July 2010
1 post
Rhubarb: It's not over yet.
It’s summer now, and it’s berry season here in Maine. But as the strawberry and raspberry crop wanes and the blueberry crop has yet to ripen, there’s something still hanging around from spring that lots of people have: rhubarb. Sure, it’s not tender and cute anymore; rather, it’s big, gnarly, and droopy in some cases. But believe it or not, there are still plenty of uses for it, and it provides...
May 2010
2 posts
Twitter Musing
This is one of those days when I have to slow myself down or I’ll be ready too early. As a cook, jumping the gun has serious consequences.
April 2010
5 posts
1 tag
WatchHow to make a Bechamel sauce, in honor of @KevinBrooks, who’s struggling with Martha Stewart’s Mac-n-Cheese recipe.
Everyone should know this mother sauce. With it, you’re making a proper lasagne and Moussaka. Add cheese and you have Mornay (<-this is you, Kevin), add crayfish and butter and cream and you have Nantua, a little sweated onion yields Soubise, and a bunch of...
On Reader's Digest, Toilets, and Cauliflower Ragu
Every. Single. Year. My in-laws foist upon us a subscription to Reader’s Digest. I remember a couple of decades ago asking my dad what Reader’s Digest was, and he told me—probably referring to the hardback compilations of abridged novels they used to put out—that it was writing hacked down for people with short attention spans and minimal vocabulary skills. Actually, he...
cupcake. →
pixie:
By Erika Yamashiro
About those Twinkies...
So if you’ve been following this blog—or just know me in general—you know I have this thing about Twinkie consumption, and I was earlier theorizing that the acrobats of Le Grand Cirque were going to eat ‘em up.
12 seconds. It took 12 seconds to empty a 12 pack. That’s 12 Twinkies. Never mind that previous to that they had inhaled the dozen cupcakes, 24 whoopie pies...
March 2010
9 posts
1 tag
Light and airy quick bread, *now with skinnier... →
My new Guiding Stars recipe for a pumpkin quick bread that multitasks as a loaf, muffin, or cookie. But in the final recipe testing stages, I realized that it makes great whoopie pie cakes as well. My boy Cam challenged me to create a healthier whoopie pie, but I’m not really sure what’s behind that, exactly. I mean, if we want to be healthy, we don’t eat whoopie pies. So the...
6 tags
“So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches?...”
– Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
6 tags
When annoying people produce superior recipes...
So this upcoming Le Grand Cirque gig is interesting because I’m told—per the rider—that my clients are comprised of “27 Asian and 15 Western” individuals. Well thanks. That really clears things up. I get what the “Western” part refers to: those are the people who eat all the Twinkies. But considering Asia includes places like Mongolia and Lebanon and...
4 tags
5 tags
This is your podcast on rugs.
So @jakks posted a pic of herself with her new microphone, a stylishly bulging wad of metal reminiscent of that scene when Daddy Warbucks did the radio show in “Annie.” A real old-skool piece of ish that mic is, perfect for a superfly girl like jakks. Funny thing is I really couldn’t tell it was jakks without referring to the floor, beautifully adorned by an Angela Adams rug...
6 tags
On Inconsistency
A week from today I’ll be in Lowell, MA feeding the cast of Le Grande Cirque, an acrobatic troupe whose name indicates what one would expect: a Cirque de Soleil-style mind trip full of lithe and barely-adult (if at all) athletes contorting and spinning and just generally doing things human bodies aren’t really designed to do.
This isn’t my first go-round with these types....
6 tags
“Everybody’s doing it, so why shouldn’t I?”