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June 8, 2011
Ginger, Lemon, Sugar, Yeast...and 24 hours.
File this one under projects that seem a lot harder than they actually are.
A week or two ago, my wife tore out a couple pages in the New York Times Style magazine about a shop in Melbourne, Australia that combines style, bespoke fashion, and great food under one roof called Captains of Industry (here it is as an interactive online feature). Besides all the cool ideas and wavelengths that must bounce around in that shop, they...
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February 28, 2011
From Bone Marrow to Saffron
Learning how to make risotto at home was one of the more liberating experiences of my early culinary career. The idea that I could create a perfectly legitimate risotto by just buying arborio rice and stirring like mad, was enough to make me wonder what else I couldn’t cook. I’m not going to say it single-handedly helped launch this blog and my writing career, but it was crucial. It was the moment that I looked around the...
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February 5, 2011
They are having a contest over at food52 for the best way to pit olives. Knife whack or meat pounder thwack?
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January 23, 2011
Just got back from an expo at the Trump Chicago featuring Australian products and purveyors. This has got to be thousands of dollars worth of truffles! (Click picture to zoom in). They served them shaved in a silky celeriac (celery root) puree. Terrific, and way out of my price range.
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January 22, 2011
Ever wonder where marshmallows come from?
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2011/01/its-a-marshmallow-world/
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A delicious formula for making homemade pickles
Pickling vegetables is something that I’ve yet to get real excited about. Of all the "DIY" food movements, it’s one of the last to catch on. Why, I don’t know. Probably because a slab of homemade bacon is a lot more exciting than a jar of tangy vegetables. Which is no mark against the vegetables. Most anything next to a slab of bacon is bound to lose terribly.
But actually, pickling is rather easy when it comes...
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November 3, 2009
Thoughts about our first batch of cider.
There is no feeling in the world like popping open a batch of cider and realizing what you have created alcohol. It's really hard to describe. We've made all kinds of recipes before, including some meals that have taken days to prepare. But alcohol always seemed a little unreal, and dangerous. Making alcohol always felt too technical and lab-like. And if you're brewing beer, that's sort of true: you'll need a...
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October 29, 2009
Our guide to turning apple juice into booze.
As we realized on our last post, it was time to stop talking emphatically about the cultural significance of cider, and start getting to the business of making it. Though we had read more websites, emails, and books than we could know what to do with, we were still confused, and more importantly, l didn't have a solid recipe. It was beginning to be a problem.
At its simplest, hard apple cider is pressed and strained apples that are...
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October 20, 2009
And the best kimchi award goes to...
After a tasting of both kimchi projects, the results are in. We have a winner!
It wasn't easy to decide: there were things about Nick's kimchi that were better, and things about Blake's Kimchi that were better. We went back and forth about who should take the title. We tasted, waited, tasted again.
First, the recipes. Though our recipes were similar, there were some crucial differences:
Blake used a lot more salted shrimp...
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April 13, 2009
Does it have anything to do with hunting?
On Thursday the New York Times published an op-ed piece written by a Texas historian named James E. McWilliams called "Free-Range Trichinosis," which argues that the public's perception of free-range pork has been misguided. On the contrary to our idyllic view of healthy, happy animals, the "free-range option can pose a heightened health threat to consumers." Citing a study which claimed free-range pork...
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January 19, 2006
This is the easiest recipe this side of Dominoes, it’s pretty gourmet, and if you can boil water, you’re 83 percent there.
One thing I’ve found difficult about cooking is that it’s really hard to start when you’re hungry--you have to plan ahead. Once you get started you get your momentum going, and there’s always ingredients to snack on, but it’s the getting started that proves difficult. The inertia works against you at first. Since I get lazy when I get hungry, I end up heating canned soup.
This evening, with...
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