Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 66

Pack Your Life Vest And Go

Comedian Max Silvestri shares his experiences aboard the Top Chef Cruise. It ain’t The Love Boat.

Reese’s Criminally Drunk Blondies

Hello your honor,

My name is Reese Witherspoon–Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon. I am so embarrassed to be standing in front of you today after having been arrested for disorderly conduct in Atlanta; almost as embarrassed as I was at the premiere of This Means War. What: you didn’t see that movie? Join the club. Anyway, please don’t consider this bribery–oops I said the “B” word–but I baked you a batch of my famous blondies. Get it? Because I’m a blondie? (Well not in my mugshot.)

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Food Crimes: Soft on Soft Sandwiches

Turkey and cheese is a sandwich staple for many people in this universe except I’m not one of those people. That’s because the idea of biting into soft turkey while also biting down on soft cheese totally skeeves me out. Soft on soft is absolutely the worst offense a sandwich maker can commit next to using mayonnaise but that’s a totally different conversation so let’s not get sidetracked. Let’s talk about the sandwich you see above.

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Four-Hour Lamb Shoulder with White Beans and Olive Tapenade

Hold your ears, short ribs, and hide your eyes pork butt: lamb shoulder is quickly becoming my favorite cut of meat to cook at home. I’ve sung its praises before here on the blog, but lately I’ve been on a real lamb shoulder kick. I made April Bloomfield’s version for a crowd recently and they all went nuts for it (hers has anchovies in the mix, which show up in today’s version in the olive tapenade; anchovies and lamb make a surprisingly good match) but even the simplest version–today’s comes from my friend Clotilde–can still wow. And now that it’s spring, it’s a perfect thing to serve along with white beans (traditionally flageolets) and a zesty olive tapenade.

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Animated Knife Skills

Here’s a handy series of animated GIFs teaching you the essential knife skills, starting with how to hold a knife. (via Diner’s Journal.)

I Am Disappointed in This Parsley-Scented Hand Soap

“Write the things that matter to you most” is what a writing teacher somewhere is telling his or her classroom of students. This is great advice and I am heeding it right now when I tell you: I am disappointed in this parsley-scented soap. I bought it at Bed, Bath & Beyond a month ago and squirreled it away for when we ran out of the lavender-scented hand soap. When that day came, I eagerly threw the lavender into the trash and removed the parsley-scented soap from the cabinet. This would be the moment, the moment I would find out what it’s like to use parsley-scented soap.

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A Cook’s Nightmare and A Cook’s Dream

Watching Martha Stewart on Hulu while doing the New York Times crossword puzzle (don’t be too impressed, I barely got four answers) I had a distinct memory of her having Julia Child and Jacques Pepin on as guests. So I went on to YouTube and sure enough the clip you see above surfaced. I love the moment when Martha’s whisking with Julia and Jacques peering over her shoulders; it is, as I quote Martha saying in this post’s title, both a cook’s nightmare and a cook’s dream. If only most of us could be so lucky.

[Update: there's a whole battery of videos on Martha's site of her cooking with Julia and Jacques. Now I know how I'm spending the rest of my afternoon.]

10 Food Rules Worth Breaking

Most of us know the rules when it comes to cooking: wash your hands after handling raw chicken, don’t wash a cast iron skillet with soap, etc. Yet, over my many years of cooking (both with chefs and by myself), I’ve learned that certain rules are time-wasters that do very little for you or your food. Breaking these rules frees you up to focus on the stuff that really matters when making dinner. So here are 10 food rules that you don’t have to follow anymore.

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Is Organic Better?

This is a great story about a middle schooler who wanted to know if organic food is better for you. So for her science fair project, she fed fruit flies organic fruit and regular fruit and noted the differences. The results won her top honors in a national science competition and have been published in actual science journals.

How You Can Help

In my post on Monday, I said if there’s any way members of the Amateur Gourmet community can help victims of the Boston marathon please let me know. Turns out my good friend Michael (who’s regularly featured on this blog) is very close friends with two people who suffered serious leg injuries, Patrick and Jess. Here’s a Kickstarter page where they’re trying to raise money for out-of-pocket medical costs and rehabilitation. I’m going to donate right now; hope you will too.