Food & Cooking

From perfect pie crusts to poached salmon, Christopher Kimball and Bridget Lancaster share cooking tips and secret shortcuts from America's Test Kitchen. The biggest challenge is getting home chefs to faithfully follow recipes, Kimball says: "They will substitute ingredients with great abandon."

In his new book, Tomatoland, food writer Barry Estabrook details the life of the mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry. Today's tomatoes, he says, are bred for shipping and not for taste.

Would you eat a steak grown in a laboratory? Science writer Michael Specter examines the progress scientists have made in developing test-tube meat. "Depending on what your definition of any sort of life is, this is as fundamental as any animal is," he says.

The world's rapidly expanding population has created elevated demand for food, but changes in climate and irrigation have made it increasingly difficult to boost production accordingly. Environmentalist Lester Brown explains why he believes "food is the new oil" and may lead to political upheaval.

Physician Kevin Patterson has treated patients in the Arctic, in Kandahar and on remote Pacific Islands. He says that Western ideas and effects of urbanization are making people everywhere in the world both fatter and sicker.

Twenty years ago, Italian food was regarded as cheap, peasant food. Now it's served on menus worldwide and considered to be one of the healthiest cuisines. Esquire Magazine's food critic John Mariani chronicles the story of pizza, macaroni and red sauce in How Italian Food Conquered the World.

February sweeps ended Wednesday, so most broadcast networks are back to reruns and reality shows. TV critic David Bianculli says that one of the reality shows, NBC's America's Next Great Restaurant, is much better than the rest -- and makes him hungry for more.

Two years after opening his award-winning Chicago restaurant Alinea, chef Grant Achatz was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He describes losing and regaining his taste in Life, on the Line. "My palate developed just as a newborn," Achatz says. "i don't recommend it, but I think it made me a better chef."

What's the difference between wooden and plastic cutting boards? When should you throw out frozen fish? Harold McGee, an expert on the science of food and cooking, untangles these kitchen mysteries and more in his Keys to Good Cooking.

Tilda Swinton stars as a wealthy wife and mother who gets involved with a younger man in Luca Guadagnino's acclaimed new film I Am Love. Fresh Air's critic-at-large John Powers says the movie offers grownup audiences something they've been missing.

The act of passing on a passion is one of the greatest gifts you can give. Book critic Maureen Corrigan promises that the books on this list — mostly slim, unforgettable volumes about places or things that the writers themselves deeply love — are merrily infectious.

This is the second segment of Fresh Air's two-part interview with Daniel Pauly, a professor at the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia. Pauly warns that the global fishing industry has drastically depleted the number of fish in the oceans.

Daniel Pauly, a professor at the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia, warns that the global fishing industry has drastically depleted the number of fish in the oceans.

The editor in chief of Gourmet joins Terry Gross to discuss the surprise announcement that the venerable magazine will publish its final edition in November. Along with recipes and regrets, she'll talk about her new recipe book, Gourmet Today.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner explores the underbelly of America's food industry — and the health consequences of its food-supply stranglehold — in his documentary Food, Inc.

Mark Kurlansky's The Food of a Younger Land presents a marvelous history of America's gastronomical oddities and antiques; a remembrance of tastes and customs past. Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Critic-at-large John Powers explains why Gordon Ramsay, the profanity-prone star chef of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, is "the world's greatest TV chef."

Wine critics Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher advise you to seize the day — and that bottle of wine you've been saving. The Wall Street Journal's husband-and-wife wine team host the 10th annual Open That Bottle of Wine Night on Feb. 28.

Food historian Anne Mendelson examines how varieties of animal milk have been processed and consumed since antiquity in her new book, Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk through the Ages.