Content about Entertainment
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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The British television star that has inspired us time and again
The River Cottage TV show begins with a ridiculously cheesy cartoon showing a curly haired driver fleeing a polluted city for an idyllic paradise, complete with jumping fish, smiling cows, and some friendly pigs. During the course of three seasons of River Cottage and the many years of spinoffs, host Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall manages to kill and eat every single one of those creatures and many, many more. This isn't some hippie feel-...
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May 14, 2010
We need your help
Last night I made the best batch of biscuits and gravy ever. That's not something I ever thought I'd say out loud, but I cannot tell a lie. I started with some homemade breakfast sausage, which formed the base of a sensational gravy. The buttermilk biscuits were baked from scratch. It was nearly perfect.
The problem? The biscuits didn't rise, or at least not enough. I followed a fairly well respected cookbook author, but my...
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May 13, 2010
Forget hollandaise: this will blow your mind
I recently stumbled on an essay called The Power of the Hot Vinaigrette in Michael Symon's new cookbook. "Cold vinaigrettes are excellent," he writes, "but add one to the hot pan you've sauteed some shrimp in, and the blended acid and oil will pick up all the flavor of the bits of protein and sugars that have stuck to the pan." He advocates for pan sauces to be vinaigrette-based, rather than stock-based. "I...
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May 12, 2010
The Turf Club is an ancestor to the martini: less shockingly dry, and a little more vivacious
Do you remember your first Martini? Mine came while I was still working as a waiter. After a long, hard shift, all of us would sit around a table and get one free drink before heading home. Usually I went for the coldest beer I could fine, but that day I held my head high and ordered a Martini. It felt good to say it out loud, and it arrived all handsome and clean with a single olive in it. It was beautiful, which didn't initially mean...
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March 30, 2010
How to make better bangers
As I was digging into making my own British bangers for my Full English Breakfast challenge, I kept stumbling onto the same sad story which may or may not be complete bullshit: During the early 20th century thanks to two World Wars, meat was scarce in England and pork sausages were padded with some grains and extra liquid to help stretch the meat reserves. When cooked, these padded sausages had the tendency to burst out of their...
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March 4, 2010
A tastier and quicker version of the classic.
I'm tired of people lying about cassoulet. Every recipe I've ever read calls it a "peasant dish," and the fact is, cassoulet is really, really expensive to make. You need duck confit, which, if you don't buy pre-made, costs you either in the form of overpriced duck fat or the need to buy a whole duck to render it yourself. Then, you need fancy sausage, preferably the garlicky "Toulouse" variety, which is...
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December 14, 2009
Best of the beef.
When Blake and I sat back and looked at what food obsessed us in 2009, we noticed an unusual interest in beef. Pork is still the hippest meat around, and praise for beef sometimes seems limited to talk about steaks or short ribs. We wrote about both of those cuts this year, but we did it our way. We also managed to dress up mounds of round, tenderize brisket, turn chuck into the tender foundation of chili, and wax poetic about the...
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October 22, 2009
Why every American should drink more cider.
Currently Blake and I have four gallons of apple cider fermenting in the back of his bedroom closet. The hope is that in a few days, thanks to some hungry yeast, we'll have something that might resemble hard apple cider. We're honestly nervous. We've undertaken ridiculous experiments before, but nothing that could potentially get us hammered. If it works, then we'll have made an alcoholic drink for less than it costs to buy...
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October 14, 2009
Nick gives kimchi his best shot.
Though Blake was thrilled to jump right into this Kimchi-making process, I dragged my feet the whole way. It's not that I don't love kimchi. That's far from the case. It's just that I've been really happy with the jars of kimchi I've been buying from the Korean market. Uncovering the ways of kimchi, however enlightening the process may be, would sort of remove the magic from the whole experience and turn what...
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September 24, 2009
Make both of those at home.
The tomatoes were turning on me. A few weeks ago they were red and rosy, destined for a starring role in a BLT. Now, I'm not sure if they can withstand the scrutiny of the spotlight. They are still light years beyond what appears during the winter here in the Midwest, but not quite the ones you can slice up, sprinkle with salt, and eat raw. I kind of wish I would have known this before I bought a huge batch of them at the farmers market...
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August 10, 2009
How the most chickeny chicken dish imaginable.
Every morning we would roast thirty-six chickens just for their juices, rather than for the meat...Thirty-six chicken provided enough juices for thirty portions of freshly cooked chicken. In other words, the customer had the juice of more than one whole chicken accompanying his dish...It was extreme.
- Marco Pierre White, Devil in the Kitchen
The flavor of natural roasting juices...cannot be surpassed.
- James Peterson, Sauces
I...
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June 16, 2009
How to save money in the stylish Spanish city.
While Nick has been saving the world with quick no-soak-beans and investigating the roots of Wisconsin bratwurst (part of my family is from Wisconsin and I hope to weigh in with strong opinions on the subject sooner than later), I've been on the run, away from a kitchen, squeezing every trip out of Europe I can afford. Which isn't much at the moment. But a lack of cash didn't deter us from enjoying some of the best...
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April 30, 2009
Nick throws a perfect Derby party.
The authentic Julep is a drink from the Heroic Age of American Tippling, and as such is not for novices. That's perhaps the chief reason it's fallen out of favor in these weak-livered times.
- David Wondrich
I'll get to the julep soon enough. But first I want to talk about the Kentucky Derby. Though I grew up on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, I don't care much about the Indy 500. I lived far...
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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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May 21, 2008
Moving beyond pico de gallo into real authentic territory
I thought I knew everything there was to know about salsa. Tomatoes, garlic, onions, jalapenos, lime juice, salt. Chop, mix, serve. It’s an enormous pain, but the alternative (jarred salsa) just doesn’t compare. Taking the time to chop is a noble pursuit.
That was until Blake visited last weekend. What he threw together in a matter of minutes turned blood red and clung to every chip like it...
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December 11, 2006
If that means eating 5 lunches in one day, so be it.
Honestly, there's a real need for these signs. When we were venturing around the mercado square in San Antonio, a land of slightly schlocky and catchpenny Mexican crafts, every third vendor warned against this practice, where gringo, giggling tourists pretended to experience Mexican culture by putting on outrageous hats and saying "Arriba, Arriba" like Speedy Gonzalez. How to avoid this tomfoolery?
With a...
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Yes, you read right: beer shakes
We asked Schnack what the beer shake recipe was, and they said they use 3 oz. of ice cream mixed with 3 oz. of dark beer. We went with the cheapest vanilla we could find and a six pack of McSorley's ale, which is pretty cheap and basically tasty. On second thought, a dark stout might have been the better choice--Guiness is practically a milkshake anyway. The carbonation in our version made it hard to blend, and the flat...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
