Soul Food Restaurant - Tips to Serving up a taste of HOME Cooking

Okay so you don't have the skill, time or patience to cook up that perfect soul food dinner? Chances are a soul food restaurant in your area is serving up home cooking just like mom or grandma use to make. Give yourself a break from kitchen duties and here is the reason why.

Soul food restaurants have never been more popular. In fact, today you have more options than ever before. Black celebrities, seasoned chefs and great cooks around the country have teamed up to offer you a unique dining experience and familiar soul food menu.

If you live in or near major cities with a significant African American population, expect the competition for your business to be fierce. This is great news for you because in essence you will have an opportunity to enjoy a full range of dinning experiences at several different types of restaurants including: soul food diners, upscale dining, buffets, catered events, mom & pop dining, cafeteria style dinners and much more.

Cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis, New York, Philadelphia, St Louis, Oakland and Washington DC all offer unique dining experience including: live jazz performances, comedy shows, celebrity appearances, modernized soul food cuisine, artwork exhibits, gifts & memorabilia and cooking products.

Once you get out and start enjoying establishments in your area, it will be easy to see that the soul food restaurant industry caters to a diverse group.

Now that you're sold on the idea of giving yourself a break from kitchen duties, the obvious question is "What are celebrity soul food restaurants and famous chefs cooking up?". This question is not at all easy to answer. The simple fact is, it all depends on location and the type of clients the restaurants in your area are trying to attract.

The bottom line up front is that in most cases you can find a soul food restaurant in your area that provides the type of comfort foods and home cooking you have become accustomed too. At this point you should feel very good about the idea of eating foods any day of the week that are traditional served only during Sunday dinner and on special occasion like family reunions, family barbecues, birthdays, etc.

So what type of dishes can you expect to find on a soul food menu? That depends on the type of restaurant you visit. For example at a barbecue restaurant you can experience the taste of barbecued ribs, chicken, brisket; baked beans, macaroni & cheese, coleslaw, potato salad; banana pudding, sweet potato pie; and more.

At an upscale restaurant you would more than like see many remakes of traditional soul food and southern favorites. These modern meals will be more appealing to today's taste buds. In additional you'll see soul food fusion, the combination of African American, Caribbean and Jamaican cuisine. Lastly, on the menu you'll probably see NEO Soul Food aka New Soul Food prepared to fit the healthy lifestyle. These dishes contain less salt, fat, cholesterol and calories.

You'll be pleasantly surprised when eating at Cafeteria style restaurants, along with restaurants featuring buffets. Here you can taste and sample a variety of comfort foods including meats like smothered chicken, barbecue, meatloaf, fish; vegetables such as collard greens, cabbage, yams, okra; delectable desserts like peach cobbler, red velvet cake, pecan pie; and much more.

The Mom & Pop type restaurants will be limited to daily specials and lack variety when compared to large establishments. This can work out to your advantage because you'll always be served fresh vegetables and desserts with fruits that are in season.

Okay now is the time to take a break do some research and rush out to enjoy some soul food at a soul food restaurant near you. Just remember there are plenty of restaurants to choose from offering a variety of soul food menus. One word of caution all soul food restaurants are not created equal.

About the Author:
Linnen Hodo is a cook and food connoisseur. His website http://www.soulfoodandsoutherncooking.com features a collection of soul food recipes, restaurant reviews, cook book reviews and cooking tips.
For the latest soul food restaurant reviews in your area visit the Soul Food Restaurant Review Guide.
soulfoodandsoutherncooking@yahoo.com
This article was posted on August 21, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

Kitchen Treasures for Healthy and Beautiful Skin

Vegetable and spices are necessary in our kitchen. They play a vital part in our diet and nutrition. Now, you can even make your own beauty regimen out of those veggies and spices in your kitchen.

I listed some commonly known veggies and spices that can help in the maintenance of healthy and beautiful skin.

Almond- almond oil is good for treating dry skin and removing scars of old pimples and zits. Pour hot water on the almonds and allow them to soak until the skin comes off. Dry them and grind them into a powder. Keep this in a jar. Daily add a little milk to some of the powder and use the paste to cleanse the face by rubbing the skin gently with it. Almond powder can also be added to face packs.

Cabbage- is rich in vitamin and minerals. The water used in boiling cabbage can be used to rinse the face after washing.

Carrots- smashed carrot pulp makes good face packs.

Garlic- raw garlic is known to treat persistent pimples.

Oats- Oats are also highly absorptive, hypoallergenic, and help to soften skin. They have the best amino acid balance of all the cereal grains. Oats have also been clinically shown to help heal dry, itchy skin. The edible grains of a widely grown cereal grass, oats (avena sativa) appear in many beauty products. People appreciate their soothing, anti-inflammatory properties. Come to think of it, that's another childhood memory. When I got the chicken pox my mom popped me into an oatmeal and baking soda bath to relieve the itching. They have the best amino acid balance of all the cereal grains (amino acids work as water-binding agents in skin care products). Oats have also been clinically shown to help heal dry, itchy skin. Oat grains and straw appear in shampoos, dusting powders, moisturizers, and cleansing bars and that's just the start of a list!

Potatoes- apply grated potato as poultice to treat skin blemishes, pimples, boils, whiteheads and blackheads.

Radish- paste made from ground radish seeds is effective in removing blackheads. Grated white radish juice is used as a skin whitener.

Rice- paste made from rice powder is used as poultice to sooth bleeding pimples and other skin inflammations.

Sandalwood- sandalwood is known to treat pimples.

Tomato- red tomato pulps can be used to treat pimples. Good tomatoes are an abundant source of vitamins A, B (including folic acid), and C; potassium and magnesium; and valuable antioxidants and trace elements.

Turmeric- paste made from turmeric powder can be used to treat remove wrinkles, dark circles under the eyes, minor skin blemishes as well as prevent skin aging.

So there next time you go to your kitchen, look closely at your veggies and spices. Remember that your kitchen is a haven of natural beauty products that can actually save your skin.

About the Author:
Celeste Ashley
For more info on state-of-the-art acne treatments please click HERE
Submitted: 2006-10-19
Article Source: GoArticles

The Evolution Of Pizza

Trying to trace the history of the first pizza is a surprisingly controversial subject. Some claim that this popular food is based on early unleavened breads served in the early centuries in Rome. Others trace a connection from modern pizza back to the pita breads of Greece.

It's fairly well established that the first pizza as we know it today was created by a man named Raffaele Esposito from Naples, Italy. Esposito's creation was designed to honor the visit of Queen Margherita to Naples in 1889, and he decorated it with the colors of the Italian flag, using white cheese, green basil, and red tomatoes (tomatoes, which had arrived from the west about 60 years earlier, were originally thought to be poisonous, but by Esposito's time they were already embraced by Italian cuisine).

As the years passed and the turn of the century came about, Italian immigrants brought this recipe with them to America. The first pizzeria was opened in America in 1905. It remained popular almost exclusively among immigrants until the end of World War II, when American soldiers returned to their home soil and brought back a love of the pizza they had discovered overseas. With that, the pizza boom in America began and this food became a mainstream meal instead of an underground Italian snack.

The concentration of Italian immigrants in New York in those olden days explains the fact that many people feel you must visit New York to get true pizzeria-style pizza. It's where the pizza got its American start, after all. And nobody who has experienced New York style pizza can disagree. New York is famous for its pizzerias, where a true slice of pizza consists of a thin, wide crust loaded with plenty of toppings and marinara and smothered in heady Italian seasonings. A side of garlic bread and some heady pastas and tortellinis usually round out the menu. Pizzerias in New York are not for the faint of heart.

In the early 1940s, the city of Chicago, IL took pizza in a different direction. It is believed that the first pizzeria in Chicago was Pizzeria Uno, opened in 1943 by Ike Sewell. Sewell's pizza creation was a new twist on the old New York standard. He created what is known today as deep-dish pizza, where the pizza is sunk low into a deeper pan, and the crust is allowed to rise in thick bubbles around the edges. People flocked to Sewell's pizzeria, and a whole new way of looking at this favorite food was born.

To this day you can find yourself in some pretty heated debates if you argue with a New Yorker or a Chicagoan about what constitutes authentic pizzeria-style pizza. But whatever crust style you choose, pizza is a unique food with a foggy past and a definite appeal that has lasted through many incarnations.

So you're lucky enough to find yourself in New York or Chicago, or any city for that matter that has a true pizzeria, complete with checked tablecloths and plenty of garlic on the menu, indulge yourself in an old tradition and order a slice. After all, its tradition.

About the author:
Kirsten Hawkins is a food and nutrition expert specializing the Mexican, Chinese, and Italian food. Visit http://www.food-and-nutrition.com/ for more information on cooking delicious and healthy meals.
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Cooking Tips To Help You In The Kitchen

When you are cooking a meal, there are many things that can go wrong and many simple, household solutions to issues that arise that you may not know. To that end, we've written this article to discuss some simple hints that can make your time spent in the kitchen much easier.

- Did you burn food, and now the whole house smells of the terrible burning odor? Well, don't fret – there is a simple fix. Simply take a half of a cup of whole cloves and put them in a saucepan with two cups of water. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for twenty to thirty minutes. The house will now smell sweet due to this mixture.

- Flare-ups on the grill can be worrisome and dangerous. For that reason, it is important to minimize the risk of flare-ups while grilling. Any excess fat on cuts of meat that you are about to cook should be removed. Also, if you bring food to room temperature before placing it on the grill, you're more likely to cook it evenly.

- Need to check your grills temperature, but you don't have the feature on your grill? One simple test that you can perform is to hold your hand facing palms-down over the coals, roughly around where you will be cooking. You should count how long you can stand to keep your hand there as it will give you a rough estimation of the temperature. If you can only count to about two, the heat level is high, and it's best for cooking meat. If you're looking to grill vegetables, you should cook with a medium heat. If you can count to about four, the grill is the proper temperature. Be sure to keep it safe when you are performing this test.

- When baking cookies, it's tough to get them to turn out exactly round. There is an easy solution, however: after creating the dough, place it into empty concentrated juice cans and put it in the refrigerator. When you're ready to bake, just slice off the end of the can and push the dough through, slicing off cookies as you go. They should be perfectly round!

- Need to make your own croutons fast? There's an easy way to do it, and you probably have all the ingredients in your house! Cut slices of bread into cubes that are three quarters of an inch. Place them on a baking tray and add cooking spray and garlic powder. Broil the tray for roughly three minutes, and there you go! Try adding different spices to suit your individual fancy.

About the Author:
Kadence Buchanan writes articles on many topics including Women, Beauty, and Women’s Health
Posted: 24-09-2006
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com