Don’t Try This at Home

08 Apr 2014 17 Comments

by scolgin in Cooking Tips, Humor Tags: , , , , , , ,

Even as long as I’ve been cooking, I’m still guilty on a regular basis of stupid kitchen injuries and snafus. I try to tell my children, when they cook with me, to learn from my mistakes. I show them the assortment of current cuts and burns on my hands as a cautionary tale. Perhaps they’ll learn the lessons of their father, or perhaps they’ll learn the hard way.

Don't let a shark bite off the tip of your nose!

Don’t let a tiny kitchen shark bite off the tip of your nose!

Here is a list of culinary “Don’t”s — dumb kitchen mistakes that I find myself repeating over and over. I share them with you in the hopes you might have more common sense than I and avoid them. Or at least get a laugh at my misfortune. More

A Tale of Two Gadgets

11 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Good Gadget, Bad Gadget, Humor Tags: , , , , , , ,

I’ve written so much about kitchen gadgets that I always find myself surprised when I find new ones to talk about, or new things to say about them.

In the past, I’ve mostly compared the virtues of good gadgets with the folly of the bad. For Christmas this year, I received two gadgets both of which, I think, fall into the general realm of the latter.

The first arrived in my Christmas stocking, and I was immediately fond of it — not so much because I imagined ever using it, but because a.) it came from Santa, b.) it had French writing on it, and c.) it had a cute little egg with a face on it.

IMG_2945

This is the kind of gadget children love — like heart-shaped cookie cutters or the circus animal waffle press I got my one of my kids for Christmas last year. More

Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

04 Sep 2012 10 Comments

by scolgin in Good Gadget, Bad Gadget, Observations Tags: , , , , , , ,

One of the new little chickens in our coop died today. Something happened to its legs, which for chickens — like horses — is pretty much a death sentence.

New chicks (and two Guineafowl) at the water bowl

I’ve gotten used to a chicken dying occasionally — they get stuck in strange places, the coyotes get them, etc. — so it doesn’t phase me so much. Less blasé, however, am I than the chickens themselves. They just sort of step over their dead friend and continue about their business, casting each other glances every so often as if to say, “What’ya suppose is the matter with Larry?” More

The Skinny Girls Creative Process

06 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by scolgin in American Series, Good Gadget, Bad Gadget, Observations Tags: , , , , , , ,

Welcome to the third season of Skinny Girls & Mayonnaise!

(I like to think of my blog like a TV show, in the event that some enterprising producer out there decides to offer me a cooking show.)

“Brought to you by the good people at Kikkoman Soy Sauce. And by the Norwegian Seafood Council.” (I’m a PBS guy.)

We’ve got a great year ahead, folks, with all sorts of interesting things planned…

Corn butterer

Actually, I’ve got nothing in particular planned. I typically jot down ideas as they occur to me (much like this one, and I currently have no idea where this is going). More