Week of November 21-27, 2011
Above is a shot of turkey drumsticks, cooked at 170 for 8 hrs in butter and herbs – a small part of what we were thankful for this year. We hope everyone had a Thanksgiving as delicious as ours. Now, onto the links!
Gifts and Gear
Just in time for the Christmas shopping season!
- We share our controversial thoughts about cutting the bindings of cookbooks to make them more useful.
- Oh, and we’ve started a permanent page on recommended books about science and cooking. Many more to come!
- Scott, the Seattle Food Geek, chimes in with a fantastic (if somewhat pricey) Food Geek Gift Guide.
- Christopher, the Drinkhacker, debuts his list of the best spirits for Christmas, 2011 (search for previous years’ posts for more ideas)
- It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Michael Chu (of Cooking for Engineers Fame), but we’re glad he back to share ten books he recommends as great gifts.
- Matthew Kayahara gets excited about the terrific fall lineup of cookbooks, particularly Eleven Madison Park.
- Amber Karnes posts a list of kitchen gadgets useful for folks trying to stick to the paleolithic diet. I myself am a big fan of the research behind paleo, but the list is good for anyone, not just the caveman-minded.
Inspiration
- Jethro at Jet City Gastrophysics shares a moving quest to recreate Next restaurant’s 1906 pressed duck at home. We highly recommend this post; it is well deserving of the title “inspiration.”
- Rum Flavored Caviar adds a festive punch to any drink.
- There’s really no way to describe this. It’s beautiful. Just click.
- via thefoodgeek: possibly the most complicated (and awesome) peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Earth.
- From Aki of Ideas in Food: “the best [food bloggers[ tell stories that entertain and teach and reach inside us and make us feel good.” post
- How do real chefs do pumpkin pie? With great spices, crunchy sugar, a little tapioca starch, and a baking stone for even heat distribution.
Geeky Stuff
- What would you do if you could use a “superhydrophobic” material to keep a material completely untouchable by water? Swallowing this stuff would probably be a bad idea.
- Woah! cool: some folks at UMich apparently did a network analysis of 40,000 recipes at allrecipes.com and discovered that many ingredients are highly-swappable. I’m saving this one under “read more about it later.”
- One of our favorite blogs, Drinkfactory shares a brilliant, detailed post on the artisan distilling revolution. Some really cool science and inspiration to be found in this post.
- Carolyn Tepolt over at Science Fare experimentally proves that we should all forget pumpkin pie forever - acorn squash makes the best pie. Wahh-huh?? Definitely going to try this one.
Nutrition
- An interesting article about Coca Cola’s plans to keep using aspartame in the EU, but roll out stevia by 2012. I’ve done some testing with artificial sweeteners, and suffice it to say the competition is both interesting and complicated. Certain types of stevia taste the closest to raw sugar as anything I’ve experienced.
Hacks
- Use a skillet to reheat pizza with a perfect, crispy crust. Personally, I don’t like the aluminum foil dome idea. I will usually do the skillet trick, then toss it under a broiler. If you’re reheating a large amount of pizza, preheat a baking tray at 350 until it gets hot, toss the pizza on there, then put the whole thing back in the oven, and everything should be perfect in five to ten minutes.
Kitchen Myths
The blog kitchen myths has been around for a while now, but up until recently has sat relatively dormant. Well, in the past few weeks they’ve really kicked it up a notch, with some clever and useful posts:
- MYTH: “Fresh” seafood is always better than frozen
- MYTH: Sushi means raw fish. (it actually refers to the rice, and sushi itself is may more complicated than you might think. scroll down on the linked page for my comment).
- MYTHS: Three myths about dried beans
What geeky gifts are you hoping for this holiday season?
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