Knowing Your Ingredients In the way back machine, it seems like there were two kinds of households in America. Those who used Betty Crocker cookbooks in their iconic red check binder, and those who used The Joy of Cooking in the blue cover with stripes. Both had certain strengths, but Joy in particular offered a ‘Know Your Ingredients' section. What is a cook to do if … [Read more...]
Kitchens Were Made for Fun
A retired restaurateur, not quite ready to stop playing in the kitchen.
I have had the pleasure of watching amazing high end chefs, and classic American style diner cooking, creating a very diverse background with food. Add both parents teaching English, watching Julia Childs and Graham Kerr as a child, and learning to bake bread from my Finnish great grandma, and you get a decent recipe for a knowledgeable voice to write about food.
From recipe design to equipment testing, there is a broad spectrum of entertaining aspects of food and how we do what we do every day to feed our loved ones!
—Allen Bixby
Making Cookies – Basics & Our Favorite Cookie Recipes
Cookie History Only recently has it become necessary to specify the cookie of which one is speaking, in this case we mean the tasty treat, not the internet tagging system. In the strictest sense cookies by that name are American, appearing in the 1600s with the etymology likely coming from the Dutch word ‘koekje’. Similar food had been around literally for centuries and in … [Read more...]
Kitchen Knife Sets – Tested & Rated
Choosing the best set of knives for your kitchen can be a tricky problem. You can save time and money by simply purchasing a premade knife set. The potential downside to this is that you can end up with a cheap collection of knives that serve better as a decoration than for cutting. Your knives are the backbone of your kitchen, and they deserve careful consideration, … [Read more...]
Buying the Right Steak for Grilling & Cooking
The summer sun and the smell of steak being grilled, it doesn’t get much better. Using flame from gas, charcoal or mesquite, makes no difference because you first have to pick a steak that will meet your profile for a tasty pieces of beef. The beauty of it is that even your chain grocer offers a wider variety of cuts than in the years past. We’ll explore what the differences … [Read more...]
Ways to Tenderize Meat
As meat prices continue to rise, it is valuable to know how to use what in the past were called utility cuts. Which is a nice way to say if you don’t handle them properly you will be chewing them for a couple days. But when you do use the right process they will give you some of the best tasting meat you can cook up for friends and family. For that reason some utility cuts from … [Read more...]
Misen Knives & Cookware, Should You Buy?
Misen is the crowd funded kitchen ingénue that bombards all of us with Facebook ads or other marketing pops. That’s fine, we’re all for building a brand. Theirs is a quality knife that is comparable to products that cost twice as much, at least that’s what they are saying. This knife business has been parlayed into skillets, utensils and more. Is it the real deal or just a … [Read more...]
Dutch Oven — Cooking to History
Why “Dutch” oven instead of a multitude of other country choices? There may be as many as three different cooking devices all sharing that particular name. However, the most known version is the heavy pot with steep sides and a secure lid. History Funnily enough, the Dutch oven was the catalyst for the use of cast iron to make cookware, and actually a viable entry into the … [Read more...]
Making Omelettes: American, French & Japanese
The name omelet hit the west somewhere around 500 years ago in France. The dish however has likely been around as long as humans have been scavenging eggs, and had a round shaped area to heat and cook them in. That being said, the French did formalize the omelet in the west. Many Asian cultures have been making them as well, possibly the most well-known being the tamagoyaki … [Read more...]