Saturday surprise post: Liveblogging America’s Test Kitchen 29 March 2008 2:26 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, Morning Glory, books, cooking, food snobbery, geekery, kitchen gear, seasonality, vegetarian , add a commentAsk me about my fangirlhood! Here I go:
Some time this week when I checked the TV listings: “Reinventing Pasta and Tomatoes” — I accept!
2 PM: Looks like the lineup is penne à la vodka with Becky, pasta tasting with Jack, stockpots with Adam, and pasta caprese with Julia.
I accept again!
2:02 PM: Chris Kimball’s intro: no-name vodka makes raw, harsh sauce — don’t do it.
Off to the kitchen now, where Becky is so earnest.
2:03 PM: They’ve changed food processor brands/models! (more…)
Foto Friday: homemade pretzels edition. 1 February 2008 5:00 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, baking, books, pictures, seasonality , 3 commentsOur story begins last week, on Wednesday, January 23, at Eugene’s own fabulous Black Sun Books — where, faithful readers may remember, I spotted some wise words. That bookshelf decoration inspired me to check out my library’s copies of Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and its sequel, More Home Cooking a few days later, though I haven’t managed even to open those yet because I’m somehow even more swamped with things to read than usual. But I digress. As my Flickr caption of that picture suggests, I made a very happy find not far from those wise words, in Black Sun’s cookbook section. Honestly, it felt a bit like winning the lottery:
Woo-hoo! $21 and barely used? I call that a mighty victory indeed!
Yesterday’s TracyFood was not brought to you… 31 January 2008 7:12 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, chocolate, dessert, friends, nepal, pictures , add a comment…by the fact that our power was out all morning and then Allison was in town so I went out to play instead. There was Sweet Life pastry goodness:
Chocolate-almond truffle tart, which is to say “pure truffle awesomeness so dense and delicious that I only made it halfway through by sheer force of will, and Peter and I very happily shared the leftovers this afternoon”.
So. About those cookies. (Hi Cj!) 29 January 2008 7:26 am
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, baking, chocolate, cooking, dessert, friends, pictures, vegetarian , 1 comment so farThis post is dedicated to Cj for her enthusiasm for chocolatey goodness, both vegan and non. My most recent forays into cookieliciousness fall into the latter category: Alton Brown and America’s Test Kitchen both agree that melted butter is the way to chewy cookie goodness, and after the results of my most recent experiments in that field, I am not about to argue.
I used the recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies in The New Best Recipe, which turns out to be identical to the one in Alton’s “Three Chips for Sister Marsha” episode: there’s an egg to separate, but it’s worth it, oh yes. Then I pondered ATK’s very specific instructions on how to shape the cookies, and decided to try an experiment:
Same batter, different shaping techniques. What difference does it make?
Monkey Monday: yes I said yes I will Yes. 7 January 2008 12:48 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, anthropology, fangirl, garden, geekery, school, seasonality , 2 commentsHappy 2008, everybody! I hope you are all enjoying the International Year of the Potato so far — I know I am, and not just because I finally finished Larry Zuckerman’s The Potato: How the humble spud saved the Western world. Oh no, I have many reasons. For instance, check out what the Gmail just dragged in!
from: The Editors of Cook's Illustrated to: Tracy van Cort date: Jan 7, 2008 11:33 AM subject: Become a Shopper for America's Test Kitchen
