Cooking and Gadgets

Best Apple Peeler Slicer Corer Gadget

applecorer Growing up in New England, fall usually meant a trip to a nearby orchard to pick a bushel or two of locally grown apples. Most orchards sold more than just apples, they also had jugs of fresh Apple Cider (the official beverage of my home state, New Hampshire) which, until recently, was nearly impossible to find in California. The have plenty of apple drinks labeled “cider” but because most cider is pasteurized, which is quite different in taste and texture than unpasteurized cider.

Pasteurization is a result of health and safety concerns, primarily due to E. coli outbreaks from unpasteurized apple cider, and now all apple cider sold in the United States, other than sales directly to consumers by producers - such as juice bars, farmers’ markets, and roadside farm stands, must be pasteurized.

If good sanitation practices are followed, the risk from unpasteurized cider is negligible, so I prefer to seek out unpasteurized cider at my local farmer’s market. I use it quickly as it has a limited shelf-life, although it can be frozen for use throughout the year.

Cooking Sous Vide

I don't know about you but I've got five extremely angry über chefs glaring at me from their cookbook bookflaps on my kitchen shelf and it's making me nervous: England's Heston Blumenthal's "The Big Fat Duck Cookbook", Thomas Keller's "Under Pressure", Grant Achatz's "Alinea", and a couple of chefs from Spain – Ferran Adrià's "El Bulli Volumes 2003-2004", and Joan Roca's "Sous Vide". It sounded like a good idea at the time – assembling courtesy of Amazon.com the modern greats for a holiday feast using the latest sci-fi techniques of sous vide (cooking food in a vacuum packed pouch) – and then having at it.

What these chefs failed to take into account – and the cause of their ire – was that I now see I don't possess any of the tools required to cook any of their recipes. They want to know why they are in my kitchen. I don't have a Polyscience Minipack-torre Model MVS31 Vacuum Sealer ($2025.00), a 8306C Model Thermal Circulating Bath ($1799.00), or even a functional spatula. I do have, however, from a previously deranged buying spree – The Smoking Gun™ ($79.00), which runs on 4 AA batteries and helps infuse dishes with a smoky flavor. An excellent Christmas present for your foodie friends. But I'm crushed to learn from their website that the gun is now being touted as "Excellent for finishing products that are cooked Sous Vide". Back to the beginning. I won't be dining in.

Yes, It is a Pesto

There once was a time when basil reigned supreme. A time when basil was ubiquitous in Italian dishes. A time when pesto always meant basil.

Not anymore.

Pesto is a Ligurian sauce made from mashed basil, garlic, parmesan, olive oil, and pine nuts. Though it has been enjoyed by Italians for centuries, it's a newborn to American cuisine. Sunset magazine was instrumental in introducing this sauce to Americans, when in 1946, it published a pesto recipe by Tuscan native, Angelo Pellegrini. It wasn't until the 1980's and early '90s that pesto became widely popular with chefs and home cooks, who could easily buy fresh basil at the market.

Maybe it was boredom with basil. Maybe it was creative genius by some chefs. Whatever it was, by the mid to late '90s new "pestos" made with herbs such as mint, parsley, and sage were popping up in restaurants and in cooking magazines. Now "pesto" would have to be qualified: mint pesto or sage pesto. Some people were thrilled. Others confused. Some indignant. Pesto purists (you know who you are) will argue that "pesto," refers to the Ligurian sauce made with basil. For them, all other "pestos" are imposters.

From Dregs to Delicious

From The LA Times

parmrinds Here in California we love to brag about our abundance of wonderful seasonal ingredients and how that makes good food easy. That's more or less true, but I have to confess that I've also always had a sneaking admiration for those cooks who can whip up something from nothing.

Sure, it's wonderful to be able to just pick up a sack of Ojai Pixie mandarins and a box of medjool dates and call it dessert. But you've really got to admire someone who can take a couple of wilted zucchinis, a sprouting onion and some canned tomatoes and turn that into something delicious — the real-life equivalent of the proverbial stone soup.

I've got my own version, and, in fact, it does start with something hard as a rock. In a battered plastic bag in the deepest recesses of my refrigerator, I've got a hidden stash of gold: rinds from used chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Whenever my wife finds them, she pulls them out and asks disbelievingly: "You're saving these?" And probably 98% of people would have the same reaction.

But those rock-hard rinds are flavor bombs, packed with umami. Simmer them in a pot of beans, in a soup, even in a tomato sauce, and you probably won't actually taste Parmesan, but you'll certainly taste the difference.

Smoke Gets in Your Food

They, asked me how I knew,
My true love was true,
I of course replied, something here inside,
Can not be denied.

They, said some day you'll find,
All who love are blind,
When you heart's on fire, you must realize,
Smoke gets in your eyes.

Written by Jerome Kern (music) and Otto Harbach (lyrics) for the musical "Roberta" in 1933

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is supposed to be romantic, but it just makes me hungry. It's completely primal. With all due respect to raw food adherents, smoke has been appealing every since we discovered that the combination of fire plus food equals delicious. The smell of smoky bacon or barbecue has been known on occasion to make even committed vegetarians weak.

Sadly, I have nowhere to put a grill let alone a smoker. I use my cast iron grill pan, and make-shift smokers in the oven and stove top and char my eggplants and peppers under the broiler. But it's not the same. Smoky flavors are elusive. So far my favorite smoke-enhancers are chipotle pepper, cumin and smoked paprika. But now I have a new weapon in my arsenal.

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