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Check Us Out in Newsweek November 15, 2010 Here’s something I never thought I’d say: pick up a copy of this week's Newsweek, and you'll find my name on page 56, next to a little photo spread of Chicago's glorious hot dog! They're paired with a great article by Julia Reed about our great high and low end cuisine—from Alinea to the best hot dogs in the country—and the arrival of the Michelin Guide in Chicago (By the way, I’ll be covering every detail you can imagine about the... Read the Full Article	Apologies for the Construction November 1, 2010 You may have noticed that we are having a few technical difficulties at this time. We were hacked this morning, and had to jettison the old design for now, which leaves us with this default picture of an old man walking down a tree-lined path. However soothing the image may be, it doesn't have much to do with food, and we promise to fix this glaring error as soon as possible. Update: We are kind of back online with the old design. Please... Read the Full Article	Serious Eats Roundup: Quinoa, Chickpeas, and Chicken October 18, 2010 Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats. "Dinner Tonight" Column QUICK MEALS TO YOUR TABLE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. Quinoa, Chickpea, and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing I picked this recipe from Bon Appétit solely for the smoked paprika dressing. Roasted Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup Roasting adds a depth of flavor that simmering will never provide, and it also makes for a low-fuss dinner that... Read the Full Article	Serious Eats Roundup: Ham and Pear, Grilled Beef, and Ebert's Chicken and Rice September 13, 2010 Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats. "Dinner Tonight" Column QUICK MEALS TO YOUR TABLE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. Ham and Pear Crisp with Spiced Butter The butter used to coat the bread is mixed with ground coriander, ginger, and pumpkin pie spice creating an almost Christmas-y aroma, which plays off the sweetness of the pear and the ham perfectly. Roasted... Read the Full Article
My Chicago: Cafe Spiaggia August 11, 2010 Chicago's famed restaurant revamps their cafe Spiaggia isn’t the sort of restaurant you waltz into on a whim--you have to wear a jacket to eat there, its gorgeous dining room has floor-to-ceiling windows, they have a cheese cave, and, oh, it’s really, really expensive. But the secret is that Spiaggia also has a cafe. It’s casual, intimate, and the food is superb. The attention to detail that is expected of a high-end restaurant like Spiaggia filters down to its more... Read the Full Article	Serious Eats Roundup: Seafood, Summer Squash, and Quail Egg Salad July 26, 2010 Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats. "Dinner Tonight" Column QUICK MEALS TO YOUR TABLE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. Shrimp Quesadilla with Kale Stuffed with poached shrimp marinated in lime juice, this comes out like a cross with ceviche. Scallops with Corn and Fava Bean Succotash A trip to the markets of Montreal yield this simple recipe inspired by a Southern dish... Read the Full Article	Serious Eats Roundup: Breakfast Sausage, Italian Sausage, and Squash May 24, 2010 Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats. "Dinner Tonight" Column QUICK MEALS TO YOUR TABLE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. Spicy Italian Sausage with Peppers Sandwich An Italian sausage and pepper sandwich is usually tired and boring, but this one adds some much needed acid to the party. Olive Oil–Poached Salmon Poached salmon is a standard, but swapping the olive oil for water helps... Read the Full Article	Serious Eats Roundup: French Toast Sandwich, Creamy Beans, and Lentils in Pasta May 17, 2010 Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats. "Dinner Tonight" Column QUICK MEALS TO YOUR TABLE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. Monte Cristo Essentially it's a ham sandwich that's been cooked like French toast. A mishmash of dinner, breakfast, and chaos, all on the same plate. Oh, and it's delicious. Lamb Chops with Crème Fraîche Beans Lamb chops need nothing more than high heat. It's the... Read the Full Article
The Rum Sidecar April 9, 2010 Substituting brandy in this variation on a classic cocktail. Making cocktails is a tricky business. The balance--between sour and sweet, harsh and smooth--can easily be lost if one isn't careful; most recipes are so expertly calibrated that making any kind of substitution is a bad idea. A cocktail is often a significant investment that goes down the drain if you screw it up (or in my case, gulped down with a wince because I am incapable of admitting defeat). Some rarer cocktail ingredients are... Read the Full Article	Wednesday Links: Fajitas, Food in Film, and the Fragility of Restaurants March 24, 2010 [Image courtesy of Troy Fields and the Houston Chronicle] Welcome to Wednesday Links. This is our weekly collection of four of the most interesting food links we've discovered in the past week. Enjoy! Not So Clear Cut A disturbing tale of what really goes into a plate of fajitas. The Last Days of Kugelis The worlds oldest Lithuanian restaurant just closed on the South Side. Sky Full of Bacon was there to record the last... Read the Full Article	Wednesday Links: Heavy Pans, Great Techniques, and the new Escoffier February 17, 2010 [Photo from Cooking Issues] Welcome to Wednesday Links. This is our weekly collection of four of the most interesting food links we've discovered in the past week. Enjoy! Heavy Metal: The Science of Cast Iron Finally, someone sees through the false information that cast iron is a great conductor of heat. It's just the opposite, which is why we love it: it responds slowly to temperature change and therefore stays hot like no... Read the Full Article	Duck Rillettes September 22, 2008 It was a last-minute whim, but there I was at the checkout, buying a whole duck. I've cut up dozens of roast chickens into legs, thighs, and breasts -- usually with the meat and skin steaming and burning my fingers -- so how much harder could it be to do the same with a duck? Above all, it's much cheaper to buy a whole duck and cut it up yourself than it is to buy the parts separately -- and every duck has a generous amount of fat that... Read the Full Article
Everyone Should Get Married August 19, 2008 For the past year I have been banned from buying new kitchen appliances. Once Abby and I got engaged, she decreed that I could not willfully purchase anything new for the kitchen because we would be getting wedding presents. She was immovable. So as Blake ground his own meat for hamburgers with a Kitchen Aid and made his own no-knead bread in a Dutch oven, I sat and read wondering when my day would come. Well, the day... Read the Full Article	Our First Year at the James Beard Awards June 9, 2008 For those who didn’t catch our incredibly late Sunday post, we were both live bloggers at the 2008 James Beard Foundation Awards. See those all access passes? We could essentially go anywhere we wanted to at Lincoln Center. To check out the trouble we got into, visit the James Beard Live Blogging Site. There you’ll find a nice recap of us chatting with Nancy Silverton about her shoes, moaning over large hunks... Read the Full Article	The James Beard Awards June 8, 2008 Join us tonight at the James Beard Foundation Awards. Nick has only just flown in from flooded Indiana and we're off, clad in tuxedos to see what we can see and eat as much as we can. We'll be among the guest bloggers bringing you live coverage throughout the night. Check us out live here starting after 6:00pm EST. Read the Full Article	Polenta, Where Have You Been All My Life? April 24, 2008 Polenta is only water, salt, and cornmeal, unless a cook chooses, in the style of risotto, to finish with a knob of butter or a hill of Parmesan cheese. It is one those dishes so simple, its execution can be lackluster or transcendent, depending on who makes it. What happens when these three things are combined is anyone's guess. The result can be like cornbread blended with water, a soupy, leaden porridge--or it can be silky... Read the Full Article
Edna Lewis's Fried Chicken April 9, 2008 In the midst of deep frying chicken last week I dreamt of Loretta Lynn. This happens only occasionally, and usually is musical in nature, but this time I had an image of her pan frying chicken in a large iron skillet. Sure enough, I found some rather hilarious commercials of her pawning Crisco on YouTube. How wonderful, I thought, that the amazing country singer never had to worry about dealing with large quantities of... Read the Full Article	Some More Obscure Food Magazines April 8, 2008 Recently I was talking to a friend about food magazines, who figured I would know of some good ones. I offered the obvious choices—Gourmet, Saveur, Bon Appetit—but she quickly stopped me. “I’ve read those,” she said. “They don’t really do much for me.” I asked her why, and the conversation ended up being about how bored this person was by the big, storied food magazines that we're all... Read the Full Article	Fresh Corn Tortillas: Worth the Wait? March 4, 2008 Corn tortillas are my comfort food. I use them as carrying cases for simple, satisfying meals and I use them a lot. They are a mainstay on my lazy Sunday breakfasts and always around when it’s time for a feast. Part of that comfort factor comes from having them in my fridge at all times. While not as resilient as Twinkies, they can hold up for a time if properly wrapped in the fridge. Best part, if... Read the Full Article	Cheese Making Part 2: Yawn, I Made Ricotta January 14, 2008 After I miraculously created a ball of mozzarella from a gallon of milk and some powdery substances, I declared it a miracle and couldn’t wait to do it again. And true to my plan, I tried to make it twice since that date and failed bitterly both times. Much could have gone wrong. I believe the first failure happened because I used cheese salt instead of citric acid at a crucial step, which was completely my fault. ... Read the Full Article
Risotto alla Milanese November 8, 2007 Back when I was writing about corn risotto and the magical risotto pancake, I was kicking around the Internet trying to discover exactly how to make one correctly. Recipe after recipe called for a very specific risotto preparation, one I'd never even heard of, something called Risotto alla Milanese, or Milan-style Risotto. It's flavored with chicken or beef stock, a simplified base of only sauteed onions and olive oil, and this... Read the Full Article	The Plate October 9, 2007 Due to some really bad planning on my part, I didn't have the lead picture of yesterday's localvore post. But I have it now. Here are all our rules laid out officially on a paper plate. The plate was xeroxed and sent to me. Yes, we did call ourselves local-yocals. Yes, we did repeat the spices commandment. Yes, the last rule does dictate that Nikki must bring a local date to each gathering. And no, that's not... Read the Full Article	Localvore Week 1: I Tried. I Failed. I Bought Butter. October 7, 2007 It came to us late in the evening some time in early September. A few bottles of wine down and numerous beers under our belt, we decided that we would try to eat all locally for a month. While not exactly a novel concept, it felt noble. We’d help Ohio farmers and eat well in the process. We toasted to the prospect and ceremoniously wrote the rules out on a paper plate. Those rules and regulations included a... Read the Full Article	I Invented a Risotto Recipe and Figured Out What to Do With the Leftovers October 3, 2007 The other day I was watching Iron Chef and Lidia Bastianich was a judge on the show. I'd never seen her in this role, and, frankly, it was scary. The woman is a strange blend of passion and unsmiling seriousness. Generally people who love food are laid back and groovy, and enthusiasm is usually tempered with a good dollop of sheepish self-consciousness: "I know I'm obsessed, and it makes me a dork, but I'm so excited I... Read the Full Article
How to Make Pad Thai August 13, 2007 Part of the reason I bought a wok in the first place was because I read the excellent, thorough, and inspiring post at Chez Pim called "Pad Thai for Beginners." It made a mysterious dish of the takeout world suddenly, approachably attainable. Every step was lovingly explained, each ingredient inspected. Pad Thai could be mine. With a wok bought, seasoned, and oiled, I set off to Chinatown to procure the necessary... Read the Full Article	When Cheaper is Better: How to Season a Wok August 10, 2007 Usually, when you're buying cookware, the rule is this: spend more for better quality. Sure, those big boxed sets of cheap, thin pots and pans at IKEA or Target are tempting, in that pre-packaged, one-stop-shop sort of way: but how good can you really do with pots and pans that average out to $5 a piece? Your sauces will burn, your food will stick, you'll be unable to simmer anything because only a small circle right above the flame... Read the Full Article	The Paupered Chef in Print July 11, 2007 Our first-ever print article is published in The Washington Post today! It's about what to do with all those leftover herbs in the fridge. If you can get your hands on a print copy, it looks quite good on the page, too. Enjoy! Read the Full Article	O Hi O: What I've Done On My Summer Vacation July 9, 2007 It's been a while. I know. I'm sorry. But I haven't been lounging around, skipping work, or shunning the internet. Hell, I haven't even really been on vacation. What I have been doing a lot of recently is driving. It took well over 500 miles to get an aging car to the Midwest. The car promptly threw a fit when we parked it in the driveway, overheating then leaking, until we had to go give it a lot of... Read the Full Article
What You Should Do This Sunday July 5, 2007 It's been an impromptu vacation here at the Paupered Chef. Does it count as a vacation if you don't necessarily plan on it? We'll be back to our blogging by Monday with some exciting announcements, so you'll have to wait until then. But in the meantime, if you live in New York, there is a promised-to-be-legendary last-minute event being put together by Tom over at Grocery Guy, in South Williamsburg, where the "artisan elite of... Read the Full Article	Vermouth Is More Than an Alternative to Wine June 13, 2007 Curious about what vermouth is made with, and how it can be useful in cooking? So were we. Head over to Serious Eats and we'll tell you about it. Read the Full Article	OJ for the Masses May 23, 2007 Tired of paying extra for that glass of OJ? We tested some oranges and came out with an economical alternative. Read the Full Article	So Much Celery April 19, 2007 Help us find ways to use one of our least favorite vegetables in the fridge. Read the Full Article