consider the fork
my latest read? "consider the fork: a history of how and why we eat" by bee wilson. wilson shows an obvious passion for the science behind cooking. if you had watched me read the book, my page turning was punctuated only by getting up to check on my own cooking tools.
in the chapter about knives, i got up to inspect the sharpness of my herb chopper and my new, smaller, red-handled slicing knife. i realized i would like to learn how to better use my tools to julienne and dice.
instead of coveting every new kitchen tool from sur la table (which started, along with starbucks, as a booth at pike place market in seattle, circa 1970's) i came away satisfied that a few nice tools will suffice. i do love my microplane for zesting, but can cut my own avacado without a gadget. my silicone egg poachers make the perfect brunch, but i like to slice my own melons.
then in the chapter on cooking pots, i lined up my pans and realized i have a good combination of stainless steel and cast iron. just for fun before returning to the book, i took time to season the latter and, satisfied, continued to read on about egg beaters.
a recipe for angel food cake written by my great grandmother nettie (for whom i'm named) says to "beat eggs until a frothy mountain" and i have no idea how she managed to do this without a mixer. i tried with my french wire whisk, switching arms only to have a slush of egg in the bowl, nowhere near mountainous or frothy. turns out, the history of egg beaters alone and the inventions in the name of souffles was countless indeed.
and what about "slow ovens"? this also mystified me. since we have removed our daily lives from cooking with open fires, except when camping, we rely on electricity or gas. a slow oven is just a temperature between warm and broiling that has many interpretations.
somewhere in the midst of chapter ten, i realized i was hungry for warm bread and butter, so got up to make two loaves of homemade bread and finished reading the book while the dough was rising. i thought that was a fitting conclusion to an excellent book! meanwhile, i will be teaching myself the five sauces of classical french cooking...
in the chapter about knives, i got up to inspect the sharpness of my herb chopper and my new, smaller, red-handled slicing knife. i realized i would like to learn how to better use my tools to julienne and dice.
instead of coveting every new kitchen tool from sur la table (which started, along with starbucks, as a booth at pike place market in seattle, circa 1970's) i came away satisfied that a few nice tools will suffice. i do love my microplane for zesting, but can cut my own avacado without a gadget. my silicone egg poachers make the perfect brunch, but i like to slice my own melons.
then in the chapter on cooking pots, i lined up my pans and realized i have a good combination of stainless steel and cast iron. just for fun before returning to the book, i took time to season the latter and, satisfied, continued to read on about egg beaters.
a recipe for angel food cake written by my great grandmother nettie (for whom i'm named) says to "beat eggs until a frothy mountain" and i have no idea how she managed to do this without a mixer. i tried with my french wire whisk, switching arms only to have a slush of egg in the bowl, nowhere near mountainous or frothy. turns out, the history of egg beaters alone and the inventions in the name of souffles was countless indeed.
and what about "slow ovens"? this also mystified me. since we have removed our daily lives from cooking with open fires, except when camping, we rely on electricity or gas. a slow oven is just a temperature between warm and broiling that has many interpretations.
somewhere in the midst of chapter ten, i realized i was hungry for warm bread and butter, so got up to make two loaves of homemade bread and finished reading the book while the dough was rising. i thought that was a fitting conclusion to an excellent book! meanwhile, i will be teaching myself the five sauces of classical french cooking...
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