Archive | Winter 2013

This is the 27th issue of Edible Boston(!) and I feel I should confess something to you, my dear readers. The very last thing I do when putting an issue together is write my Letter From the Editor. This is partially procrastination on my part, but really, the theme of each issue needs to simmer a while in my mind before I’m able to put pen to paper. The ingredients in this simmering pot are all the delicious stories, the beautiful photographs, and the backdrop of current events in the environment outside my office.

Today is the first snow—winter … Read More

Obsessed with Flavor: Q’s Nuts
Words by Shannon Mullen/Photographs by Kristin Teig

It started with a simple mission: figure out a recipe to make sweet-roasted nuts taste as good as they smell. “It probably took about 100 pounds of peanuts,” says Brian Quinn, or “Q” as his employees and customers know him at Q’s Nuts in Somerville.

Twelve years ago Q and his wife Beth were looking for a way to supplement their income; they were both working full-time for other people but Q had always dreamed of owning his own business, and he loved to cook. The idea to … Read More

The Science of Candy: McCrea’s Caramels
Words by Rachel Travers / Photographs by Katie Noble

The alchemy for making caramels is delicate—heat too low and you have a sauce. Overheat and it becomes hard and tacky like taffy. But caramels from McCrea’s Candies, which combine cane sugar, fresh local milk and cream, inverted cane sugar (which controls the crystallization), local butter, molasses, salt and natural flavorings, are perfect examples of the true culinary craft of the caramel.

And Jason McCrea is the perfect caramel wizard. A scientist, with degrees in biology and chemistry, he was intrigued with sugar chemistry. This … Read More

A Convoluted Path Ends With Grand Ten Distilling
Words by Cynthia Graber / Photographs by Kristin Teig

There’s a somewhat logical progression to starting a food business. Let’s say you particularly enjoy baking. Flour dust settles in a fine layer over every corner of the kitchen as you try out recipe after recipe. Your friends taste all your trials, perhaps gaining a few pounds in the process. Finally you hit on that special mix of fat, sweet, and salt. After inhaling the cookies in delight, your friends and family tell you that you should go into business. And while you … Read More

Suzanne Lombardi’s New Venture: The Plate
Words by Rachel Travers / Photographs by Michael Piazza

Suzanne Lombardi isn’t always known by her name, but by her talents and her deeds.

And in case this is a name that you do not know automatically, you will most surely know her as co-owner and baker of the iconic Dancing Deer Bakery. No one who lived in this area in 1994 did not know about Dancing Deer.

Suzanne’s career has been a little like Alice in Wonderland—through the looking glass and running through the chessboard, not knowing what direction she was going in.… Read More