Here are some items we liked from October's magazines that weren't necessarily recipe-related. Previous "Leftovers" can be found here.
Us in Portland, Maine, this summer.
Bon Appétit profiles Portland, Maine in the magazine's annual round-up of America's Foodiest Small Towns. We were excited to see the article, because we visited Portland in August. It's a beautiful city, filled with fantastic food. Most memorably, we had dinner at Fore Street, a restaurant serving mostly locally sourced ingredients. It was one of the most memorable meals we've had this year. We also loved J's Oyster, where they make an amazing Bloody Mary. Much of the feature is available online.
Saveur, in looking at food in Mississippi, mentions Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking, originally published in 1987. We knew very little about Claiborne, a former restaurant critic of the New York Times, until we read Gael Greene's memoir Insatiable earlier this summer. We loved Greene's book, in which Claiborne makes several appearances.
A guest on The Splendid Table recently mentioned Claiborne's autobiography, A Feast Made for Laughter. It appears to be out of print, but we're going to track down a copy and read it this winter.
We geeked out over this month's Martha Stewart Living feature on vintage cast-iron pans.
They're beautiful and come in an astounding number of shapes. The feature is definitely worth seeking out. A short version is available online.
We haven't yet mastered how to make fancy edges on pie crust, but Fine Cooking has inspired us to try with their feature "How to Make Decorative Pie Crust," including a beautiful looking "wheat edge."
The magazine has a video online that shows you the technique.