This is my old, sad, battle-scarred, uncleanable stove. It came with the house when we bought it, almost 15 years ago now. Who knows how old it was then? It was in much better shape, though, because the guy who owned the house before us gave no sign of ever having cooked anything. There wasn’t…
The Science of Cooking: Harvard EdX, Week 2 (Sous Vide Eggs Lab)
Turkey and stuffing croquettes with a 62-degree egg Arne and I were pretty excited for the second week of our food science class, on temperature and heat. For our lab, we were going to play with sous vide cooking, a major darling of today’s chef’s, that I addressed briefly before when I made sous vide…
The Science of Cooking: Harvard EdX, Week 1 (Oven Calibration Lab)
How could I resist a free online cooking class with guest lectures from the likes of Momofuku’s David Chang, Flour’s Joanne Chang, and pioneering molecular gastronomist Ferran Adria? And featuring the work of famous food scientist Harold McGee? You know I couldn’t. So I didn’t. I signed up (and you can too, though the first…
Juicing: Cucumbers and Chard and Kiwi, Oh My!
Clockwise from top left: Taboulleh Juice, Kiwi-Chard, Golden Rule, Cucumber Mojito, Heart Beet This has been a very difficult autumn. Actually, it was a pretty rough summer too. As you know if you read my mid-July post on congee, I’ve been having trouble swallowing all year. Much longer than that, actually, but this year it’s gotten…
Sous Vide Shrimp in the Kitchen Sink
Arguably the most coveted object of 2012 for the true cooking geek was Nathan Myhrvold’s mini-opus, Modernist Cuisine at Home. For most cookbook authors, a two-volume (one hardcover with gorgeous photos, one spiral-bound recipe book with special spillproof paper), 11-pound, $100 cookbook would be an opus. But not for Microsoft geek and multi-multi-millionaire Myhrvold; Modernist…
Equipment Note: Modern Pressure Cooker
I own a pressure cooker; I’ve had it for years. A dull-colored metal pot with a lid and a carefully balanced pressure regulator, it comes to life on the stove. The pressure regulator vibrates, hissing and spitting like an angry rattlesnake. Which is why the cooker sits at the top of a cabinet, well out…
Equipment Note: BeaterBlade
If you have a stand mixer, you probably know that it is a wonderfully powerful kitchen tool. Tasks that are a major pain with a hand-held mixer – or nearly impossible by hand – just require you to throw the ingredients in the bowl, turn it on, and go. But you probably are also familiar…