January 2010

Features

• Gail Simmons Rescue Challenge

  Some of the dishes on bravo's Top Chef are extraordinary—and some are extraordinarily flawed. Judge Gail Simmons of F&W reinvents the biggest flops, like Richard Blais's pork and Carla Hall's soufflé.

• Judges' Choice: 5-Ingredient Desserts

  Here, two feisty young pastry chefs compete to see which can create the winning five-ingredient dessert (with salt as a freebie). In one corner: Stephanie Prida of Chicago's One Sixtyblue. In the other: Maura Kilpatrick of Boston's Oleana and Sofra.

• Judges' Choice: Best F&W Pasta

  When F&W's Test Kitchen created 10 delicious pasta recipes, we felt confident enough to set them before the toughest critics: three F&W Best New Chefs.

• Judges' Choice: Best New Chicken Dishes

  Any chef with cooking cred can do wonders with pork belly. But chicken? That's not so trendy—or easy. So F&W asked five top restaurant critics to name their cities' best new chicken dish. Then we simplified the recipes for the home cook.

• Judges' Choice: Best New Vegetarian Dishes

  In a salute to the vegetarian-cookbook pioneers who have guided a generation—and the young masters who are legends in the making—F&W asked five of the world's top talents for their most delicious new recipes.

• Dinner Party for a New Decade

  At their futuristic Chemosphere house in Los Angeles, art-book publisher Benedikt Taschen and his wife, Lauren, throw a New Year's Eve party celebrating the big taste trend of 2010: food that's fun, intensely personal and completely delicious.

• Editor's Letter

• 2010 Trend Report

  From ingredients to travel to restaurants, here's a look at the key trends to watch for in the '10s.

• World’s Best Sommelier vs. World’s Worst Customer

  Aldo Sohm of New York City's Le Bernardin is as good at pairing wines as he is at charming customers. But to truly test his mettle, F&W secretly enlisted critic Frank Bruni to play the role of nightmare diner. Read on to find out how Sohm survived the ordeal—and to see the exceptional matches he chose for star chef Eric Ripert's elegant recipes.