Cooking

Just about every sustainability magazine on the planet, much less the food ones seems obsessed with no-knead breads. No-knead is trumpeted by everyone on the planet as the easy, awesome way to make bread, the thing that will convert non-bread makers into converts. Now don't get me wrong - I don't really have a dog in this hunt - I'm certainly not opposed to no-knead, but I don't see it as the miracle that some do. I've had some utterly delicious no-knead breads. I don't think they are bad - Kate at Living the Frugal Life demonstrated a lovely recipe that I've enjoyed a number of times. I…

The season cycled over the weekend - officially it is not quite spring, but in fact, spring now has a toe hold. Even if it goes back to chilly or even snows, the ground is too warm for it to last, by the end of an unusually warm week the grass will be green and the soil dried enough to move forward. That doesn't mean my (optimistic) plantings of peas and bok choy, spinach and sweet peas may not stagnate or my fruit tree blooms get caught by frost (we can't even say a late frost, it is two months to my last frost date, and anything can happen in upstate NY and usually does), that the boys in…

I've always read cookbooks the way one reads novels, not only for recipes but for plots, stories and bits of detail, and one of the details I always look for are acknowledgements of particular tastes in my cookbook authors. The reason I look for this is that cookbooks are usually a uniquely authoritative genre - one that purports to tell you THIS IS GOOD. And yet, of course, one's tastes are particular - most cookbooks that don't originate in restaurants are fundamentally about a particular person's sense of what tastes good and is appealing. Some acknowledge this, most don't, but it is…

In college I lived in a house where I was the only female resident among a largish group of guys. Along with assorted boyfriends, girlfriends and hangers on, our house became a hang-out for a lot of people, and we regularly sat down with 15-20 people for dinner. Our food budgets, however, were not of the sort that made this easy - but we managed mostly by feeding everyone soup, more or less all the time. The household was vegetarian and kosher, and we were young and experimental, and almost nothing seemed weird. As one of the chief cooks in the household, I made soup out of nearly…

For the last few weeks and over the next month, attention to hunger will be at its annual peak. People will donate turkeys, time and checks, canned goods and garden produce to food pantries. Many of us will find ourselves thinking of those in need in this season. We'll dish out cranberry sauce and decorate cookies, volunteer at the food pantry or in the shelter kitchen, and focus on making sure that the season of lights and joy is also one where people aren't forgotten. This is a very good thing. It is also important to remember that most of the regularly hungry or food insecure people in…

Lesley Porcelli has an article in this month's _Saveur_, "The Soft Approach" that raises an issue that I've been thinking about for a long time - that perhaps we've gone overboard in our resistance to long-cooking vegetables. Don't get me wrong - I grew up with grey, mushy broccoli and am grateful that those days are over. Ever since I read a Christopher Kimball recipe for beef stew, however, that had you adding the vegetables after most of the cooking is over so that the stew wouldn't have "overcooked" vegetables, however, I've wondered - is there any place for look cooked produce? I don…

A Thought Experiment: Due to a combination of crises - maybe a volcano explosion, the penetration of Ug99 into the main of the world wheat crop, drought in many of the world's grain growing regions, zombie invasion etc... (it doesn't really matter), the Global North experiences a catastrophic failure of its staple crops. All of a sudden grain supplies drop like a stone, and there are virtually none to be had in the market. No bread, no rice, no soybeans or corn - none of those products are available in the markets. At first, there is panic. The government institutes a ban on the feeding…

As the steam bath of summer abates and cool air moves in, as labor day weekend marks the end of swimming and time to start thinking about things like firewood and school, I find I regain enthusiasm about really cooking again. During the summer, I'm often a tepidly enthusiastic cook - it is so easy to go out in the garden and mix greens and whatever is ripe with a hardboiled egg, some dried fruit or a bit of cheese and call that dinner. Sliced tomatoes with basil, barely cooked corn on the cob and something else quick - some grilled veggies tossed with pasta and homemade goat cheese or eggs…

Don't get me wrong, I like to eat out. And what parent of many doesn't like the idea of food they don't have to cook and dishes they don't have to wash. At times restaurants and bakeries even may provide more energy efficiency than home cooking, especially in small households - one industrial walk in cooler is more efficient than six fridges. .Of course, that's in principle, in practice, the cooler *and* all six fridges are running! Household appliance energy usage has risen over time, even though we are eating at home less - while the efficiency of any given appliance has improved, we…

What better way for a bunch of science geeks to celebrate a birthday than by having a science party? We spent a lot of time making delicious science-themed snacks, and I have to say, they came out pretty good! Bacterial jello plates. They looked a bit too relastic, the cell biologists wouldn't touch them. More plates, this time made with rice pudding. Tastier than jello, but less popular due to looks. DIY electrophoresis jello. The red dye didn't migrate, but the yellow colouring of the jello did! Obligatory placebo gag. The text reads sample:alcohol 1:2. It didn't lie. Señor…

Note: A cold, wet day in November seems like as good a day as any to talk about owning a wood cookstove, re-running a piece I first wrote in 2007. When people come to my house, they are often a little disappointed to see that it looks pretty much like other houses. But the wood cookstove really is different than what most people know - even folks who heat with wood usually don't cook with it as well. And while heating and cooking with wood aren't appropriate in every environment, it is appropriate to mine, and maybe to more people than have given it thought before. I also know it is one…

Busy week here, as Eric attempts to wind up his online teaching class, my parents descend for a week of family projects and fair going, and we deal with the daily realities of a rapidly-onrushing fall, complicated (happily) by a long trip and an early Jewish holiday season. So I give you something I wrote way back in 2007. The other day I thought I'd try out three "fast, easy, healthy, local" recipes that were sent to me from a green website that shall remain nameless because I'm not trying to give them a hard time - I appreciate what they are trying to do. Why? Because my job now is to…

"When my life is through, bury me in barbeque." Hat Tip: Miss Cellania.

Science is cooking done in a lab. Mixing carefully (or not so carefully) measured components, heating, cooling, observing phase transitions, exploring the behavior of animal and plant proteins, exploring the properties of different chemicals, slowly changing variables to optimizing procedures. Often, feeding bacteria has a lot in common with feeding people, and I have to admit that freshly autoclaved yeast media smells delicious. Said another way, cooking is science where at least you can usually eat the failures. My fiancé and I have been failing at making soft-boiled eggs for quite some…

tags: Muppets' Swedish Chef makes Pöpcørn Shrimp!, humor, funny, silly, weird, Swedish Chef, cooking, food, The Muppets, streaming video Do you like pöpcørn shrimp? Watch the Swedish Chef as he prepares this explosively good meal! The Muppets have their own official website.

"Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with abandon or not at all" --Harriet van Horne Science, too, I think.

tags: food, health, healthy eating, healthy food, cooking, portion size, obesity, overweight, Jamie Oliver, TEDTalks, streaming video In this affecting video, TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver shares powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., and makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children. Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant. He showed not only a precocious culinary talent but also a passion for creating (and…

As you know, I recently married a British nutter and relocated to Germany, where I assume we both will remain for a significant period of time. Like most newlyweds, we wish to start our own traditions for the holidays, but since our possessions have not arrived yet, we are living in a nearly empty flat. No seriously: our flat is nearly empty. For example, in Germany, when people move into their own flat, it is empty of all furnishings -- including the entire kitchen. Most Germans design and purchase their kitchen before moving in -- refrigerator, stove, range top, microwave, dishwasher,…

Cooking turkey is actually kind of a dumb idea. Most people don't ever cook turkey. Turkey is like chicken ... it's a domestic bird that is familiar to all Americans ... but it is very difficult to cook in a way that does not ruin it. So once a year, you cook this huge bird and try not to ruin it, and invite everybody that is important to you over to see if it worked. As a result of this the truth many people have never had good turkey. They've only had ruined turkey. And for each of these people, what they think turkey tastes like is unique to the particular way their family's turkey…

Did you get a gift card for a bookstore from Santa? Consider this new item (Thanks Virgil Samms for the tip!): Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book: Revived and Illustrated A cookbook based on notes by Charles Darwin's wife is to be published. Mrs Charles Darwin's Recipe Book features more than 40 dishes from her personal cookery notebook, which is housed in Cambridge University Library. Turnip cresselly, broiled mushrooms, cheese straws and baked apple pudding all feature in the Victorian notes. ... (bbc)