Sep 02

Arming Your Kitchen

Over the years we’ve accumulated a large batterie de cuisine, armaments to wage battle against ingredients to make meals. I’ve come a long way from the time a former roommate and I beat egg whites for a soufflé – with a fork. It worked, but our arms were mighty sore afterward. Since we all have limited space in our kitchens for every gadget in creation, let me give you some suggestions on arming your kitchen. This post deals with the non-electric stuff. I’ll cover electric gadgets in a subsequent post.

The bare bones. A chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a serrated (bread) knife will handle most of your cutting needs. Don’t skimp on the quality of your knives. Add a vegetable peeler for carrots and potatoes. Buy some wooden and metal spoons for mixing and serving. A good set of measuring cups: Metal for dry ingredients, glass for liquids. A set of metal measuring spoons. A balloon whisk. A slotted spoon and a ladle. A four-sided metal cheese grater. A set of mixing bowls, either metal or glass.

You can never have too many sets of tongs. They’re handy to flip steaks and chops, and to fish things out of boiling water. Buy some extra-long tongs if you grill.

A thermometer. This is good to test meat for doneness. You can get a pen-type thermometer or get one with a remote sensor in case you’re roasting something and you’re in another room.

Can and bottle openers. The can opener can be electric or manual. Add a sturdy corkscrew if you drink wine. (The first time Julian made dinner for me, his corkscrew fell apart when he attempted to open a bottle of wine. I bought him three corkscrews the following Christmas so he’d always have a backup.)

Not only does ease of cleaning matter, so does usability. If you’re in a mixed household as we are, consider whether these items can be used by both left- and right-handed people. Julian bought a peeler that can be switched for southpaw use, but that’s too much of a hassle. I just grab an ambidextrous y-shaped peeler.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/09/02/arming-your-kitchen/

Sep 01

Inspecting Kitchen Gadgets

These are a few gadgets we have in our kitchen. They’re all quite useful for their purposes. However, to paraphrase an old Sesame Street song, “Some of these things are not like the others.” The difference? Ease of cleaning. The items on the left are dishwasher safe, the ones on the right less so.

In our house, s/he who doesn’t cook cleans up. This can be onerous when the chef du soir uses every implement within reach to make dinner. The dishwasher is a godsend on these nights to get things cleaned up quickly. Trying to get every last ginger fiber out of the Microplane grater by hand is not my idea of fun.

Ease of cleaning also applies to larger tools. Both of us used to have blenders with blades that could be detached from the container. Our current blender has one-piece construction so you can’t pop it into the dishwasher or clean the blades easily by hand. The workaround is to buzz some soapy water in the blender, but even then you may miss some blueberry skins from your morning smoothie. That’s when you have to get out the brush or risk your fingers by reaching into the blender with a sponge.

Julian’s philosophy of kitchen gadgets is that one should consider time spent cleaning them along with time saved using them. Stay tuned for my philosophy of gadgets.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/09/01/inspecting-kitchen-gadgets/

Sep 01

Thought for Friday

I was at work, so I couldn’t watch more than snippets of Aretha Franklin’s memorial service last night. This morning when I opened the article on The New York Times on her service, I read these lines from Stevie Wonder:

“Please remember the greatest gift that we’ve been given in life itself is love,” he said. “We can talk about all the things that are wrong, and there are many, but the only thing that can deliver us is love. So what needs to happen today, not only in this nation, but throughout the world, is that we need to make love great again. Because black lives do matter. Because all lives do matter.”

Thank you, Stevie. Rest in peace, Aretha.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/09/01/thought-for-friday/

Aug 29

Our Wine Cellar

Our red wine collection was outgrowing the kitchen cupboard it shared with our liquor collection. We looked online for free-standing cabinetry to hold the wine. What we saw was either too cheesy or too expensive. So Julian got two black boxes online and constructed the dividers at our friend Bruce’s workshop. He set them up in the geek cave on the lower floor, where it’s cool. The depth of the boxes protects the wine from light. Bruce does good work.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/29/our-wine-cellar/

Aug 26

Luau

One of my coworkers was going to fly to Maui the other day. Hurricane Lane messed with those plans, so she and her family had to settle for Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Friday Night Follies crew put on a luau. Cool weather prevented us from swimming. In fact, most of us wore fleece to stay warm on the patio. Nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

The mains consisted of huli huli chicken and kebabs (beef or all vegetable). I made some Hawaiian coleslaw.  Julian found the recipe online. I used a sack of coleslaw mix rather than getting separate heads of red and green cabbage. The dressing was a sesame-ginger vinaigrette. A ginger grater makes short work of reducing the ginger to a pulp. It works much better than the Multiplane, as the fibers don’t get stuck in holes. Mercifully, nobody made spam musubi. Drinks included a pitcher of potent mai tais. As usual, nobody left hungry.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/26/luau/

Aug 21

Haiku for Summer in Seattle

A smoky Tuesday.
Everybody’s wearing
Matching shades of gray.

This was inspired by my commute to work this morning. I looked around at my fellow bus riders and many of them were wearing gray. Maybe we’re trying to camouflage ourselves.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/21/haiku-for-summer-in-seattle/

Aug 19

Up in Smoke

This post is not about Seattle’s annual Hempfest, although it did occur this weekend. The wildfires in the western US and Canada have resulted in high levels of smoke. My hair stylist said that she and her husband encountered smoky conditions throughout their road trip to California. The air quality in Seattle last Wednesday was worse than in either Beijing or New Delhi. On that day I could barely see West Seattle from my office. Mount Rainier has been shrouded in smoke for nearly a week. There is no rain in the forecast until maybe next Sunday. Welcome to life with global warming.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/19/up-in-smoke/

Aug 18

Proximity Pays?

Over the years I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon in retail businesses. Often competing businesses are located close to one another. A few examples:

  • When I was in grad school, Wegmans opened a supermarket next door to Tops Friendly Market in Ithaca.
  • Cell phone service providers can be in nearby buildings or mall kiosks.
  • Car dealerships are routinely clustered together. This is probably the oldest example in the list. As consolidation occurs, the effect is even more obvious. Many of the dealerships on a particular stretch may have the same ownership.
  • In the new Totem Lake Shopping Center in Kirkland, Whole Foods opened literally next door to Trader Joe’s.

In some cities, this proximity also extends to health care. Three of the largest hospitals in Seattle (Harborview, Swedish, and Virginia Mason) are on First Hill, also known as Pill Hill. There were a couple of other hospitals in the neighborhood, but they were bought out or closed. One has been converted to a same-day surgery center.

The question arises: Who benefits from this? In cell phones and groceries, the consumer is probably the larger beneficiary. If you don’t like the deal one carrier has, you can walk down the street to the next one. If you can’t find arugula in Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods may have it. In the case of cars, the benefit is definitely in the dealer’s corner. (One could say that it’s always in the dealer’s corner.)

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/18/proximity-pays/

Aug 12

The PSSST Game

I’ve played a game with my cats over the years that I call The PSSST game. The rules are simple:

  • Hide around a corner from the cat.
  • Peek around and say, “PSSST!”
  • If the cat doesn’t come the first time, repeat.
  • Often if the cat doesn’t come after two or three times, peek around the corner and give a Bronx Cheer. Usually that brings the cat running to you.

I’ve noticed that my male cats are more likely to play The PSST Game than the females. Roscoe would come after three iterations. Jasper would come after one or two. Luka is in between his predecessors. While Chubbette would play, Phoebe would have no part of it. Neli follows the lead of the other females. Maybe the females understand object permanence better than the males.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/12/the-pssst-game/

Aug 12

Baking Between the Lines

I decided to make the One True Cobbler® for this year’s Spiediefest. Since several of our friends have wheat or gluten allergies, I decided to try a gluten-free (GF) version. This experiment was potentially fraught with peril, but I forged ahead anyway.

The most important thing in baking side-by-side versions of goodies like cobblers or cakes is segregation. I measured all of the GF ingredients for each cobbler into separate bowls, then cut up the peaches and mixed them with brown sugar and lemon juice. While the butter was melting in the individual pans, I stirred together the batters with separate whisks. I used Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour mix for the GF batter. When the butter was melted, I poured the batters into their separate pans and topped the batter with the peach mixture. I started off with the GF pan to prevent cross-contamination from glutenous batter splatters. I used a Pyrex pan for the GF cobbler. I figured the dishwasher would have rid it of specks of gluten from previous baking adventures better than the metal pans that we’d hand-washed.

As I was mixing things together, I noticed on the GF flour bag that, for best results, one should add xanthan gum to batters and doughs. I wasn’t about to run out and buy a separate package of xanthan gum. That stuff is quite pricey for a single use. (I’m not into molecular gastronomy. I like my cuisine to look like the food of its origin.) Besides, the 1:1 ratio of flour to milk in the batter wasn’t going to be much affected by the lack of xanthan gum.

One of my GF friends was intrigued that I’d used the flour mix I had, since she’d had trouble baking with flours high in chickpea before. I was more concerned that the legume flours would add an off-taste to the cobbler. Fortunately, she and the other GF revelers enjoyed the final result. I tried a little myself and was relieved at the texture and taste. It’s amazing what peaches and sugar will do.

Two cobblers. The GF iteration is on the left.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/08/12/baking-between-the-lines/

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