Cooking Points
Since the school year started, I’ve been cooking more than I ever have before. I do all right, and sure as shit love to chop anything. I had a few discussion points on my mind recently:
- I know what shortening is, but how can I use it? There is some extra shortening around the kitchen, and I’m looking to put it to use, possibly in bulk. Baking?
- I have about a cup of hyper-flavored oil. It housed roasted red peppers I made 2 months ago. It still has the garlic cloves floating around too. What would be a great thing to do with this oil?
- How exactly do you, personally, caramelize onions. Mainly, do you add a little sugar? Or just let the natural onion sugar do its thing?
- What are some of your favorite winter dishes to cook?
Japanese Steel
Alton Brown recommended years ago that the knives from Japanese company Global are by far the best knives we can get for our money. In the knife section his gear book, he goes into great detail about what makes a good knife a good knife and was rather convincing about Global. Now Salon has an article on the rise in popularity of Japanese knives with western chefs and a bit into what makes the knives so great.
And wouldn’t you know, last night, instead of watching the Stupor Bowl, Gosia and I took advantage of the empty stores and got started on our Wedding Registry. I was incredibly disappointed to find that Macy’s did not, in fact, carry Global knives. But after reading this Salon article, I was recommitted to finding some and not settling with Wusthoff, only to find Bed Bath and Beyond carries them! Looks like we’ll be registering there as well.