Welcome to the Idea Lab, where we explore topics before we head into the kitchen. We welcome your thoughts, opinions, and ideas, so please leave them in the comments!
Is duck confit a lie? According to Dr. Myhrvold, who runs Intellectual Ventures in Seattle, the technique is actually rather pointless.
...confit, the French technique of cooking slowly in fat, is supposed to impart a uniq...
I've done more traveling this year than any other on record. And what better way to really dig into a place and gracefully breach the tricky tourist barrier than by eating where the locals do? It's often the reason Elin and I get on a plane in the first place, and if it's not, then much obsessing is done anyway. We conduct research so that no meal will be wasted, no chance for pleasure los...
With the time change and a long flight ahead of us, we have to leave by 4pm just to arrive home in New York at midnight (Correction: arrive in Newark. I'm never doing that again). With a morning left and having had scarce time to explore Olympia itself, we asked Scott exactly what to do with the remaining hours. “Well, there’s this Mexican taco truck,” he said casually. And it wa...
The one plan we made before we arrived in Seattle was hang out in Pike's Place Market, a giant, touristy market on the waterfront that specializes in seafood. Though other places were recommended, we only had a day and didn't want to miss it. We also wanted to eat lunch there, and it quickly became obvious where we would eat: a place called Matt’s in the Market, the unanimous recommendat...
I didn’t realize it until I’d checked my bag, removed my shoes, been frisked, walked onto the plane, stowed my baggage, sat down, belted up--until the plane itself had taken off--that a flight to Seattle is not a couple hours away. No, it’s on the other side of the country, over the Northeast, Midwest, the giant state of Nebraska, past both Dakotas and Montana--over five hours by plane...