Entries from September 2007 ↓

from the New York Times

The pleasures of cooking are sometimes obscured by summer haze and heat, which can cause many of us to turn instead to bad restaurants and worse takeout. But the cook with a little bit of experience has a wealth of quick and easy alternatives at hand. The trouble is that when it’s too hot, even the most resourceful cook has a hard time remembering all the options. So here are 101 substantial main courses, all of which get you in and out of the kitchen in 10 minutes or less.

CHOW’s molecular gastronomy cheat sheet

7. Eat the document. Arguably the biggest gee-whiz innovation in the genre has been the edible menus by Homaro Cantu of Moto. Using an ink-jet printer adapted for inks made from fruit and vegetables, and paper made of soybean and potato starch, he has created menus that taste like everything from sushi to steak.

Family Dinner: A Man in the Kitchen

When I was a boy, it was said in my family that my mother, an otherwise respectable cook, had prepared for my father, during the first days of their marriage, a very bad dish. The dish was a hot tuna-and-mayonnaise casserole with potato chips as a decorative garnish…

More essays from the Food Issue

New York Local
by Adam Gopnik
Eating the fruits of the five boroughs.
The Jefferson Bottles
by Patrick Radden Keefe
How could one collector find so much rare fine wine?

Miss. Ranked Fattest State in Nation - New York Times

Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an epidemic of obesity, experts say. According to a new study, this Deep South state is the fattest in the nation.It also became the first state to crack the 30 percent barrier for adults considered obese, with West Virginia and Alabama just behind, according to the Trust for America’s Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.

I was less shocked to read this than to see no one drew a correlation between poverty and obesity: an obvious conclusion glancing through the list.

NPR : Food Scientist Harold McGee: ‘On Food’

The book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen has become a reference tool for many cooks. Now author Harold McGee has revised and updated the book. It’s an exposition of food and cooking techniques, delving into technology and history.McGee diagrams the stages of making mayonnaise under a microscope, explains why peppers are hot, and why seafood gets mushy if you cook it improperly. McGee is a world-renowned authority on the chemistry of cooking.

High Ground Organics: Farm Events

Redman House Farm Stand Open May through November, Wed-Sun 10am to 6pm. High Ground Organics’ farmstand is just off Hwy 1 at 129 in Watsonville. Take the Riverside Drive exit from Hwy 1. Go west off the exit, pass the Chevron station, and turn into the farmstand parking area.Strawberry U-picks July and August Saturdays, 10 AM to 1 PM, Check in at the farmstand first.

Charles Chocolates offers Factory Tours

Every Wednesday and Saturday, at 11:30 am and 2:30 pm, we offer a free guided factory tour of our production facility. You’ll be able to watch as our chocolatiers are in full production in our kitchen, observe various chocolates being made, and learn how hand-crafted, artisan chocolates and confections are made at Charles Chocolates. The tour will end with an interactive question and answer session. Tours will happen twice daily at 11:30 am and 2:30 pm every Wednesday and Saturday.

FOX Broadcasting Company: Kitchen Nightmares

Hell hath no fury like an angry chef, and no chef has a sharper temper than Gordon Ramsay when things go wrong in the kitchen. The star of the highly rated culinary boot camp HELL’S KITCHEN returns to FOX with another sizzling unscripted series, KITCHEN NIGHTMARES.This time, Chef Ramsay hits the road, in each episode tackling a restaurant in crisis and exposing the stressful realities of trying to run a successful food business. The third season of HELL’S KITCHEN will premiere on FOX this spring.

at Sous Kitchen

“We had a wonderful time at Sous Kitchen’s Iron Chef competition. It was a great opportunity for new people to get to know each other. We even learned about some of the old timers. Everyone got a lot out of it.” Said Kristine, a Senior Vice President in the Financial Services Industry.

Now that’s my idea of an offsite!

from Edible San Francisco

In Italian, “poco dolce” means not too sweet. To ensure Wiley’s chocolates live up to that promise, she doesn’t add sugar to her bon bons, and she salts everything with sel gris, gray salt from the second harvest of Brittany’s famous fleur de sel.