Check out my latest article with LiveStrong.com! Everything you've ever wanted to know about pasta making but were too nervous to ask a chef!
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Use the Best Oil
There are many vegetable fats to consider when we walk down the grocery aisle these days. Do we cook with olive oil or should we use canola? What’s the difference between sunflower and safflower? Though these are all produced from various plants, they differ considerably in their application once we step into a kitchen
New Year Fortune Food
Champagnformation
Though champagne can be consumed year round, most of us turn to the bubbly stuff when December pushes its last seconds through the hourglass. As I pour myself a cold flute of the golden liquid my mind turns to the more technical aspects of this spectacular drink. It’s time to investigate the physics of champagne!
Breakfast, Home & Family, Dinner Party Theater, Read
EggSplanation
Gingerbread Architecture
Gingerbread houses can be the cause of much frustration. After spending hours planning, baking, and then constructing, it can all fall apart due to simple mechanical issues. The prime culprit in any gingerbread house disaster is the cement used to hold everything together. Do you know what kind of icing you’re using?
Dairy Free, Dinner, Breakfast, Fall, Drink, Read, Winter
Bone Broth 101
You’ve certainly heard chefs say loudly, “Make your own stock, it’s better than anything you can buy.” And they aren’t wrong. But if you’ve been holding off because you think it’s too labor-intensive, then now is the time to tune in and pay attention. Making stock (or bone broth if you insist on pop-culture terminology) is easy and you should start today.
Candy Cane Canticle
Infusions Abound!
Infusions are easily personalized, you could very well make a few different batches and hand out various treats to your family but I like to brew one big batch of something flavorful, label it with the particular year it was made, and then give it away with a bow on top. Over the years I have infused many different liquids, and I will now look at the options with you.
Potato, Potahto
Surely, we’ve all seen the words "starchy" and "waxy" used to describe potatoes in bins. Or perhaps you’ve been baffled by the use of those words in recipes as you prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas. All potatoes are not created equally. The semantic distinction is significant, and it is worth understanding how a potato is built in order to affect your cooking.
How do spices work?
It is now the time of year most firmly associated with dark spices. You know those of which I speak, the oily powders we keep hidden away through the summer only to find perpetually at our side as the days grow shorter. Cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and allspice; these are the spices that keep our hearts smoldering like coals through wind and snow.
Dessert, Dinner Party Theater, Gluten Free, Home & Family, Read, Snack
Bubble Gum Breakdown
Is there any other food so closely associated with teenage rebelliousness? Imagine a hallway full of gum-smacking adolescents, three or four walking toward you unaware of your presence. You quake in your oxford loafers while they pass. But while gum may be culturally connoted with the under-18 crowd, it has a long history of supplying adults with something sweet to keep their mouths occupied during long work days.
Breakfast, Read, Winter, Spring, Fall
Maple Syrup Science
When the weather changes, and the air becomes crisp with wintery anticipation our minds turn to the burnished flavors of fall. Apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, and that king of all syrups: maple. At some point in our lives each of us has pulled a bottle of the liquid gold off the grocery store shelf and marveled at the price tag. Indeed, maple syrup is a costly item, but one that is more than worth the investment
Breakfast, Fall, Home & Family, Read, Winter
Apple Genetics
Water Filtration
Rice, Decoded
Rice is the staple food for over half of the world’s population. As a commercial crop it has the third highest worldwide production (after maize and sugarcane). But, considering that much maize is not even grown for human consumption, rice is the most important crop to our species. It provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed around the world by humans.
Dry Ice Explained
Home & Family, Read, Dessert, Dairy Free, Gluten Free
Rock candy Crystallization
Rock candy, so popularly associated with garishly colored sticks and strings, makes its first appearance in world culinography in 9th century Iran. It seems even at such an early time in human history we had already learned to grow sugar crystals. And why would we be growing sugar crystals? Keep reading!
Breakfast, Dairy Free, Drink, Fall, Gluten Free, Home & Family, Read, Snack, Spring, Summer, Winter