foodskills

Flashback: Kitchen 101: Dicing Onions Like a Pro

Flashback: Kitchen 101: Dicing Onions Like a Pro

By Paul Stern If you use onions as often as I do – in everything from soup and pasta sauce to tuna salad and guacamole – it helps to be able to dice one quickly, efficiently, and without crying your eyes out. Here’s how the pros do it. For a PDF of this technique, visit […]

Continue Reading
Food Preservation: A MAKE Google+ Hangout Oct. 31

Food Preservation: A MAKE Google+ Hangout Oct. 31

This week’s Food Makers hangout on Google+ will air Oct. 31 at 2pm PT and will focus on food preservation and fermentation. Guests will include Cama Davis from the Portland Meat Collective, Camas Davis of Happy Girl Kitchen and Sandor Katz, author of the encyclopedic “Art of Fermentation” and reigning guru of all things fermented.

Continue Reading
Making Fancy Cheese at Home

Making Fancy Cheese at Home

Making cheese isn’t anything I ever considered, especially fancy cheese. But recently, I had the pleasure of taking a Beginning Cheese Making class with author and chef Mary Karlin at The Fork, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company’s beautiful on-farm cooking class facility.

Continue Reading

Skill Builder: Office Cooking Hacks

I have a confession to make: I’m a picky eater. My everyday cooking is much more about healthy, simple foods that get the job done than the over-the-top, involved productions that one might imagine the author of a food science book would be concocting. Don’t get me wrong, I love whipping up a fun, multi-course meal with friends. But day-in, day-out, I’m much more likely to stick to simple, healthy meals that have a good nutritional profile.

Continue Reading
How to Make Your Own Gin Without a Still

How to Make Your Own Gin Without a Still

My favorite bartender/mixologist/drink blogger Jefferey Morgenthaler has written a number of excellent articles about making your own cocktail compounds, such as homemade tonic and grenadine. I recently dug up this oldie but goodie on making gin in your kitchen by infusing neutral spirits or vodka with juniper berries and other spices. …what many people don’t […]

Continue Reading

Your Desktop Dining Tips (and Cooking for Geeks Giveaway)

Let’s face it. Likely a large majority of us eat at our desks. I eat nearly all of my meals here (and my keyboard is crummy enough to prove it!). And I not only eat within my work flow, I frequently rush the food prep (especially Breakfast and Lunch) to get back to the ‘board as soon as possible. Both of these behaviors run counter to my increasing desire to eat healthier. So, I’ve at least been trying to make sure it’s better food that I snatch and grab in a mad dash back to my desk.

Continue Reading