Then, coming on six o'clock, Mr. Myhrvold, the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft and an inventor with hundreds of patents to his name, came in, wearing chef's whites, and ushered us into dinner. Boy, people eat early around here, I thought. Little did I know I would be eating non-stop for the next three hours. (previously: 1,2) [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Jun 28, 2011 -
31 comments
What follows is a D.I.Y. cooking starter kit: small kitchen projects that any cook can tackle. What they all have in common is that they are simple, season-less and a clear improvement on the store-bought version. Includes: Chinese Chili-Scallion Oil, Chocolate-Hazelnut Paste, Corn Muffin Mix, Crème Fraîche, Cultured Butter, Fresh Cheese, Horseradish Beer, Mustard, Kimchi ,Maple Vinegar, Preserved Lemons, Tesa (Cold-Cured Pork Belly), Tomato Chili Jam, Vin d'Orange
posted by AceRock
on May 25, 2011 -
43 comments
Welcome to Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages On these pages, I present solid information on (currently) 117 different spice plants. Emphasis is on their usage in ethnic cuisines, particularly in Asia; furthermore, I discuss their history, chemical constituents, and the etymology of their names. Last but not least, there are numerous photos featuring the live plants or the dried spices.
posted by halcyon_daze
on Mar 18, 2011 -
28 comments
Today marks the exit of The Minimalist from the pages of the Dining section, as a weekly column at least. There may be return appearances, but the unbroken string of more than 13 years and nearly 700 columns ends here. (I’m not leaving the Times family; more about that in a minute.) (previously)
posted by Joe Beese
on Jan 26, 2011 -
51 comments
19th-century newspaper ads for patented stomach cures and digestive aids [...] foregrounded mince pie as the K2 of digestive summits. But for every published warning on the dangers of mince, the newspapers published a poem, essay, or editorial praising it as a great symbol of American cultural heritage or a nostalgic reminder of mother love and better times bygone—or even, as the State of Columbia, South Carolina, asserted in 1901, a beneficial Darwinian instrument that had "thinned out the weak ones" among the pioneering generations.
So wrote Cliff Doerksen in his wonderful, James Beard award-winning article
Mince Pie: The Real American Pie. Doerksen not only gives the history of this once most American of foods, he also makes two mince pies from 19th Century recipes to see if they are indeed all that. This is but one of many great articles Doerksen wrote for The Chicago Reader in recent years (links to a selection below the cut). Sadly, Cliff Doerksen
passed at the age of 47 just before Christmas.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 29, 2010 -
73 comments
Take oysters, parboile hem in her owne broth, make a lyour of crustes of brede & drawe it up wiþ the broth and vynegur mynce oynouns & do þerto with erbes. & cast the oysters þerinne. boile it. & do þerto powdour fort & salt. & messe it forth.
Three European
14th Century cookbooks:
[more inside]
posted by thirteenkiller
on Dec 27, 2010 -
46 comments
Cool little video profile of Chad Robertson, co-owner, with his wife, Elisabeth Prueitt, of San Francisco's Tartine bakery. Chad is obsessed with
bread.
[more inside]
posted by AceRock
on Dec 10, 2010 -
16 comments
Top 10s of 2010.
Each Saturday, we pore through our favorite tips and tricks to find 10 great hacks surrounding any subject, from food and thumb drives to browsers and Wi-Fi. Here are our most popular Top 10s of 2010.
posted by nickyskye
on Dec 9, 2010 -
15 comments
Why Are There No Great Women Chefs? In 2007 Michelin awarded French chef Anne-Sophie Pic three stars, making her only the fourth woman in her country’s history to receive that honor (fifty years had passed since the last of her sex had garnered that third sparkler).2 The following year, in the United Kingdom, it was considered breaking news when ten female chefs won any Michelin stars at all...[For] the 2009 James Beard Awards gala... “Women in Food” was the chosen motif, but since only sixteen of the evening’s ninety-six nominees were, in fact, women, it seemed like a cruel joke. In the end, only two of those sixteen went home victorious, out of nineteen winners total...[I]n Bravo tv’s Top Chef Masters competition, a paltry three out of twenty-four American “Masters” were women. [via 3 Quarks Daily]
posted by caddis
on Dec 6, 2010 -
131 comments
What do you get when you combine two pounds of bacon with two pounds of Italian sausage carefully crafted into a woven log of artery clogging doom?
The Bacon Explosion.
posted by quin
on Nov 18, 2010 -
92 comments
Another kind of cookbook. For a couple years now, as evidenced by this old
English cookbook, or this old
French cookbook, or this even older
Italian cookbook, recipes have been conveyed with language. Fitting with our age of copious visual information, Katie Shelly has made a cookbook using just illustrations. Eat your heart out.
posted by From Bklyn
on Nov 16, 2010 -
24 comments
Rob Levitt of Mado in Chicago
butchering a pig. 19
more videos submitted by chefs and butchers to
Protein University, a project that aims to "create an online resource populated with a family tree of butchery techniques from whole animal breakdowns to sausage making from across the globe".
[more inside]
posted by AceRock
on Oct 14, 2010 -
15 comments
Chris Kimball prepares a 12-course meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 cookbook. Using only a coal stove and other authentic Victorian-era kitchen staples, the chef
, who lives in Fannie Farmer's former home, recreated a classic holiday Victorian meal from her iconic 1896 cookbook.
The twelve courses included: "rissoles (filled and fried puff pastry), mock turtle soup with fried brain balls, lobster à l’Américaine, roast goose with chestnut stuffing and jus, wood-grilled salmon, roast saddle of venison, Canton punch, three molded Victorian jellies and a spectacular French-inspired Mandarin cake."
Chris Kimball is the creator of public television's
America's Test Kitchen) and
Cook's Illustrated. Naturally, he chronicled the experience in a book, aptly titled,
Fannie's Last Supper. In it, he offers some moden adaptations of Fannie Farmer's recipes. A film depicting the difficulties of authentically re-creating the meal airs this Fall.
posted by misha
on Oct 6, 2010 -
45 comments
Here's the conceit: Build a single wood fire and, over the course of 30-plus hours, use it to roast, braise, bake, simmer and grill as many different dishes as possible — for lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch again.
The 36-Hour Dinner Party by Michael Pollan
posted by AceRock
on Oct 6, 2010 -
35 comments
Got a lot of tomatoes? Looking for some thing different to DIY? How about
DIY ketchup? "Whether it's pickles or preserves, DIY food is all the rage. But when I told a group of food-loving friends that I was planning to make my own ketchup, their response was muted. First, there was an awkward pause. Then, one piped up with the question that everyone must have been thinking: Why? Ketchup, apparently, is an exception to the everything-is-better-if-you-make-it-yourself ethos. "
posted by Xurando
on Aug 11, 2010 -
61 comments
Cooking Issues (mentioned here and here previously), from French Culinary Institute Instructors Dave Arnold (
previously) and Nils Norén (former Executive Chef at NYC's Aquavit and
Top Chef Masters participant) is a blog exploring cutting-edge cooking techniques. While some techniques they describe require expensive and specialized equipment like
liquid nitrogen dewars, a
1750°F custom-made loggerhead (also profiled
here), a wet grinder (for
ketchup "chocolate", of course!), or a
turkey whose leg bones have been replaced with aluminum tubes through which an immersion circulator pumps hot oil, many others are well within the reach of the motivated home cook:
gin-infused cucumbers,
clarifying lime juice with agar,
using enzymes to dissolve citrus pith for zest and supremes,
quick-infusing liquor with a whipped cream maker, or making the world's best french fries (
part 1,
part 2). Here they are demonstrating some of their techniques on
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
[more inside]
posted by joshuaconner
on Aug 11, 2010 -
25 comments
Alexis Soyer lived quite an an amazing life. According to his
wiki, he "was a French chef who became the most celebrated cook in Victorian England" who also "during the Great Irish Famine in April 1847, ... invented the soup kitchen and was asked by the Government to go to Ireland to implement his idea. This was opened in Dublin and his "
famine soup" was served to thousands of the poor for free. Whilst in Ireland he wrote Soyer's Charitable Cookery. He gave the proceeds of the book to various charities. He also opened an art gallery in London, and donated the entrance fees to charity to feed the poor." And then there is also the remarkable story of
Soyer's Magic Stove.
posted by puny human
on Jul 30, 2010 -
16 comments
