Ratio: Best Nonfiction of 2009… So Far

Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio continues to astound and amaze me. The book, already in it’s 4th printing following it’s publication in April, just picked up a kudo from Amazon for Best Nonfiction of 2009 (So far).
When he first told me that he was going to write it, I thought it was a great idea. But I [...]

Slow Salami Sunday

I must be more of an idiot than even my 9th Grade math teacher believed me to be. The guy was a former Wehrmacht commando and competitive water skier so you can imagine how convincing his opinions were.
Sunday (6/7) was a beautiful sunny spring day. I had lots of garden related stuff to do: a [...]

Recipe Pro-Tool

Michael Ruhlman’s recent post about cookbooks that teach got me thinking about how much I used to love cookbooks. Back when I was a novice cook, books like “The Joy of Cooking,” “The Professional Chef” (the basis of The Culinary Institute of Americas’ “The New Professional Chef”), Henri Pellaprat’s “Modern Culinary Art,” almost anything by [...]

Pizza Dough Recipe with Contempt Laden Rant

Earlier I wrote that I’d had enough questions about how I made pizza dough to warrant a post about my recipe. I was planning to post this yesterday, but Blogger was down when I was free to write. So here is the recipe with (apologies to anyone who knows how to use a camera) [...]

The Hitler Vegetarian Cookbook Question

This morning, a friend who knows that I have an unpublished novel about Adolph Hitler’s chef sitting on my hard drive sent me this question from the usenet (?) group rec.food.historic
[Could we write the Hitler Vegetarian Cookbook?]
Surely a lot of the menus for events Hitler attended must survive?It should be possible to work out how [...]

The Hitler Vegetarian Cookbook Question

This morning, a friend who knows that I have an unpublished novel about Adolph Hitler’s chef sitting on my hard drive sent me this question from the usenet (?) group rec.food.historic
[Could we write the Hitler Vegetarian Cookbook?]
Surely a lot of the menus for events Hitler attended must survive?It should be possible to work out how [...]

Model Torta Rustica

Torta: cake or pieRustica: from rustico meaning folksy, rustic
When you spend as much time in the kitchen as I have, the stuff that billows up from the memory well often has something to do with food. Such was the case last week as I was trying to figure out what to do with a surplus [...]

Model Torta Rustica

Torta: cake or pieRustica: from rustico meaning folksy, rustic
When you spend as much time in the kitchen as I have, the stuff that billows up from the memory well often has something to do with food. Such was the case last week as I was trying to figure out what to do with a surplus [...]

Xmas Food 2007

So I let my wife talk me into having a party on Sunday for some local friends. “Just do some hors d oeuvres,” she said “don’t make dinner. That’s too much work.” Oy, sure dinner is more work. But don’t think I won’t be cooking every spare minute between now and the first doorbell [...]

Xmas Food 2007

So I let my wife talk me into having a party on Sunday for some local friends. “Just do some hors d oeuvres,” she said “don’t make dinner. That’s too much work.” Oy, sure dinner is more work. But don’t think I won’t be cooking every spare minute between now and the first doorbell [...]