On the topic of recession gardening, though, I’ll mention a book that every impoverished gourmet should read - Lean Years, Happy Years, by Angelo Pellegrini - essentially a manifesto for downturn inspired reconnection with food sources. Get it for free from your library or buy a used copy.

Simply Recipes has an authoritative round-up on Super Bowl recipes featuring everything from classics (potato skins, hot wings, various and sundry dips) to the truly frightening. Okay, so I was honestly curious about the Beer Cheese Cupcakes with Bacon Cheddar Frosting — if that’s not a manly dessert, what is? — but then I saw the “beer” in question: Budweiser Select. What’s a sell-respecting beer drinking to do? Guiness cupcakes, of course.

They recommend Ikea as a good source for good-quality pots & pans and utensils on a budget, which can be true, but they’re forgetting the best place of all: your friendly neighborhood kitchen supply shop.

Via Slashfood.

The recipes in Cooking with Booze lean towards traditional English fare, with a few adventurous side trips abroad. Some recipes that piqued my interest were Potato Salad with Beer Dressing, Whisky Pancakes, Brandy-baked Brie, and Roast Pork with Apple Stuffing and Cider Sauce.

You can buy the book (obligatory Amazon.com link), or you can view it in it’s entirety online, with the occasional video.

Quite a few of the recipes call for olives — which you should never, ever buy at the grocery store, unless your store has a particularly good olive bar and you’re short on time. Buying canned or jarred olives at the grocery store is somewhere below putting your money into a little pile and burning it for warmth on the scale of fiscal sanity. Any moderately-sized community will have at least one Greek or Mediterranean specialty store, and any respectable Greek or Mediterranean store will sell gallon jars of good-quality olives for under $20. Compare that to the $8 you’ll spend on a 8 or 12 oz jar at the grocery store. Do the math — I’ll wait. Mmmhmm….convinced?