Cooking Techniques and Kitchen Gadgets

Where do you get recipe ideas? Cooking shows? Food magazines? The Wednesday food section of your newspaper? Blogs? (Um, I hope you nodded "yes" to that last one.) How about Twitter and Facebook?

Last time I had some overripe bananas to use up I could have made my favorite banana, coconut, and Medjool quick bread, but I wanted something savory. Nothing was coming to mind, so I did what any connected food blogger would do: I asked my tweeps.

I tweeted, "Does anybody have any good savory recipes for ripe bananas?" Within minutes I had several responses, but it was Jill of @eatitdrinkit's response that intrigued me. She suggested I make chipotle banana bread. Chipotle chilis in banana bread? Really? Yes, really.

When I asked her for the recipe, she said she didn't have one. The flavor combo just came to her, and before she realized it, she was making a batch of Banana-Chipotle Bread. When she posted it on her blog, she triumphantly exclaimed, "It worked!"

What is it about vinegar plus ingredients that make me such a happy boy? Is it the complimentary tang of anything that's cured in brine brings? Is it that zippy puckerface that follows after chomping on a pickled cucumber? Or have I just encountered temporary culinary fatigue and needed something loud and strong to shock me out of my lull?

Perhaps it was D, all of the above.

To me, there are just some things that cannot and should not be enjoyed without their pickled counterpart. I refuse to enjoy paté and baguette without cornichon. I frown if a burger doesn't have pickles waiting for me under its bun. A ploughman's lunch isn't a ploughman's lunch without Branston pickle. Pickles, in whatever form, provide that sharp tangy balance that pairs beautifully with the smooth and savory. It's that last crash of a symbol in a symphony, that sparkling sour kick in a bite.

From the N.Y. Times

There is undeniable pleasure in a plain beef burger — juicy, tender, and well browned over a backyard grill — but there’s even more in a jazzed-up one. If you begin with pork, lamb or beef that you buy yourself and grind at home, and continue by adding seasonings aggressively, you’re on your way to a summer full of great “burgers” which are, in essence, sausages in burger form.

In fact, I wondered while making (and eating) my first pork burger of the grilling season: Why would anyone make a plain burger? Why would you begin with supermarket ground beef — whose quality is highly questionable and whose flavor is usually disappointing, if not depressing — and then cook it without much seasoning beyond a few crystals of salt? Ketchup, after all, does not fix everything. Even adding mustard, pickles and so on, right down to mayonnaise, doesn’t give you good-tasting meat.

Read article...

So there we are, my two children, my ex-husband and his side of the family sitting at the table. All adults ranging in age from 20 to 70.  Dinner is over, I am paying no attention to the conversation at the far end of the table when I see my nephew approaching with a bathroom scale.  I have no idea what instigated this, but it apparently involves a discussion about someone's weight.  (Not mine, I assure you.)

Now that he has our attention, my nephew puts the scale on the floor next to the table, steps on -- and tells the assembled group how much he weighs.  Mind you, this is AFTER dinner, not before, and we have all just consumed excessive amounts of bread, pasta, and other carbohydrates.