A couple of weeks ago I said I was feeling excessively negative and wanted to get happy, but that I’d do a grousing post some time soon. This is that time.
Firstly, the term ‘flavor forward’ needs to be taken out to the woodshed and put out of its misery. What does that even mean?
More seriously, can we talk about the most recent spate of idiotic diets that are being touted. Read the rest of this entry »
I drove myself a little bit crazy last week in a quest for authenticity. I did research, crowd sourced my father and uncles, dithered, and fussed in search of an ‘authentic’ elegant Dutch meal to celebrate the Abdication/Enthronement of Queen Beatrix/King Willem-Alexander*. Then I went ahead and did things like roasting my Brussels sprouts with balsamic, and adding garlic and rosemary and orange zest to my Hazenpeper. I also threw in a splash of buttermilk to my Hete Bliksem for a touch of creaminess. I did this mostly because I couldn’t help myself, and because I thought they would enhance the dishes, even if the additions were inauthentic. This, however, begs the question of what we mean when we say ‘authentic’. Read the rest of this entry »
On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 an era ended. After 33 years on the throne, her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands stepped down in favor of her son, Crown Prince Willem Alexander. It was the end of her reign, and it also marked the end of 123 years of women at the helm of the Netherlands. Read the rest of this entry »
In my experience, Celebrity/Name Chef cookbooks tend to come in three varieties.
The first is what I call the ‘It’s more about the lifestyle than the recipes’ variety. Much as I love Ina Garten, this is where I put most of her cook books. I basically want to be Ina Garten – I want her house, her garden, and especially her pantry – but I find her cook books are more about an aesthetic than they are about new and/or interesting recipes. I don’t know that anyone needs another recipe for butternut squash soup, or for chicken salad, or strawberry shortcake. The genius in her books is providing inspirational aspirational pretty pretty pictures of food and friends. I’d also class Nigella Lawson (who I also love) in this phylum of the cookbook world. Read the rest of this entry »
True confession? I don’t really like most frosting. People always look first horrified, and then deeply pitying when I say this.
What I have kind of always wanted to do is a blind taste test of all variations on buttercream frosting to see which one, if any, I like, so that I’ll know for future reference. I suspect I’ve had all the variations on buttercream at some point in time or another, but without knowing which one I was eating at any given time I have no way to know if there’s one I find (more) acceptable. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Monday Google announced the beta release of GoogleNose*. I wish that it was live so that I could have shared with y’all how good my kitchen smelled last week. I kept walking back into the kitchen on Monday night to stand over the pot of simmering beans and just inhale deeply (okay, also to warm my hands up in front of the gas flame, because this is the winter that will not end, and it was cold). Read the rest of this entry »
Problems I have never had:
One
There was an article earlier this year in the NYT about the dangers of immersion blenders. I clicked on it curiously, and discovered that it wasn’t so much about the dangers of immersion blenders as it was the dangers of cooking while stupid. The gist of the article was that people who attempted to clean their immersion blenders while they were still plugged into the wall socket tended to get their fingers sliced up when they accidentally depressed the power button on the blender. Read the rest of this entry »
