food & cooking

Bloggin’ a Food Blog

November 14, 2011
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If I got invited to a food event, then I can only assume that food blogging has hit maximum saturation. My theory’s proof was delivered in “The Food Wife,” Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, in which Bart, Lisa, and Marge start a food blog. Homer’s love of new food experiences has been well documented throughout [...]

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Eat Your Books

November 11, 2011
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I recently received an invitation to attend a reception at the headquarters of America’s Test Kitchen to celebrate the launch of The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. I don’t know how I came to their attention, but I never turn down an opportunity to mingle with other cooking geeks, so I spent a pleasant two hours at ATK [...]

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Breakfast for Dessert

November 5, 2011
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As soon as The Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook arrived, I knew I would be revisiting one of my failures – the cereal milk panna cotta, certified by the authors of Momofuku as a non-working recipe. The first chapter is devoted to cereal milk and its variations, as if author Christina Tosi knew she had some [...]

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The Power of Pancakes

November 2, 2011
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Yet another of my friends has managed to make a blog into a book. Michael Goudeau, author of The Pancake Project, has finally turned what started as a way to make entertaining breakfasts for his kids into a how-to book, Extreme Pancakes. Now you can learn how to make the creations he documented by following [...]

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Rabbit Wrapped in Fennel and Bacon

October 28, 2011
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When I saw the rabbit in my local market’s freezer, I knew it was time to take the plunge and cook a bunny for dinner. I wanted a simple recipe that would highlight the flavor of  the meat without obscuring it with a highly seasoned sauce, so I chose this preparation from Fergus Henderson’s The [...]

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Packin’ Heat

October 21, 2011
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My success with growing jalapeños led me to try a crop of mixed pepper varietals. I set up my AeroGarden to grow two each of three varieties: more jalapeños, purple super hots and red fires. Unfortunately, during the week I was away in Chicago, one of the red fire plants took over and wiped out [...]

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Hunt, Gather, Cook

October 19, 2011
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During my Boy Scouting career (before it became just “Scouting”), I spent quite a bit of time in the woods learning how to fell a tree, catch a fish, pitch a tent, tie knots, and navigate by the sun and stars. I was convinced that particular set of skills would serve me in good stead [...]

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On a Roll (Charcutepalooza Challenge 10)

October 15, 2011
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These Charcutepalooza challenges can be frustrating at times, mostly because of their timing. More often than not, I have already made something using the technique of the month, just not within the month required by the challenge. In the case of the October challenge – stretching – I had already made confit, rillettes, and even [...]

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Fried Chicken, Again

September 30, 2011
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Once again, He Who Will Not Be Ignored demanded fried chicken for dinner, and did so with less than twenty-four hours notice. I was inclined to indulge his whim, but didn’t have the time to make something as time-consuming as the Ad Hoc recipe. The fried chicken recipe in Momofuku promised crispy chicken in less than [...]

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The Son of Dr. Dreadful

September 23, 2011
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If you’re a fan of old-school horror movies, then you know that the names of sequels to the original followed a specific progression, rather than the current trend of slapping a Roman numeral after the original title. That explains the title of this post, the sequel to The Return of Dr. Dreadful, which is turn was [...]

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