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I read about this on Slashfood yesterday, but here's a more detailed item from a New York Times blog: Chef Grant Achatz, who owns the noted restaurant Alinea in Chicago and was chosen as one of Food & Wine's "Best New Chefs" in 2002, has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth.
Some quick reading indicates that early stage cancers of this type have a very high success rate for treatment, but that trails off significantly as the cancer advances. The stories I've read don't give a lot of exact details except to say "advanced", so his prognosis may only be so-so. He is 33 years old. Tough news for anyone, but especially ironic for a chef, who relies on his palate as much as his hands to perfect his craft. I hope his outcome is a positive one.
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Since I seem to have a theme going this week, here's a food blogger who's pushing the fusion idea into a somewhat unexpected space: he's making BBQ chicken sushi (via).
The recipe for the barbecue sauce he gives is actually a pretty basic soy-ginger-garlic sort of affair, so the flavors stay in the usual Asian palate. And, as you can see from the photos, he didn't get too extravagant with the other items for the rolls, but I could imagine using some avocado or some cucumber. If you wanted to be really clever about it, you could do some pieces using the traditional sweet scrambled egg cake and do "chicken and egg" sushi.
He says to use thighs, and ordinarily I am all about using chicken thighs, but if you wanted to make nigiri sushi like in the photo above, you might have better luck getting perfectly-shaped pieces if you used boneless breasts pounded out to an even thickness.
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Continuing on our Japanese Cuisine theme from yesterday, here is a great food blog post about a visit by the blogger to one of the premiere soba noodle makers in Japan. The post has a lot of large images in it, so it will probably be quite slow to load for you, but be patient because it's worth it.
It's typically not too difficult to find packaged soba noodles in supermarkets these days, but you can also buy them online readily. As the blog post makes clear, making them by hand takes a fair amount of skill and practice compared to, say, Italian ribbon-shaped pastas, which are much more amenable to beginner cooks. The traditional recipe of soba served with a little soy-mirin dipping sauce is a great accompanyment as part of a Japanese menu. I usually stir-fry up some veggies (whatever is on hand) and toss plain, cooked soba with the veggies in a sauce of soy, rice wine, chili garlic sauce and hoisin; I know that's sort of a mish-mash of Japanese and Chinese, but the end result is pretty damn good.
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I really like wasabi. To me, one of the signs of a superior sushi place is the sinus-clearing, head-rushing quality of the little dollop of wasabi paste they give you with your order. If I have to trowel on a big layer of wasabi paste on my nigiri sushi just to taste it, then I probably won't be buying sushi from that particular place again.
You may or may not know that most of the wasabi powder used to make the paste in sushi restaurants in this country has very little, if any, real wasabi in it at all. Usually, the powder is just extra-strong white horseradish with some green coloring added. Other times, there will be a miniscule amount of real wasabi included as well.
Apparently, the wasabi rhizome is difficult to grow, difficult to harvest, and extremely perishable, which explains why we don't get a lot of real wasabi. But this company grows "sawa" wasabi in places like Oregon and Washington and Tennessee (!), and sells whole fresh rhizomes online as well as wasabi powder and a few wasabi-based food products. (via)
Since the rhizomes sell for $45 a pound and you have to buy at least one pound, I don't suppose it's terribly likely that anyone other than a high-end sushi restaurant buys much fresh. A pound of fresh wasabi probably makes enough processed wasabi to last a lifetime. Luckily, the powdered variety comes in a more manageable and affordable amount.
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Try to say that five times fast, I dare ya!
Yesterday the New York Times had this story about French cheesemaker François Durand and his crusade to prevent the large commercial manufacturers of Camembert from coercing the French government to change the AOC certification for that cheese to allow the use of treated milk.
The cheese maunfacturers would like the certification to allow either raw OR treated milk so that they do not have to sacrifice their designation. Durand argues that this will result in a near-total loss of traditional Camembert, and threatens all raw-milk-based cheese production in France.
The move on the part of the commercial manufacturers is in part based on American restrictions on importation of non-pasteurized cheese products, as well as pressure from French supermarkets to promote "safe" food products. But, given the food culture in France, the opposition is strong and taken seriously by the government. So, for the moment, the battle rages on and, unlike the American chocolate manufacturer's attempt to permit oil in place of dairy, not a guaranteed win for the industrial giants.
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Very nice blog post at Serious Eats yesterday about using vermouth in cooking, and why vermouth gets such a bad rap.
The poster says that the bad reputation comes from vermouth sitting on the shelf without being used. Vermouth is actually fortified wine and not a distilled spirit, so, like wine, it does suffer from oxidation and will spoil over time. Consequently, it only makes sense to keep wine the way you keep wine -- pump out the extra air with a tool like a Vac-u-Vin, and don't keep it hanging around for a long time. If you don't use vermouth much, then the best bet is to buy as small a bottle as you can, so that you have a better chance of using it up, or at least you won't be throwing so much away.
As it happens, I use vermouth a lot in cooking. In fact, unless a recipe calls for a specific sort of white wine for one reason or another, vermouth is my "dry white wine" of choice for recipes. As a result, I don't find that I have to contend with worn-out-tasting vermouth. I have to admit that I don't use a vacuum-pump stopper on my vermouth, though after reading this I probably will, but I do buy the smaller bottles and probably buy a new one once a quarter.
Permalink | Comments (2)I've had 13 out of 17...do you suppose that means I'm almost ready to die? My "score" after the jump; feel free to add your own
Kobe beef sashimi -- check
Scallop roe
Langós
Pick-your-own produce -- check
Le Riopelle de l'Isle
Horse
Street food -- in Paris no less, so check
Truffles -- Italian white truffles, check
Salsify -- check
Bone marrow -- check
Bitter greens -- check
Anything cooked over a wood fire. -- check
Real balsamic vinegar -- 45-year-old stuff, applied with a dropper directly onto my tongue, check
Real whipped cream -- check
Sweetened condensed milk -- better when you boil it down into dulce de leche, check
Afternoon tea
Foie gras -- again, in Paris at one of the world's best restaurants, check
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Charlotte doesn't know this yet because I just read about it at BoingBoing, but we are SO doing this sometime this weekend: making homemade ice cream in a Ziploc bag.
Have you ever done this (with or without your kids)?
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June 1st is National Donut Day!
If you don't eat a dozen, you obviously hate America!
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I'll bet you didn't know that beneath all that luxurious fur and sparkling rhinestones there lurked the heart of a chef!
Yes, America's Most Beloved Artist loved to cook so much he had several kitchens in his palatial Las Vegas estate, and in 1970 published his very own cookbook. Knowing Liberace, it must have been fabulous.
San Francisco food blogger Michael Procopio has been exploring the cookbooks of 1970s celebs and couldn't help but share The Coiffed One's recipe for sticky buns (via) (Hey, you! I'll make the jokes here, thank you very much).
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Mmm, boy! Crunchy mole crickets in spicy brown curry sauce!
The other day Bridget and I were talking to Charlotte about where food comes from, and we were explaining that beef is really cow, pork is really pig, and so on, and I brought up the fact that in a lot of Asian cuisines, people eat fried crickets. Charlotte didn't completely believe me, I could tell.
Looks like a can of friend crickets in curry sauce is only about $5.00. I might have to order one as an "experiment".
Permalink |Restaurant Magazine has issued its annual Top 50 Restaurants list for 2007, and it should come as little surprise to anyone who follows the food world that El Bulli is once again Number One.
Of the seven American restaurants on the list, four of them are in New York City, so they're eminently "doable" for us. We tried to go to Le Bernardin the last time we went to New York, but they screwed up the reservation. I would really like to go to Daniel sometime, too.
We have been to one of the restaurants on this list: Taillevent, in Paris. I notice this is their first inclusion on the list. Our evening there will always be one of the most memorable occasions of my entire life. If that's what #48 out of 50 is like, then I'd say there's quite a bit to look forward to with the four New York winners.
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The E. Guittard Chocolate company is one of the premier manufacturers of chocolate in the United States, with products that compare to such famous chocolate makers as Callebaut and Valrhona.
Now they're trying to organize opposition to a pending FDA rule change that would let American chocolate makers substitute vegetable oil for cocoa butter and "milk substitutes" in place of real milk in their production of milk chocolate. Some confectioners already use these substitutes, but can't call their products real chocolate; they have to call their products "chocolate-flavored" or "chocolatey". I guarantee that if you indulged recently in some Easter candy, you ate some of this inferior stuff.
As it is, the American standard for chocolate is already significantly less stringent than the EU standard, which accounts for the general superiority of European chocolates. In bowing to pressure from chocolate manufacturers other than Guittard, the FDA is giving license to the production of a truly terrible product and encouraging the downgrading of all chocolate -- the big commercial makers will quickly switch over to these formulas because of the cost savings.
Capitalism, my friends, eventually ruins everything in the name of profit. But perhaps we can forestall this very unfortunate action before it ruins the Best Thing On Earth.
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Following up a bit on yesterday's post about the difference between food porn and actual fast food, here's a website from a fellow who has made a habit of collecting McDonald's hamburgers and "preserving" them for years. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail)
I used quotations around the word preserve, because all he really does is leave them out in the open air and let them dry up. The preservatives and such involved prevent the burgers from getting moldy, so that eventually they wizen up and look like "apple doll" burgers, if you will.
The oldest one in his collection is the one pictured above, from 1989. That burger is old enough to vote!
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It's my assumption that most of us are fully aware of the business of food styling -- the people who are responsible for making food look so damn good in photographs, commercials, and product packaging. It's a speciality business, but a lucrative one, and many people who go through the culinary school process find themselves drawn to it as an alternative to the restaurant business.
I also assume that there are few of us who aren't aware that food stylists use all manner of tricks and tweaks to make the food look like that. Indeed, in many cases what winds up being photographed is often something totally inedible because of the enhancements (the one that always sticks out in my mind is that the "milk" in cereal bowl photos is usually mixed with Elmer's Glue).
But just to give us a reminder of the cognitive dissonance we cause for ourselves when we actually choose to eat the food these ads represent, this website does a little side-by-side comparison of the food porn ad photos and what you actually get (link via The Presurfer). I actually chose one of the better looking ones for this post; just wait until you see some of the other comparisons.
Still lovin' it?
Permalink |Chef Anthony Bourdain occasionally guest posts at the blog of author Michael Ruhlman (the guy who spent a year shadowing students at the CIA and wrote about it in the popular book The Making of A Chef).
Today he's got quite a rant going about the execrable "Food Network Awards" that aired last night. I didn't watch them (I was actually too busy cooking all evening to watch TV), but it doesn't sound like I missed much.
Bourdain is generally very critical of the Food Network, but maybe he really has pinpointed the beginning of the end for what used to be a really great cable network.
Permalink | Comments (1)Over the years, I've encountered a few recipes for making ginger ale at home, but none of them have ever been all that great. For the most part, they involve making a ginger syrup and just adding it to club soda at whatever level of concentration suits you. I can see that -- it's basically how soda companies do it (think about the dispenser machines at McDonalds, et.al.).
The DIY site Wikihow has a page with a somewhat different method. You use active yeast to produce the carbonation right in the mixture itself. This should produce a much stronger and fizzier ginger ale than pouring sugar syrup in already-carbonated water. It also produces a small amount alcohol, but not enough to give it a kick unless you let it overferment, and then you're probably not going to want to drink it.
After I get back fromy my trip, I'll give this a try and let you know how it turned out.
Permalink |Today's Boston Globe reports that the popular local restaurant chain Legal Sea Foods is installing payment terminals at every table in every one of their locations.
There's a growing realization that a lot of credit card fraud comes from waiters who steal your card number when they take it away from the table to ring up the check (just ask my wife's brother-in-law, who was sent up the river for doing just that), and a growing acceptance of self-service payment.
Personally, I think this is a killer idea and you'll find card swipers at tables in just about every imaginable chain restaurant in short order (pun not intended). Easily one of the most aggravating parts of dining out anywhere is the silly business of attending to the check: it requires no fewer than 3 trips to your table by the server if you are paying with a credit/debit card. It slows down the servers and can keep you waiting long after you're done eating -- with a squirmy small child in tow that wait can be nearly unbearable.
I forget where we were, but I know I have dined somewhere where the server brought a wireless swiper to the table. I think that's a much better concept for high-end restaurants, where it would look incredibly tacky to have a swiper bolted to your table. The wireless device even had a printer that immediately gave out a receipt. But at your average Crapplebees or Chili's, this is perfect.
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Mmm...chocolate bubble wrap...
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Yesterday Slashfood had a link to this post on a cooking blog, wherein the blogger lists what she considers to be the staples of her kitchen for Chinese cuisine.
I'll summarize quickly for you here:
soy sauce -- light (regular) and dark
rice wine
rice vinegar
oyster sauce
hoisin sauce
bean sauce
fermented black beans (or black bean-garlic paste)
toasted sesame oil
chile-garlic sauce
dried red chiles
dried black mushrooms
rice noodles
wheat noodles
I keep almost every single one of these items in my own pantry and restock as needed. About the only ones I don't have regularly are bean sauce and dried black mushrooms. Guess what I'll be looking for when I go shopping this week.
I would also add five-spice powder as another common, though not essential, ingredient. You can almost always find it in a good supermarket, or order it from a spice vendor, but here's a recipe for making it yourself.
And, even though it's more of a condiment than an ingredient used in preparing dishes, you absolutely MUST have a bottle of Sriracha sauce in your kitchen at all times.
Permalink |Just a small bit of advice from a fellow cook:
Do spend $8.95 to buy this set of mini colanders -- they're perfect for draining a small amount of something (canned vegetables, et. al.). They stack and are small enough to tote around if you travel from kitchen to kitchen like I do. (via bookofjoe)
Don't spend $370 on this stainless-steel wok from All-Clad (via Uncrate). Only a pretentious foodie idiot would fork over that kind of cash for a shiny show-off toy, when the real thing costs about $10-$20.
(and, yes, most of my pots and pans ARE All-Clad, but this is just beyond ridiculous)
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So they're finally getting a Whole Foods supermarket up in Portland, Maine, but they're fighting over whether or not to sell live lobsters.
In Maine.
Live lobsters.
You can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone selling live lobsters in Maine, so frankly if the Whole Foods people are so against it, I think they could probably skip the whole thing and be none worse for it. Instead, as you've probably read, they're going to give each lobster its own cozy little room in the tank instead of the usual "pile 'em up in one big tank" approach.
Oooookay.
I guess it's okay to be concerned about the suffering of lobsters, though it seems to me we're investing a lot more in their suffering than the suffering of human beings (anyone who's taken a walk down Congress Street in Portland will know exactly what I'm talking about).
Once again the Whole Foods folks are being a bit hypocritical. They don't want to cause suffering for live lobsters and they don't promote boiling them live either -- they will gladly stun them for you using a "humane" device called (and I am not making this up) "The Crusta-Stun". But let's say you are too squeamish to buy a sea mudbug, living or stunned, and instead opt for the convenience of packaged lobster meat. Well, the Whole Foods folks are glad to sell you some of that, too, but this is the big-ass machine they use to get that meat -- a high pressure machine that literally forces all of the meat out of every last nook and cranny of a lobster shell, even the little tiny legs (as every REAL Mainer knows, you always suck the meat out of the legs). I'm not entirely clear on how this is more humane than boiling, or even the infamous ice-pick method of lobster murder. I suspect it's humane the same way we "humanely" slaughter cows, chickens and pigs -- i.e. mechanized to the point that it doesn't seem like slaughter.
Me, I am a traditionalist and firmly believe in tossing live lobsters directly into a big ol' pot of boiling water. It has been my own personal tradition for some time now to kiss each lobster on the carapace before I throw them in the water to let them know that they are loved for their tasty sacrifice. I think that's pretty humane. Maybe the Whole Foods store can hire a lobster kisser to bid each one adieu as they leave the store.
(links via The Secret Life Of Lobsters)
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Are your dishes coming out a little on the blah side these days? It's probably because those little glass jars of spices on your spice rack haven't been replaced since the Clinton Administration.
All spices and dried herbs lose their flavor over time, so the well-prepared cook keeps tabs on how old a particular item in the spice cabinet might be and is ready to throw out the weak and weary ones on a regular basis.
McCormick's Spices has a webpage with some very useful information about keeping track of the relative freshness of herbs and spices in general, as well as their own products. In fact, you can even input some label codes from their products if you just can't recall how old that container of allspice is. Generally speaking, dried herbs are good for about a year, while most spices will last up to four years under good conditions.
I have to own up and say that I don't keep an extensive list of expiration dates for all of my spice cabinet contents, but I also use just about everything with enough frequency that the likelihood of one of them lasting beyond their lifespan without being replaced is pretty small. I have also wised up in recent years and try to buy the smallest sizes of the least-used items (typically baking spices), so that I have a better chance of using them all up, or at least not throwing away so much. Still, it wouldn't hurt. Or you can take the cheap-n-dirty approach and just throw out everything in your spice cabinet once a year and start over again.
Let me also say that I am routinely taken aback to arrive at a cooking client's house and find that the extent of their herb and spice collection is a jar of "Italian seasoning" and some Lawry's Seasoned Salt. You don't have to have one of everything, but here are some things that I think EVERYONE ought to have in their spice cabinet:
Dried Herbs:
Basil
Oregano
Thyme
Bay Leaves
Baking Spices:
Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Allspice
Ground Ginger
Whole Nutmeg
Cooking Spices:
Ground Cumin
Ground Coriander
Coriander Seed
Paprika
Mustard Powder
Black Peppercorns
White Pepper
Turmeric
Prepared Spice Mixes:
Madras-style Curry Powder
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Celery Salt
Those are just the basics, mind you, so don't grouse because I don't have things like Old Bay seasoning or chervil on the list. I also don't have other basic items like vanilla extract or baking powder on the list because strictly speaking they're not herbs or spices. It's a starting point for those of you who think cheese-garlic popcorn powder is a spice.
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In my world, there is no go without the joe in the morning. I am not especially addicted to caffeine -- I don't drink caffeinated soda if I have a choice, I don't find myself craving coffee all hours of the day and night, and the very idea of the caffeinated donut make me shudder -- but I am addicted to my morning coffee. I am very much a creature of habit, and my morning routine absolutely requires two things: a steaming-hot shower and a big mug of coffee. Otherwise, I can guarantee you it's going to be a Bad Day.
I became a daily coffee drinker about seventeen years ago (!) when I started working at IBM in Portland, Maine. There was a Green Mountain Coffee Roasters store right across the street, and everyone would diligently march over for their morning coffee around 9:00, Whirley mug in hand. In fact, I still have the very same Whirley mug -- it is one of three that I use regularly -- which should be a testamonial to how well they work and how long they last.
I bought my first French press pot about five years later. Though I relied on a drip maker Monday through Friday, I would occasionally use it on weekends. I don't recall exactly when I finally moved over to using the press pot all the time, but I think it was right around the time we moved into The Little Blue House. We still own a drip coffee maker, but I only use it to make coffee when there are guests; Bridget does not drink coffee at all, and my daily dose is only what will fit in one mug (about 24 ounces). The medium-sized Bodum Chambord is just the right size.
Press pot coffee is a whole different beast than what you get out of a drip machine. The grounds have a real chance to steep in the water and develop a fuller flavor. The water in a drip machine spends very little time mixing with the grounds. That's why you never want to grab the coffee as soon as it starts to pour out of the drip maker -- it's weaker than the coffee that comes out towards the end, which has had a bit longer to come in contact. But in a press pot, all the water and all the grounds get to commingle for several minutes.
This post from CoffeeGeek.com goes into great detail about the history of the press pot, as well as the proper way to use one. The poster also opines quite loudly about having the right grinder. I have to admit to not owning a burr grinder, just a regular blade grinder. Consequently, my coffee does have its quotient of sludge at the bottom of the mug every morning, but I have learned to stop drinking the coffee before I hit the bottom, so it doesn't bother me. Maybe some day I'll upgrade to a high-end burr grinder.
Even though I now much prefer the stronger brew that you get from a press pot, I don't really think of myself as a coffee snob. I prefer Starbucks' whole bean coffee, but have lately been buying some Peet's "Major Dickason's Blend" now and then, along with the very occasional bag of Green Mountain's 'Rainforest Nut". But when push comes to shove, I don't have any problem buying whatever supermarket whole bean coffee is available. I have never cared for the watery and flavorless coffee from the assorted canned varieties in the supermarket, but I am also not hung up on having to have super-premium hand-roasted coffee beans picked by young virgins either. My friend Shelley recently recommended this coffee to me, and I'll probably give it a try.
I have never developed a taste for black coffee at all. My coffee is always lightened with half-and-half and sweetened with Splenda. Before Splenda, I was a confirmed NutraSweet user, but I much prefer Splenda now. I cannot stand using milk in my coffee, and do not ever offer me Sweet'N'Low if you want to continue to be my friend. I will use real sugar when required.
I don't smoke, drink very little, rarely gamble, and don't chase women, so I think it's okay if this is my greatest vice. Everybody's got to have one.
Permalink | Comments (4)Everything you know about food is wrong.
Well, that's what Barry Glassner says in his new book, The Gospel Of Food
I read this interview with him in Salon earlier this week. In the book he takes on a lot of issues -- foodie shibboleths as well as commonly-held notions about food production, the value of fast food, and so on. From the interview it sounds like he's not simply being contrary, he's actually considering some of the conventional wisdom and holding it up to closer analysis -- sometimes the CW is on the money, sometimes it is not.
Adding to my book pile just as soon as I can pay a visit to New England Mobile Book Fair.
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The picture above is what the current-day version of the classic Easy-Bake Oven looks like. I happen to know this from direct experience, since Charlotte is the proud owner of her very own toy appliance. She has become a master of the bite-sized sugar cookie with sprinkles, though I have to say that the little cakes need a bit of work.
As I have just learned from perusing that Hasbro site, the Easy-Bake Oven has been around since 1963, just like me. Anyone whose childhood encompassed the 1960s and 70s will remember the original design of the toy, which somewhat resembled a long countertop with an oven, and sometimes a (decorative, non-functioning) stovetop and was frequently re-styled to match the popular kitchen color schemes of the day. The earliest ones were turquoise blue, but by the 1970s came in the ubiquitous avocado green. In the 1980s and 90s, the toy was remodeled to look like a microwave oven.
The current model abandons all of that to take on the look of the typical standalone range-oven that lives in the majority of our homes, and comes in a pink-and-purple color scheme that probably does not exist in most kitchens (at least I hope it doesn't) but is de rigeur for modern-day girl toys. But the real significant change about this latest Easy-Bake Oven is that Hasbro (which bought out Kenner Toys years ago) has eschewed the 100-watt lightbulb that has baked a zillion cookies and cakes for the last 43 years and replaced it with a low-power electrical heating element. The new design of the toy not only looks like your oven, it works like your oven, too. In fact, I think it's safe to suppose that the new design of the toy is as much about safely enclosing the heating element as it is adapting to appliance styles.
The heating element is well-insulated from the outside world. While we were waiting for Charlotte's oven to heat up enough to bake cookies, both Bridget and I touched the case and found that, though it did get warm, it was never anywhere close to being hot to touch on the outside. The toy also makes use of a special tool for removing the hot baking pans that keeps the pan inside a compartment. The child is not able to touch the pan directly while it is inside the retrieval tool, and a heat-sensitive sticker lets you know when the pan has cooled enough to be safe to touch.
Anything that piques Charlotte's interest in cooking and baking is A-OK with me, even if I have to eat more than my share of quarter-sized sugar cookies and overbaked teacakes.
Knowing that the Easy-Bake no longer uses a lightbulb, though, makes it somewhat wistfully ironic that MAKE:Zine is co-sponsoring a DIY lightbulb-powered mini oven contest. Scrupulously avoiding the "Easy-Bake" brand name, they're calling it a "Dorkbake". It's still not too late to enter -- the deadline is next Friday (Feb. 3), but you have to deliver the oven to the contest holders in Los Angeles. Once all the ovens have been received, they'll be judged by Mark Frauenfelder from BoingBoing and an editor from Craft (a sister magazine of MAKE:Zine).
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I only wish I had heard about it sooner so that I could have baked a fresh pie from scratch, but I think I'll forgive myself if this time I buy some Pillsbury pie crust.
These guys need to get Weebl signed up as their spokes...er...egg as soon as possible.
Permalink |Via Marginal Revolution, here's a post on Time Magazine's China blog wherein the blogger reminisces about his childhood in Beijing and his family's use of ginger ale as a cold remedy. Nice to know that there are some universals, eh?
But the real point of the post is his description of being introduced to a "tea" of sorts made with hot Coca-Cola and fresh ginger, also intended to be a health tonic. He says the drink is "cola-neutral", so feel free to substitute whatever cola you prefer -- he prefers the local blend of Coke one finds in Beijing. Personally, I think you'd want to find a cane-sugar-based cola instead of a high-fructose corn syrup version. Lately some Coca-Cola bottlers are starting to switch back to the cane-sugar syrup, and I have also seen Boylan's Cane Cola here and there.
Using ginger to settle your stomach or treat other symptoms of minor illnesses is very traditional. I would guess that heating up the Coke to a slightly syrupy consistency works out all the carbonation so as not to introduce more gas into your stomach, and adds the soothing effect of the syrup. Ginger ale does not have the same sort of caramelized sugar syrup, so you probably can't boil it down to the same consistency. Plus, there's the energy boost from the caffeine.
And, if you have any left over, you can use it to glaze a Sunday ham!
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No, no, no not the BIGGEST wiener in the country, the BEST wiener...
The folks at Serious Eats asked the authors of the fabulous book Two For The Road, who also run the website Roadfood.com, to pick the best hot dog stands in the United States.
If you're a fan of the documentary maker Rick Sebak, you will absolutely recognize some of their choices from his fabulous film about hot dog stands, A Hot Dog Program.
Though one of their choices is a stand in Connecticut (and was featured in said documentary), New England is decidedly NOT hot dog country. Chicago must have more hot dog joints per capita than anyplace on Earth. Somehow, their Chicagoland choice wound up being Poochie's in Skokie and not the near-legendary Superdawg, but I'm sure they have their reasons.
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A Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee and Chocolate
A fine document from the year 1756 considering the effects, both beneficial and deleterious from these stimulants, which were as popular then as they are now. (via bifurcated rivets)
Of course, in 1756, there were no public health killjoys running around trying to legislate away whole categories of food or forbidding gourmet goodies in the name of political correctness.
I, myself, do not use tobacco, but they'll have to pry my coffee and chocolate from my cold, dead hands.
Permalink |The Boston Globe had this AP story on New Year's Day talking about the boom in popularity of culinary schools and the difference between the promise of being a famous chef and the reality of working in the restaurant world.
For those of you who haven't figured it out here's the short version: restaurant jobs are hard work for usually very little money, and there are only a very few "celebrity chefs" in the whole world, so guess where you're probably going to end up.
As I read the story, I was actually a little surprised that it asserted that people go to culinary school with stars in their eyes. I suppose some people do, but nobody I met when I was in culinary school seemed to be deluded enough to think they were the next Daniel Boulud or even the next Rachael Ray (who, I am compelled to point out, is NOT a trained chef). A fair number were people who did want to start their own restaurants, and another contingent were people who were already working in restaurants and wanted to buff up their career options by having some formal training to go along with their resumes. I, myself, went into the endeavor planning from the beginning to pursue a personal chef business (as did a few others); I had absolutely ZERO interest in working in a restaurant, owning a restaurant, or having anything to do with restaurants. When I left my training program, a lot of my disappointment came from feeling like the program was more about training people to work in restaurants than learning much about cooking. At no point did I ever envision myself being a star.
You know, when I was trying to make some decisions about this a couple of years ago, Jo Horner and I both talked about and seriously considered the possibility of going to the culinary program at Boston University rather than CSCA, and at the time we both decided against it because the CSCA program seemed more "professional". Now I wonder if that wouldn't have been the better choice for me in the first place, and at some point I might revisit the idea to do the 14-week certificate program at BU.
But let's be clear -- the food industry is not the glamour-filled experience of being a television personality (which is also not quite as glamourous as you might want to think). Restaurant workers work insane hours in appalling and generally hazardous conditions and are not exactly paid like kings. There are plenty of good reasons to go to culinary school, but it helps to have a grounded vision of where you're going and why.
Permalink | Comments (1)I've added a new topical category for food-related posts.
Those of you who pay attention to these things know that I stopped keeping a food blog at my Out Of The Frying Pan site over the summer, and in fact took the entire site offline for a while. It's back now, but just as a website to promote my personal chef business. I will continue to post recipes over there in the recipe blog section, but I don't really plan to do any extensive writing there any more.
Instead, I thought it might add a nice dimension to this site to post occasional food writing over here. I have to say that I have yet to find a food blog that really grabbed my attention for its writing. There are several that I follow quite closely for the recipes, but almost nobody is really writing about food and cooking in the broader sense. (If you know of some food bloggers who are, do let me know) Maybe I can fill that void a little bit. I don't think I have enough to say to merit an entire blog about it anymore, though, so here we are. We'll see how it goes.
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