Category Archives: Food

Other people’s recipes: Serious Eats’ plum sorbet

Posted on 2014-06-22 by

A week ago, @SeriousEats tweeted: The article by Max Falkowitz included several tips and techniques for making a sorbet that’s neither too icy nor too sweet, and provided several fully-worked recipes, including one for plum sorbet. I had a quart … Continue reading →

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Joanne Chang’s brownies

Posted on 2014-06-16 by

Thinking back to the summer of 1987, when I was working as a service clerk in the local Martin’s supermarket (part of the Hannaford Brothers chain), I remember one day in the break room I asked the bakery manager why … Continue reading →

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Other people’s recipes: Mung ki dal

Posted on 2014-06-15 by

Some years ago, we did a pot-luck lunch at work, and my then-coworker Arthur (@hungryplanner) brought in a vegetarian lentil dish he called “mung ki dal”. I have no idea if it’s a real authentic Indian recipe, but it was … Continue reading →

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Chocolate chip cookies two ways

Posted on 2014-04-13 by

A few weeks ago, I made chocolate-chunk cookies from Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook. I was disappointed, since I had had these at the actual Flour bakery numerous times, and mine weren’t nearly as good. I discovered two significant issues. First, … Continue reading →

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A useful trick when photographing food in the kitchen

Always buy plain white paper towels. When you want to photograph something you’re preparing, just crumple up a paper towel and make sure you get it in the frame. Then you have an accurate reference for white-balancing your photograph, without … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on 2014-04-02 by | Tagged ,

Jeff Smith’s “Serbian Pork Seasoning”

Posted on 2014-04-01 by

People my age or older who have been cooking for a long time probably remember Jeff Smith, the Methodist minister known as “The Frugal Gourmet” in PBS television series and related cookbooks. He was perhaps the last of the “old-style” … Continue reading →

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On canned tuna and tuna salad

Posted on 2014-03-30 by

Canned fish is an odd thing in general, a relic of a previous era when there was no practical way of transporting highly perishable foods over long distances, so it had to be preserved (by drying, salting, or smoking) or … Continue reading →

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PSA: How to make buttermilk from regular milk

My blog stats are showing a lot of people ending up here after searching for “how to make buttermilk from regular milk”. You can’t. Buttermilk — real buttermilk — is made from cream, not milk. You can only make a … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on 2014-03-19 by | Tagged , ,

Diane St. Clair’s Old-fashioned Spicy Gingerbread

Posted on 2014-03-18 by

There are two very different desserts going by the name “gingerbread” in this country. One is a stiff, rolled-dough cookie, which is commonly used around Christmastime to make gingerbread houses and other constructions. The other, far less common (at least … Continue reading →

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A very frustrating day of (not) cooking

Posted on 2014-03-16 by

I had planned to post here tonight about two different recipes from Diane St. Clair’s The Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook: a gingerbread and a lasagna. I never had time for the first, and the second was a near-complete failure. Here’s … Continue reading →

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