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Showing posts from June, 2009

Rice Culture: Up Close and Personal

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Seductions of Rice Long ago, when I was living in Sri Lanka, I had a roommate who was rom the Netherlands. He was the most courageous traveler I had ever met, having no fear of wild animals or snakes or the jungle, all the things I will never get accustomed to. From where we lived outside the town of Kandy, he would deliberately take a route into town that took him through the jungle, while I would always walk safely on the road. He'd routinely encounter snakes, and if it was one he'd never seen before, I would hear about it at length that night over dinner. Lucky for me, he was as good a storyteller as he was courageous. [...] And Kaziranga National Park was everything my roommate had promised it would be. We went into the park each day by elephant, and we got right up close to one-horned rhinos, wild buffalo, wild deer. In the late afternoon we'd hand out with the mahouts (the elephant keepers) as they'd wash down the elephants. Sometimes in the morning while we were

I always wondered what liquid smoke was ...

... and now, whether we want to know or not, here is the answer. What is liquid smoke? Liquid smoke is very simply smoke in water. Smoke usually comes as a vapor, but there are ways to condense it and turn it into liquid and that liquid can then be carried in water. How is it different from regular smoke? Regular smoke is a vapor, and it is difficult to store. SlashFood has all the scoop on liquid smoke.

A Taste of Heaven for Body and Soul

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A Taste of Heaven: A Guide to Food and Drink Made by Monks and Nuns Mount Saint Mary's Abbey Near Wrentham, Massachusetts Tourists in New England expect to see lobsters. The crustaceans appear on menus, license plates, and store shingles. There are lobster candies, cookie cutters, and key chains. Of course, real New Englanders know to go down to the dock for live lobsters, fresh from the trap. What neither tourists nor natives expect to see here is a creature who looks like he was headed for the Inca ruins of Peru but ended up at an abbey closer to Boston: a llama named Oblio. Llamas are sometimes called "camels of the clouds" for their ability to haul mountain loads, yet Oblio looks like he's dressed for a dinner party in a snowy white tux with black tails. Visitors who buy the abbey's wool blankets can thank Oblio for protecting the sheep from coyotes. In addition to a llama, this monastery is home to some of New England's best candy. Mount Saint Mary's

Food, History, and The Great Depression

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... Two hundred and fifty thousand New Yorkers go through these silent processes daily in favorite or convenient Automats. Some are regular customers, others appear only on certain days, keeping a tryst with a favorite dish. No New York wife knows her husband until she has studied him in an Automat. And all suburban mothers have learned that on a day in town lunch at the Automat is the kids' delight. A stranger entering these precincts is led by the crown toward a trim marble counter, in which are several plate-like depressions. A nickel is the unit of purchase, so coins or bills are here exchanged for scintillating shower of nickels, which are miraculously never too many, never too few. With a fistful of nickels, and wearing hat, coat, carrying brief-case or handbag, the crowd moves on toward the walls of food, assembling as they go trays, silver, and napkins. ... The Works Projects Administration (WPA) came up with an amazing quantity and variety of projects designed to help emp

Score One for Low Tech

Last week's Hive Five demonstrates that no matter how packed with technology our homes and lives become, some things are best done the traditional way. Edging out all of its digital competitors by a long shot, paper takes home the crown for best recipe management tool. Lifehacker readers used paper in a variety of forms: index cards, notebooks, and three ring binders all served as repositories for your favorite recipes. Lifehacker tells us what I already knew. My technique is to keep the files in an InDesign file (hey, I'm in graphics; its easy for me that way) and print out the pages for my three-ring binder. Which I also gave one each of to the girls when they went to college and apartments with kitchens. Thanks to Tom for the heads up on this!

A Little Summer Cooking ...

No, not from me. I have been cooking and have both recipes and book reviews to post soon. However, in the meantime, the report from the homefront is of others cooking for us. Which is pretty fantastic, I must say. Pretty in Pink ... Ice Cream Rose suddenly became interested in ice cream recipes and that is nothing but delicious for us. She whipped up a quick little number featuring raspberries, cream, a pinch of salt ... and maybe a bit of milk? I'll have to get that recipe up for everyone. It was simple and the essence of summer on the tongue. Not to mention that glorious, natural, almost-glow-in-the-dark pink! Is There a Chef in the House? Why, Yes There Is. Hannah's boyfriend was in the mood to cook this weekend and on Saturday made us smothered steaks, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and fruit with yogurt-lime dip for dessert. Mmmm, that boy is a good cook, I have to say. Not sure which brand of can the biscuits were from but the rest of it was all fresh and made from scratch. T

Simple Chorizo

This recipe is for anyone who wants real Mexican flavor but doesn't have access to a deli or butcher who makes chorizo. Funnily enough, we get our "real" Mexican chorizo from a German deli. Hey, sausage making is sausage making. Am I right or am I right? I think I picked this up from one of Matt Martinez's cookbooks. Both Matt Makes a Run for the Border and Matt Martinez's Culinary Frontier are great since Matt has a real knack for simplifying techniques but keeping authentic flavor. However, both are also at home and I'm doing this from work. ------------------ Simple Chorizo 1 pound ground pork 1 teaspoon salt 2 cloves minced garlic 2 teaspoons cumin 1/2 teaspoon oregano 1/4 teaspoon pepper 3 tablespoons chili powder 1 tablespoon white vinegar In a bowl, mix all together and refrigerate overnight. Or, freeze it. ----------------- Hey, I told you it was simple!