29 Apr 2011 3 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Recipes, The Pantry Tags: halibut, Japan's Favorite, Ponzu, secret weapon
Some of my favorite secret-weapon ingredients come from the cuisine of Japan. Ponzu is one such product.
"Japan's Favorite" ponzu
You’ve probably been eating ponzu all along, even if you didn’t know it. It’s the citrussy soy sauce they put on top of certain dishes at the sushi bar. But it has uses far beyond that in your kitchen. More
26 Apr 2011 11 Comments
in Observations Tags: American cheese, Cheetos, Dodger Dogs, fish n' chips, guilty pleasures, Japanese crack snacks, KFC, McDonalds, Steve Garvey
Now that sounds scandalous, doesn’t it… I pity the poor pervert trolling the web, thinking he was going to find something completely different when his Google search landed him on this page. “Steve Garvey!??”
Steve Garvey with a Dodger Dog for you
Anyway, my local grocery store was closing for renovations and selling off everything on the shelves at 50% off. I was one of the late arrivals, and missed all the good wines and gourmet products. More
22 Apr 2011 9 Comments
in American Series, Recipes, Sensational Salads, Video Tags: buttermilk, fried chicken, Joy of Cooking, KFC, leftovers, potluck, the South, Thomas Keller
To kick off my new series of posts on classic American dishes, I chose the most iconic dish of them all — fried chicken. While I’m not convinced anyone will ever do a better fried chicken than the Colonel, I thought I’d give it my best.
If you begin to research the origins of fried chicken, you quickly find yourself wading in some murky waters — with references to everything from Vietnam and West Africa to medieval Europe, the existing literature flavored with converging allusions to homesteading, the Deep South, the Civil War, slavery, industrialization… which makes sense. Throw some flour on chicken and put it in some oil. What could be more elemental? More
19 Apr 2011 12 Comments
in Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video Tags: bacon tree, fish, omnivore, Pork, quinoa, Santa Monica, Skinny Girls, starlet, vegetarian, yoga
The Bacon Tree
Tomorrow one of my skinny yoga teacher sisters is coming for dinner. (Yes, I’ve got two.) She’s not exactly a vegetarian – she eats a lot of fish, which is okay in the culinary curriculum of many vegetarians. (Fish being some sort of pseudo-animal, I guess, more related to an avocado than a pig.) There should be a new name for these types of eaters — quasitarians, maybe… or rationalitarians. She will also eat “small quantities” of meat. I’m not sure exactly where the line is on that one. I think I’ll play it safe and grill some whole sea bass, slice up some tuna crudo, make a couple pizzas. More
15 Apr 2011 9 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Good Gadget, Bad Gadget, Observations Tags: english muffins, gadgets, grilling, Kazue, Peri, spätzle, wasabi, wine
Summer is on the horizon. Which means it’s time for a new onslaught of absurd kitchen gadgets. (Next winter’s clearance items.) Kudos to kitchen gadget inventors everywhere for their continued creativity in coming up with an infinite procession of products we didn’t even know we needed. (And, if you’re like me, you’re just clamoring for new gadgets to fill up all that empty cabinet space in your kitchen.)
As usual, when I’m finished exploring the world of the ridiculous, I will delve briefly into the truly useful — which is, sadly, a much smaller category. But first, the Hall of Shame:
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This may be the worst kitchen gadget ever invented. Thank you, Suzanna, for passing this one along:
Tuna press — to press the oil out of the tuna can... I kid you not.
