Food
April 23, 2012
It's been awhile.
As many of you have noticed, it's been quite a while since we posted on the site. For that—and mostly for the lack of any news—we apologize. The story of our absence isn't as exciting as we'd like it to be. Basically, due to new jobs for the both of us, we've been busy. Really busy. So we took a little break from posting while we focused on jobs that pay money. Obviously, a note saying so would have been the...
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October 28, 2011
Tote bags! Autographed bookplates! Paw prints!
Pardon the shameless shill for a moment, but we're both pretty excited about this. As most of you probably know, Blake and I have been writing the Dinner Tonight column over at Serious Eats for well over four years. That's a lot of weeknight dinners. But our history with the site actually goes back to the very beginning. (Here is one very old article that we both wrote if you need some proof.) This is all just a way of...
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October 25, 2011
Rules for success, including porchetta
Ed. note: This is the third post in a "Repertoire" series on the interplay of food and style, with our friends The Midwestyle. We're helping their readers learn a few recipes, and they're teaching us a few things about doing it in style.
To say you’re an accomplished person is putting it lightly. That time you summited Kilimanjaro during a snow storm. The month you took a vow of silence. The day all the...
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October 19, 2011
The Paupered Chef officially endorses the convenient practice.
I, Nick Kindelsperger, wholeheartedly endorse the practice of freezing chicken stock in ice cube trays. Doing so allows one to crack them into zip-lock bags and stash them in the freezer for safe keeping. It is convenient, fairly easy to do, and downright practical (in a slightly embarrassing way). Of course, the problem with dishing out little kitchen tips and tricks like this one is that there are enough of them to make even the most...
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October 17, 2011
Just a little love for laborious cooking projects.
The older I get, the more I appreciate the un-simple things. Sure, I admire the shining brilliance of singularly perfect foods — like the best summer tomatoes or a properly aged steak — but I'm far more interested in dishes that combine dozens of components into a complex and bewildering whole. I speak of Mexican moles, feisty Thai salads, balanced Indian curries, and, of course, a certain Creole dish I've been in love...
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October 13, 2011
An Argument for Grains and Vegetables
I’ve worked enough days in my life, from my desk at home to mind-numbing office temp gigs, to have developed some theories on lunch. To me, the working lunch is a series of balances: it should be fast, yet not fast-food; it should be a break from work, but not so indulgent you can’t get moving again; it should be fulfilling, but not a cause of sluggishness. Lunch should work for you, but so often it’s the other way around...
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October 5, 2011
Announcing a collaboration for the month of October
We’re happy to announce a new collaboration between The Paupered Chef and some fellow friends and bloggers of ours in Chicago: The Midwestyle. It’s a great blog, and thorough. Ostensibly about dressing well on a budget, it’s really about caring: how you look, how you think, how you act like a young man in this here century of ours. We feel an affinity with their go-get-em energy, the same early-20s stuff that...
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September 5, 2011
One dessert it doesn't hurt to have in the repertoire
It's probably become clear to most readers that this is not a food blog where you read about desserts, and for that matter, about baking at all. There's a good reason. We're no good at it.
Cupcakes and chocolate cakes and other frivolous foods are the specialty of other writers. Besides a post or two about bread (we're pretty proud of our olive-and-herb-studded foccacia and the lengths explored for the perfect...
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August 22, 2011
Saving andouille from the supermarket.
This didn't start off as a gumbo mission, though I did end up there (more to come on that front soon.) No, the saga began simply: about three weeks ago I needed andouille for a Dinner Tonight. All I could find at the grocery store was a product that claimed to be the right stuff, but had all the character of cheap bologna and about as much spice as, well, cheap bologna. I was angry.
Then I drank too much whiskey and started to dream...
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August 2, 2011
Adventures with buttered toast, ripe tomatoes, and Duke's mayonnaise.
Most people return from the beach with tans; I returned with tomatoes. It was a half-bushel, to be exact, and they were stashed in the back of a car as it wound its way from North Carolina, through the Great Smoky Mountains, and, some 16 hours later, finally to Chicago. Why such extravagant measures for tomatoes?
When it comes to tomatoes, I don't suffer fools, and I simply can't accept sub-par specimens. I shun fresh ones except...
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July 22, 2011
No offense, but you're probably doing it wrong
There's a lot of misconception when it comes to "barbecue." The problem is the word itself. It's used as a synonym for grilling, refers to the grill itself, or to the meat being grilled; it also has a sauce named after it; and sometimes it's just the word for the party itself held outdoors in somebody's backyard. What, actually, is "barbecue"?
American purists see things a little differently. To them...
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July 8, 2011
Cooking from Chicago's New Dose Market, Happening Again This Sunday
The Italian bean salad has been with me a long time, and for good reason. I've made some variation of beans, herbs, and olive oil dozens of times over the past few years and I never get tired of it. When it comes to the relationship between deliciousness and effort, this one gets it exactly right. It's about as easy as mixing the ingredients together and letting the flavors develop, then it's ready to bring to...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
