying of one of history’s wickedest men, a service to the justice that Josephine Tey first demanded in The Daughter of Time."
• Benjamin Schwarz on a reissue of Moving Pictures by the late Budd Schulberg: "It’s a dryly elegiac chronicle of a privileged youth in the California sunshine, when the moguls’ kids attended the public high school, half of Hancock Park was empty lots, and Malibu was really a colony. It’s also a discerning and cold-eyed history of the emergence of the picture industry ... and the flowering of the studio system.... And, not least, it’s a collective portrait of horribly flawed but not unsympathetic people: the monstrous but heroically ambitious Louis B. Mayer; the broken, vulgar, and vulnerable Clara Bow, the It Girl (she was drawn to Budd, a shy and stammering boy, and his memories of that sad sex symbol achingly balance affection and pity); and above all, Budd’s parents.... Moving Pictures is a plangent and honest book, rendered all the more affecting by its modulation and detachment."

I admit that my husband makes a mean, meaty, beer-spiked chili, but he's also quite talented when it comes to piping frosting and whipping egg whites into soft peaks. I didn't think much about gender-specific cooking until hearing today that Allrecipes had created ManTestedRecipes.com, a "virtual man-cave" version of its parent site.

The idea is a place "where men can talk about food, post and comment on recipes, voice their opinion about cooking methods and find recipes for anything from a backyard barbeque or tailgate party to a satisfying family feast."

I would normally be more than slightly skeptical. I could see the site as a parody as easily as a real thing (Kung Pao Wild Pheasant?). Some of my favorite cooks are men, and they have no more interest than I do in backyard barbecues and tailgate parties. But I know the Allrecipes folks put solid research into their endeavors, and they're convinced this is (as Cosmo keeps trying to determine) What Men Really Want. They say their research shows 70 percent of men were more interested in visiting a male-focused cooking site than a general interest one. Other stats they quote: "When asked to describe the perfect dish, the top two adjectives among men are “spicy” and “meaty,” whereas women select “healthy” and “savory.” And, "Men enjoy preparing meals more than women (men 82 percent, women 75 percent)." (Huh? I have to wonder if they made it clear in that question whether they were talking about cooking as a household duty or a hobby.)

Initial recipes on the beta site include Irish Beef Stew with Guinness, "Tabascofied" Dover Sole, and Cheesy Barbecue Meatloaf. Food critic Jonathan Kauffman's take on it, on Twitter, was measured: "Does it have to be all about bacon, beef, and beer? Then again, if it gets men cooking..."

I'm not the target audience, and I suspect my husband isn't either, but I did see some "Man Tested" recipes that didn't strike me as particularly testosterone-heavy. Then I read through the introductions to those picks. One was a favorite that the guy got from his wife's family. Another was a recipe the poster's mom used to make. I only hope they'll still be eligible for the site's first competition, "The Dude Food Contest". 

-- Rebekah Denn

I'm making baba ghanoush for a dinner party this weekend, and after rummaging through a stack of my favorite recipes, I have yet to find the one I've used in the past. I am utterly addicted to the smoky flavor and creamy consistency of baba ghanoush; I could eat a whole bowlful myself. Maybe that's why I don't make it very often.

But now I find myself without the recipe I've relied on in the past. I've been looking around for a replacement, and have to admit that this Martha Stewart recipe looks pretty darn good, and simple too: eggplant, garlic, tahini, and lemon juice.

But I'm open to other ideas. Do you have a family or favorite baba ghanoush recipe you rely? Won't you share it with me?

Baba Ghanoush

Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants (about 2-1/2 pounds)
1 garlic clove, chopped
4 tablespoons tahini (sesame-seed paste)
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to broil. Place eggplants on a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Broil until skin is charred, turning as each side blackens, about 12 minutes.

2. Reduce oven heat to 425 degrees. Continue cooking until flesh is very soft, 12 to 15 minutes. remove from oven, and let stand until cool enough to handle. Slit open eggplants. Scrape out seeds with spoon (don't worry if some seeds remain), and discard. Slice off tops, and remove skins. discard.

3. Place flesh in a food processor, and pulse until smooth. Add remaining ingredients except parsley. pulse a few more times to combine. Transfer to a serving bowl, and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.

Makes 2-1/4 cups.

www.marthastewart.com 

--Tracy Schneider

The big little magazine: As many have reported, Lorin Stein, one of the best young editors in the business, is leaving behind an enviable stable of writers at Farrar Straus Giroux including Richard Price, Denis Johnson, Jonathan Franzen, and Lydia Davis to become the new editor of The Paris Review, the third since the death of TPR founder George Plimpton. (Among his latest FSG books: Sam Lipsyte's The Ask, my Best of March pick, and Elif Batuman's The Possessed, one of the best reviewed books of the year so far.)

"Civilisation is going to need another energy source": Per his Guardian profile this weekend, Ian McEwan found the recent Copenhagen climate talks to be depressingly reminiscent of the moment of human entropy in Antarctica that first inspired his new novel, Solar (and he edited his final version of the book to include them).

Break out your brackets: The Tournament of Books founders and commentators, Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner, preview the action that starts tomorrow in the sixth annual tourney:

Kevin: I also loved A Gate at the Stairs, and can’t wait to talk about it. And I’ve got my eye on tomorrow’s matchup between Let the Great World Spin and Miles From Nowhere. I haven’t read the latter, but LTGWS is a really extraordinary book, according to me. If Moore and McCann both get ushered to the exit in the first round, you may consider my bracket busted.

Moving and shaking: After two Oscar wins last night, including an upset in Adapted Screenplay, for Precious (I'm sorry: "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"), not one, not two, but three editions of Sapphire's novel are in our Movers & Shakers top 25.

As always, this is the preferred repository for all the off-topic conversation that doesn't really fit anywhere else.

We tend to be van fans here in Car Lust country. I wrote a heated defense of minivans a few years ago in which I wrote that "popular culture is so anti-minivan today that driving one is so counter-culture, so in the face of popular biases, so keeping-it-real, that it's almost punk rock." A little later, as part of Inappropriately Named Chrysler Products week, I ran a piece both ridiculing and adoring the Dodge Sprinter. Cookie the Dog's Owner wrote a paean to his mini-mini-van Mazda 5, Big Chris and I debated the merits of the Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia, and David Drucker wrote a scorching piece titled, "A Minivan is Better Than What You're Driving." Someday, I'll get around to putting into print the Custom Van Lust piece that has been rattling around in my head for the last few years.

So, given all that, it was with more than a usual level of interest that I learned of SuspiciousVans.com, which features, well, vans that are suspicious. Vans, of course, have a reputation of being frequently involved in shady activities of all kinds, and SV's gallery of entertaining and unsettling images of incredibly creepy vans shows that this reputation is pretty well-founded. SV's mission statement: "Leash your pets and small children; suspicious vans can be found in even the safest cities. From the rape-wagons to the intravenous-drug-use vans to the parked-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-for-no-reason VW buses, this site is an ode of respect, fear, and appreciation for them all."

That sounds like a worthy mission to me.

--Chris H.

Welcome to the Oscars® Fashion Forum at Amazon.com. I’ve chosen my 12 picks for best and worst gowns of the 82nd Academy Awards® red carpet presentation. Like the year that preceded it, this year’s gowns stayed away from the wild and mostly maintained the mild, making it a challenge to come up with a hit or a definitive miss. What do you think?

HITS (click on photos to see larger)

Sandra Bullock shimmered and stunned in a champagne column dress from Marchesa. An exquisitely embroidered sheer overlay cascaded down her clingy silken skirt. Her lustrous brown hair, worn loose, was the perfect complement.

Cameron Diaz deserved the gold for her dress alone. Appropriately attired in—we’re talking about the designer, not the statuette—a spangled bronzed Oscar de la Renta gown, the actress radiated confidence and charm.

Mo’Nique ruled in a royal-blue gown with satiny folds that flattered and formed in all the right places. She gets extra points for the historical nod (hello, Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel) and the perky gardenias in her hair. I’m an old-fashioned boy at heart.

Always-elegant Kate Winslet went with Yves St. Laurent for this most magical of nights. Her beaded bodice shone like armor, a nice contrast to the drapey duchess silk skirt. A diamond drop necklace and vintage Veronica Lake hair style complete the look.

Queen Latifah reigned supreme, this year in a figure-flattering dress of pale lilac silk. The ornate silver beading across the single-shoulder strap and the diagonal stripe accenting her waist added contrast and interest. Long live the Queen!

I’ve saluted a queen, why not honor a dame? Helen Mirren looked stately in her lavender spangled gown. From Badgley Mischka, its age-defying beauty was matched only by her Chopard gems and dandy arm candy Christopher Plummer.

MISSES (click on photo to see larger):

Nominee Vera Farmiga may have been confused—was it an awards ceremony or a flamenco performance? Her magenta Marchesa monstrosity puts the fan in fandango, with multiple tiers of fan-like ruffles dancing their way down the dress.

Jennifer Lopez’s ice-pink butterfly confection from Armani Prive perhaps should have remained prive-private. The pink ornamentation at her waist looked like it was ready for takeoff. Maybe Jenni from the block should have driven around the block before deciding on this frock.

How many shades of purple can a girl cram into one Oscar gown? Zoe Saldana seemed determined to find out, evidently. An asymmetrical sash served as the great divide between a delicately beaded top and the roaring ruffles beneath.

Even though I adore both Sarah Jessica Parker and Chanel (not necessarily in that order), I’m torn. SJP’s sickly yellow Chanel Couture was a shapeless sack for the lithe star in this rare fashion misstep. The bizarre bun seemed top-heavy and mismatched. Will the next Sex and the City redeem her? Let’s hope so!

While I loved Carey Mulligan’s vintage ‘50s silhouette, chic short haircut, and Fred Leighton chandelier earrings, I found Prada’s random collection of forks, spoons, and scissors a bit cutlery-contrived. When asked about it on the red carpet, she replied, “I don’t know.” I don’t either.

I’m thrilled that my totally ‘80s dream girlfriend Molly Ringwald still looks fantastic. I’m less than excited about the deep-purple silk gown she wore for the John Hughes tribute, however. Were the matching bronze squiggle cuff and waist ornament a tribute to the same decade? Molly, Molly. It’s time to update.

Did I say it was Daniel’s Dozen? Well, let’s make that a Baker’s Dozen. I would be remiss if I didn’t include Neil Patrick Harris in our couture commentary. His snappy sequined striped tuxedo jacket in the opening number’s old-school Hollywood chorus line was nothing short of spectacular, and his youthful vigor set the tone for the evening. Well done, NPH, well done!

Agree or disagree? Please comment. --Daniel

Bringing out past co-stars to effuse about the lead actor and actress nominees, rather than last year's cattle call of past winners to welcome the newest to the fold. While last year's was nice and all, it was often painful when the speaker was reading praise off the TelePrompTer, very obvious they hadn't even seen the performance. Seeing Michelle Pfeiffer reminisce about Jeff Bridges from The Fabulous Baker Boys, etc. was a welcome trip down memory lane.

"For not letting me ride in cars with boys till I was 18, 'cause she was right, I would have done what she said I was gonna do." -- Sandra Bullock, tearfully thanking her late mother

And the best of co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin:

 "He directed A Single Man." "And she weighs a single pound." -- Introducing designer Tom Ford and Sarah Jessica Parker

"Our next presenter won a screenwriting Oscar at the age of 27, and then went on to become an action star, which represents the first time a screenwriter has gotten any action." -- introducting Matt Damon

"In Inglourious Basterds, Christoph Waltz played a Nazi obsessed with finding Jews. Well Christoph... (gestures to the audience) .. the motherlode."

"Meryl Streep holds the record for most nominations for an actress. Or as I like to think of it, most losses."

"She was so pleased to be nominated with him she sent him a beautiful gift basket... with a timer." "And he reciprocated by sending her.. a Toyota." --regarding the Best Director nominees (and friendly ex-spouses) Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron

"Oh look, there's that damn Helen Mirren." "That's Dame Helen Mirren." --Martin misreading the TelePrompTer

"The show is so long that Avatar now takes place in the past."

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------

What were your favorite moments? --Ellen

My faithful Vermont test kitchen, a.k.a. Zachary and Clark, has been working overtime, making pie. Chicken pie.

Chicken Pie

Ingredients:
2-1/2 pounds chicken breasts
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1-2 celery ribs, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 can evaporated milk (12 ounces)
2 cups best chicken stock
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 tablespoons sherry

3 scallions, chopped fine

3/4 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

2 pie crusts for a deep 9-inch pie pan

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with a bit of water)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Brush chicken breasts with olive oil; season liberally with salt and pepper; cook on sheet pan for 30-35 minutes, until firm but not overdone; remove and let cool. Cut up chicken.

2. Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat; add celery and cook for 5 minutes; add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds; stir in flour and whisk slowly until it just begins to brown, about 5 minutes.

3. Add milk, stock, lemon zest, thyme, and sherry; bring just to boil and simmer for about 5 minutes, until it thickens.

4. Remove from heat; extract garlic and correct seasoning; add chicken and scallions; check seasoning again; let cool for about 30 minutes while you make and roll out the pie crusts.

5. In deepest 9-inch or 9.5-inch pie plate, lay out one of the crusts; brush with egg wash; add filling; top with cheddar cheese; cover with remaining crust; crimp the crusts together; cut vent holes in top; brush with egg wash.

6. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until crust is deep golden brown; remove and let rest for 10 minutes before serving. (You will probably have filling left over; save it and serve over toast for a delicious easy lunch or supper.)

America's Best Lost Recipes, The Editors of Cook's Country Magazine, Cook's Illustrated, 2007

--Tracy Schneider

It was a workhorse, turning endless batches of rice fluffy, never gummy. It doubled as a steamer, turning out especially beautiful artichokes. It was not as flashy as my beloved Cuisinart (another tool I loved to death) or as much fun to play with as my immersion blender, but it was reliable. A yellow school bus, not a speedy sports car.

At least until the day it died. I flipped the switch and it just didn't rumble to life as it always had. Leaving me to scramble and make rice on the stove top, which was only OK. Not the fluffy texture I was used to.

So, now begins the hunt for a replacement. I feel a little lost. My old friend isn't in the mix of the current models, so I'm starting from scratch. Sure love some suggestions! And wouldn't mind a little reassurance I'm not alone. Do you have an old, reliable appliance you'd hate to have to replace?

-- Leslie Kelly

The Blu-ray edition of the original Clash of the Titans movie is a bit of a mixed bag. Some scenes look exceptionally good in high definition, while others are pretty grainy, especially night scenes. I assume this is due to the source material, because the movie never really looked that great on DVD either--this is probably as good as we're ever going to see it. The uncompressed DTS-HD sound is good but only in 2.0 (probably another source limitation--there is a good back-speaker effect approaching Medusa's lair). The packaging is quite nice: a book with stills from the movie, pictures and biographies of the cast (the Ursula Andress photo is a stunner) and special-effects creator Ray Harryhausen, and pictures and descriptions of the creatures. There are two bonus features, both in standard definition: A 2002 12-minute interview with Harryhausen in which he describes his work on the film, and short segments in which he describes each of six creatures. There's also a five-minute preview of the 2010 Titans remake. You can compare the original film's trailer and two behind-the-scenes featurettes from the new film below. --David

 It never occurred to me that Crock-Pots had been invented. One magically showed up at my childhood home around the same time my mother went back to work, and I've seen them appear in other houses placing a premium on time and convenience. I learned from this Wall Street Journal obituary of Mable Hoffman, though, that the slow-cooker debuted a full 39 years ago, but didn't reach its full potential until a few years later. It apparently hit the shelves with an unworkable yecchh of a cookbook, and it took Hoffman, a home economist, to save the stews of the American public and produce a popular book of successful Crock-Pot recipes. 

It's easy to knock Crock-Pots. I never do -- I remember them as a source of warm, filling home meals. And I'm evidently not alone. Hoffman's daughter told the WSJ that her book, Crockery Cookery, sold 6 million copies.

Modern fans are pretty fond of the book too, giving it an average 4-star rating. Hoffman's recipes are wholesome and thrifty, one cook wrote, adding that "I don't remember how I ever managed to cook for my family 6 days a week before I discovered this cookbook!" Another wrote that it's a book "anyone with a busy life who also values good food should own." 

"Three cheers, Mable!" wrote another. 

I can't think of a better farewell salute, unless it's this line from the WSJ obituary: Author Stephen Miller wrote that Crockery Cookery "dethroned "The Joy of Sex" as the No. 1 selling trade paperback in June of 1975, providing a clue as to which is the stronger human urge."  Now, that's a more-than-mainstream tribute.

-- Rebekah Denn

I hate the feeling of being duped. I blogged about my truffle oil-laced popcorn the other day, which prompted this question from Al Dente reader Bryan: "I'm not hep to truffle oil. What is it, and what can it do for me? Thanks in advance." In my quest to answer Bryan properly, I was surprised to find this New York Times article which contains this revealing tidbit: "Most commercial truffle oils are concocted by mixing olive oil with one or more compounds like 2,4-dithiapentane (the most prominent of the hundreds of aromatic molecules that make the flavor of white truffles so exciting) that have been created in a laboratory." This is crushing news, and has left me slightly melancholy. I might have to break up with truffle oil. We were only starting to get to know each other.

This came on the heels of another disappointing discovery this week. Upon close inspection of the label on my Genova Tonno can, I noticed that it's distributed by Tri Union Seafoods out of San Diego. There is no mention of Italy anywhere on the package besides allusion via the name of the product. You may be familiar with the Tri Union Seafood products marketed as Chicken of the Sea. An e-mail to Consumer Affairs via the Chicken of the Sea website resulted in this prompt reply: "The tuna used in Chicken of the Sea products is caught in the open seas in western part of North Pacific and South Pacific Oceans. This product was packed in American Samoa. Domestically packed product does not state the country of origin. We hope this helps. If we can be of further assistance, you may review our 'go fish' information at www.chickenofthesea.com or contact us again."

Thank you Consumer Affairs. It does, indeed, help. From now on I will stick with my preferred brand of tuna, Flott. In spite of it's non-Italian sounding name, Flott tuna is caught and packaged in Sicily. It's salty, and rich, and packed in olive oil. You can even purchase it in a glass jar instead of a tin can. It's more expensive than your run-of-the mill tuna, but once you try it, you'll never go back. It's so good, you can eat it straight out of the jar.

Have you been duped by product labeling lately? I'd love to hear about it. Or, if there's a product you'd like to know more about hit me up. I can do the research for you.

Photo credit (chemistry set): Tony Cenicola, New York Times

--StellaCadente*

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