Make Your Mark

A nice little (and pretty) trick to keeping your place in a cookbook: ribbon! Some cookbooks come with one or two (Thanks Gourmet and Gourmet Today cookbooks!) to keep you tuned to the right recipe, but it's easy to snip a few lengths of ribbon and mark as many pages as you want. Of course, a bookmark will work, but for some reason ribbon just feels right!

Quick Trick for Garlic

Every cook has his or her own way of doing things. Thought I'd share my method of peeling garlic. You'll need a garlic clove, chef's knife, and cutting board or other work surface.

1)Slice off the end of the garlic clove. (The hard nodual side that connected clove to the head.) Some of the skin may begin to peel off once you do this.

2) Lay a large chef's knife on top of the clove and press down gently. (For smashed garlic, press harder.) This makes garlic much easier to peel.

3) Carefully peel the skin from the clove and chop, mince, or slice away!