Content tagged with “cooking”

“This is a flowering plant that grows around the Mediterranean. It has a flavor similar to black licorice, and it often used for that specific flavoring. The flavor comes from a compound called anethole, which it shares with fennel. In my experience, the Greek liquor Ouzo is heavily flavored with…”

“I read several lists of apéritifs, and it seems almost any cocktail counts. The point is that it’s served before the meal, so it’s kind of a ‘liquid appetizer.’ The same thing, served after the meal, it called a ‘digestif,’ and it’s supposedly a tool to aid digestion. (Honestly, both of these just…”

“I did find some references to ‘aubergine purple,’ which is more specifically the color. If you do an image search for ‘ aubergine purple ’ you get all sorts of shades, even drifting into brown. I also found Pantone 229, which someone claimed was ‘aubergine.’ That’s the color swatch embedded at…”

“This a French word to describe a creamy soup. It used to refer to shellfish-based soups: crab bisque, lobster bisque, etc. But it can also refer to any soup with a cream base. Etymology is disputed. Some sources claim it refers to the Bay of Biscay, which is the water north of Spain and west of…”

“ Yes. It’s a hybrid vegetable, formed by mixing broccoli and a leafy Asian vegetable called Gai Lan. ”

“This book was okay as a celebration of cheese, but I’m not sure of it’s practical value. It did drive home the different types of cheese to me – she profiles eight types, from washed-rind to semi-soft to blue, and she presents all sorts of information to characterize them. But like any book about…”

“ Not surprisingly, it’s beef. Specifically, it’s ‘cube steak,’ which is round or sirloin that’s flattened by pounding it with a meat tenderizer. So it’s not a ‘natural’ cut of beef – it’s processed a bit (and then, of course, it’s breaded…). ”

“I read this book as the supposed successor (or maybe predecessor?) to ‘Kitchen Confidential.’ It was just okay. I had trouble with the names. The author careens back and forth between Italy and New York, and there are a lot of people to sort out. There are Marios and Darios and Marcos and Memos and…”

“It’s…okay. It’s very, very drawn out. The author attempts to trace back the origins of his food. The first chapter is on corn, but interestingly he manages to trace food back to oil – the petroleum based fertilizers that everything grows from. The chapters on beef and chicken processing are…”

“I miss Anthony Bourdain. I miss his voiceovers. He was such a great writer when he was writing for himself to speak. This book is useless to me, but I still loved it. It’s ostensibly a travel guide. There’s a chapter for each country Tony went to in any of his three shows: No Reservations , The…”