I spent fair amount of time in college hanging out with nerdy guys.  That pretty much means that instead of spending Friday nights trashed in a mini skirt (though there were a few of those), I was more likely to be eating take-out on a dorm floor while watching action movies and making penis jokes.

However, ordering pizza and wings got old pretty fast, so my friend ET came up with an innovative, new way to indulge: World Tour.  When I asked him how he came up with the idea, he simply said:

<wise, old wizard voice>”We were four friends who were fat.  Not physically, of course, but mentally. Mentally hungry and the only thing that could suppress the hunger was cutting off all blood flow through greasy foods.”</wise, old wizard voice>

And thus, an epic journey began.

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Every ingredient in the kitchen has a value. It is easier to define the value of certain ingredients over others, for example eggs. If we were to apply a numerical score to every food item eggs would score extremely high. They can be the main focus of a dish or provide the necessary additions to pull a recipe together.

Ignoring individual cuisines or regional cooking practices (rice will certainly score a higher value in Asian cuisines than in German) the three highest value ingredients might be water, salt, and eggs.

Part of what makes seeing the value in those three easy is that they are base ingredients. It is not difficult to think of recipes that require their addition for a vast array of reasons. However when we look at a more complex ingredient, like chicken or sausage it becomes harder. We tend to focus more on applications where it is the star ingredient and thus it’s overall value is diminished because if it isn’t the center of the dish, we are less apt to use it.

Yet looking closer we see that proteins can be just as valuable. Think of all the uses you can derive from chicken stock; which requires chicken to make. Read the rest of this entry »

A calzone by any other name is just a stuffed bread. Call it a calzone, Stromboli, Empanada, or some regional Italian name like Panzerotti and what you have is a savory type of turnover. We could also throw the term pasty in there to really confuse things. Regardless of what we call it, all of them are some kind of dough or bread that is filled with varying ingredients, sealed and baked or fried. The perfect kind of snack or meal: delicious, versatile and simple.

For purposes of this “method” we’ll use the term stuffed bread, even if it isn’t completely accurate. Stuffed breads are a staple at my family gatherings and I’ve employed them at the few parties I’ve hosted myself. They take virtually no effort, can serve several people at a time, and because of their simplicity adapting them to individual tastes isn’t nearly the chore it usually is. Plus, their composition makes keeping them warm and ready to go easy, which is important when you’re trying to guess when those perpetually late guests will arrive. Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend, Jesse and I went to King Richard’s Renaissance Faire in Carver, MA. Renn Faires were a staple for fostering my nerdom during my teen years. My friends and I would don our flower garlands and revel in the jousts, shoot a few arrows in the archery range, and sport horrendous Middle English accents while reciting the prologue to The Canterbury Tales (don’t ask). However, I hadn’t attended a Renn Faire since I left for college, and Jesse had yet to experience its wonder, so I figured this fall would be a good one to make my return.

Here’s the things I learned when I attended King Richard’s Renn Faire: Read the rest of this entry »

I love Dexter’s Laboratory the cartoon network show that focused on child genius Dexter, his sister Dee Dee and his evil nemesis Mandark. Partly because Mandark and Dexter are a pretty good analog for the relationship between Jesse and me.

One of my favorite episodes involves Dexter having to study for a French exam. He creates a device to feed the language straight into his brain while he sleeps, but it gets stuck and all he learns how to say is omelette de fromage “cheese omelet”.

Hilarity ensues. Coincidentally, this is the only phrase in French that I know.

Dexter has nothing to do with actually making an omelet and the mention here is merely as a reference for how ubiquitous the omelet has become.

The omelet (or omelette) appears on every breakfast menu you can probably find. Yet, an omelet encompasses far more than what you probably associate with the word. Read the rest of this entry »

Chances are that if you walk into the majority of “American” cuisine restaurants in this country, you will find some version of roast chicken on the menu. The most popular iteration being the half-roast chicken with seasonal vegetable. Many people skip right over it, because frankly it sounds boring. Instead they’ll opt for whatever seafood special has made it’s way into the laminated pull-out section of the menu, or some sandwich/burger monstrosity. Most likely the one that contains the most bacon. Ironically, when cooked properly the simple roast chicken dish is probably the tastiest item on the menu.

The operative word there is properly. Many restaurants put roast chicken on the menu but many lack the execution to make it anything more than the meal you choose when you’re on a diet and salads just aren’t cutting it anymore. This is a sad development, but one that is easily remedied simply by doing it yourself at home. Read the rest of this entry »

You may not currently be aware, but you could be a prisoner in your own life.

In Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain’s latest tome about the world of food, the grand wizard offers a chapter on “virtue” and puts forward the idea that all men and women should learn to cook, even at a basic level starting around the age of puberty. He goes on at length discussing some of the reasons many young people cannot or do not cook and ends with a list that he argues should stand as all the basic cooking skills that people should learn. These range from rudimentary knife skills, to roasting a chicken and making soups.

It is a smart and engaging chapter, but he doesn’t quite go far enough in arguing why we should all know how to cook. Sure he talks about the importance of family meals to social stability, the health aspects of home cooking as well as cost savings; but frankly the answer is much simpler than that. You will never be independent unless you know how to cook.

Let’s repeat that. You will never be independent unless you learn to cook. You may pay your own rent, tie your own shoes and even wipe your own ass. However, if you can’t cook there’s no difference between you and the infant sucking on mom’s teet, except that the kid is probably getting more action than you are. Read the rest of this entry »

Having lived in New York City for awhile now, I’ve learned to decipher tourist traps from the real deal when it comes to food. Pro-tip: if it is in Times Square, chances are it is a trap. When it comes to bakeries this type of vigilance might be more important than with other kinds of food. There are just so many bakeries in the city, all claiming to offer the best and most famous and whatever confections adorn the window display.

Sifting through the noise can be difficult. Go check out any number of top ten lists for New York hot spots for baked goods and you’re going to find the usual suspects. Some of them definitely deserve to be on these lists, others not so much. Rather than focus on disparaging one of the should nots, instead let’s highlight one of the absolute musts: The Levain Bakery, for some amazing cookies. Read the rest of this entry »