Imagine my delight while on a routine Internet surf session, I stumbled upon a gem of a recipe: the ooey-gooey double-chocolate cookies at Milk, a Los Angeles café and dessert hangout just down the street from my favorite breakfast place (Eggs Benedict with Cabernet hollandaise), BLD.

This is one serious cookie, with a whole pound of bittersweet chocolate (and 1/4 pound of unsweetened chocolate) yielding roughly 15 to 18 cookies. They’re slightly underbaked to preserve the ooey-gooey part, and they’re rich – right at the brink of a sensory overload with every bite. My hat is off to you if you can eat more than one.

So the problem here is not in the cookie’s taste. The problem is the way these delectable confections photograph, which is, to put it plainly, not good. To the camera, they look like cowpies, especially right out of the oven. I’ve tried to dress them up in a number of ways to no avail: putting them in a decorative jar, artfully arranging them on a plate, shaping them into round, uniform patties. It’s a mortal sin that something as fantastic as these would look like literal pieces of crap.

My little cowpies aren’t alone in the ugly-food category. There are plenty of other tasty tidbits that the camera disapproves of. Beigefood, for example. Almost anything devoid of colorful veggies or fruit, usually fried and slathered in gravy, does not a pretty picture make. This category also includes anything that looks like it was prepared on an airplane, in a hospital or for a cruise ship buffet. (A plate of chicken fried steak, biscuits, mashed potatoes and country gravy fits this definition to a T.)

Mexican combo platters: Order one of these at any number of Mexican restaurants, and it’ll come sided by refried beans with a plasticky sheet of cheddar and Jack cheeses. Everything else is generously slathered in a red or green sauce. Even if the plate is adorned with a wilted stem of curly-leaf parsley and the ubiquitous, single black olive (or, at some of the true hole-in-the-walls, a fractional sliver of black olive), the resulting photo is on par with the resulting heartburn due after the meal.

Hummus: Love it, but it looks like vomit. Bless our hearts for trying to dress it up with a dusting of paprika.

Spinach and artichoke dip: Adding diced tomatoes to this dish — especially when they’re out of season and practically translucent — helps some in a photo, but not much.

I could go on, but I won’t. (But feel free to link and comment with some of your not-so-photogenic foods). Anyway, please trust me, these cookies are to die for. Click on this link for the recipe from the LA Times Web site.

– Cynthia Furey

It wasn’t until recently that I could eat an Insalata Caprese as is – without picking around the tomatoes for everything else. Over time, I had somehow developed an aversion to whole tomatoes. And a trip to Whole Foods provided evidence that people out there share my tomato mentality: The Insalata on the buffet had been picked clean of all mozzarella.

Lately though, the salad has won me over based on looks alone (Insalata caprese, though simple, is gorgeous), and I’ve been able to at least recognize and appreciate the role of the tomato in the dish. They’re good. Cherry tomatoes especially.

Insalata Caprese is easy as a salad, or can double as an equally simple passed hors d’oeuvres when skewered. I use cherry tomatoes on the vine, as well as bocconcini mozzarella, which are roughly the same size as the tomatoes. Because of that factor alone, they make for an elegant presentation with little effort – all you have to do is halve them. And echoing what everyone else says about the salad, use good olive oil. It makes a world of difference. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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I know we’re truly in the thick of winter when I bust out the papillote recipes left and right. The season and the dish remind me of each other: both bursting with warmth and comfort on the inside, like what I would imagine a family home with central heating and a fireplace would feel like. Since my apartment doesn’t have either of those, I cook en papillote to give me that same feeling of perceived warmth, and for the most part, it’s achieved, albeit on a much smaller scale. My toes are still frozen and I’m a blanket mummy, but my stomach is a happy camper, as warm as can be.

Papillote is a one-shot dish in which you place raw ingredients on a sheet of parchment paper, wrap them up like a parcel and cook the whole thing in the oven. The parchment essentially steams everything into a vibrantly flavored meal, trapping in all the aromas and juices that would have otherwise escaped in baking or sauteeing.

And perhaps what I love most about the cooking method is that it’s almost wrong how good the dish is, considering that it doesn’t adhere to the age-old notion of “the tougher the job, the greater the reward.” It’s quite the opposite — the result is exponentially greater than the minimal effort going into it. Conclusion? George Allen has probably never had the pleasure of cooking en papillote.

Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for two papillote recipes.

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Our beautiful America was built on the promise of golden mountains, golden opportunities and Golden Arches, the latter being a big reason why the rest of the world thinks we’re a nation of excess. And for the most part, they couldn’t be more right.

Consider the Bacon Explosion, a recipe developed by competitive ‘cuers from Kansas City: Two pounds of bacon, two pounds of sausage, some barbecue sauce, more bacon, all smoked and sliced like it’s a Christmas ham. It caused quite the Internet stir, resulting in The New York Times dedicating journalistic manpower to produce a full-length story on the meat beast. And on the BBQ Addict’s Web site (where the recipe originated), there are hundreds of comments.

Competitive eating is also gaining popularity (Joey Chestnut, photo above). Eating contests were once events reserved for backyards and drunken parties, but lo, they boast a global headquarters for all those worldwide who want to take excess to a professional level. Blogs have popped up with schedules of contests small and large, and many of them document their own, non-IFOCE-sanctioned contests.

We also love Guinness culinary record-breakers, most recently the world’s largest cheesecake in Mexico City (which, incidentally, The Wall Street Journal has deemed the “World’s Greatest Food City”).

Like many Americans turn to a tub of Haagen Dazs when we’re feeling blue, it seems the rest of the world is right there with us. This may have something to do with denial for the current economic state – though we’re down, we’re not out, and we’re going to eat heartily to prove it. Cost will not stop us. A lot of cash was funneled into that two-ton cheesecake, and bacon is not cheap. Though the cost of butter, sugar, flour and chocolate have risen substantially, people still stage cookie-eating contests at dinner tables and festivals across the nation. Excess used to be frowned upon, but as a nation we’ve wrapped our arms warmly around the concept. It’s a form of comfort. It’s not a bad thing.

Those against excess will think this is an appalling shift in the way we’ve been eating. It’s body-taxing to sit down and eat 3 days’ worth of calories in a single bacon roll, and it’s unpleasant to watch a body react by rejecting 50 Oreo cookies or hot dogs or what have you. For the naysayers, I offer a glimmer of optimism: Aren’t we always saying that things get worse before they get better? Maybe we’ve hit culinary rock-bottom. Maybe there are better things to come.

For the enthusiasts, I say that this is your time to shine. There is no other time I can think of — save for these historical occasions — where excess is as accepted as it is now. The human body is resilient. Do your thing, as I will do mine. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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