Category Archives: Cooking

Here you’ll find everything about cooking that isn’t actually a recipe. Tips, techniques, gripes, whatever.

A beefy bargain from Wild Fork Foods

A whole, USDA Prime brisket for $2.98 a pound? Yes, please! That’s a price I’ve encountered only once before, during a sale at H.E.B. in Austin, and it’s not much more than I pay for Choice at Walmart. Plus it’s … Continue reading

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Anatomy of a recipe fail

When you have a recipe fail as badly as my attempt to replicate the clam pie served at Frank Pepe’s in New Haven, you might wonder how any attempt to make a dish outside your experience could ever succeed. But … Continue reading

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What happened to your sourdough starter in 2020?

As we sweep 2020 into the trash bin of history, one of the year’s less serious losses is likely to be ignored: all the sourdough starters that folks initiated as a quarantine activity, then abandoned because they weren’t successful or … Continue reading

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Maesri Thai curry sauces

Maesri Thai curry sauces come in little cans in a wide variety of flavors, and can be used to create a complex flavor profile in minutes. Each can is not much more than a buck in my Asian market so … Continue reading

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Release the quesabirria!

We were supposed to be in San Francisco this week, but the trip was cancelled due to rising COVID numbers. One of the things on our checklist was a visit to the Mission for quesabirria tacos, specifically to El Patron … Continue reading

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Food for Thought: Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine

We purchased a used copy of the 1991 edition of Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine soon after acquiring a closeout bread machine circa 2010. The recipes were creative and the several that we executed turned out well. In … Continue reading

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Review: Purple Carrot meal delivery program

A giant insulated box arrives at your door. On opening it, you find several packets of cooking ingredients. You notice a smallish yellow onion at the end of one of the packets. Your reaction? If you said “what in the … Continue reading

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Your first Thanksgiving turkey

Local food blogger Deanna Fox commented on the radio that a lot of folks are going to be cooking their Thanksgiving meal at home for the first time, due to precautions that keep them from traveling to usual family meals. … Continue reading

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Goodbye Old Thermy, Hello Big Blue

Like you, we’ve used the pandemic as an excuse to do some projects around the home. Our biggest investment was a new 48-inch BlueStar range, which arrived this week. We are loving it so far though it is a powerful … Continue reading

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A visit to Seasoned Restaurant at SUNY Adirondack

The excellent Casola Room at Schenectady County Community College is doing takeout only during COVID, so we tried a new place with a similar program: Seasoned Restaurant at SUNY Adirondack in Glens Falls, NY. We were drawn by Facebook photos … Continue reading

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