You know the burger obsession is going off the deep end when semi-serious discussion takes place over the burger making skills of a cartoon . Please stick with me. This cartoon happened feature J. Wellington Wimpy, the burger-loving sidekick of Popeye. Hamburger America author George Motz found this clip and was there to comment on Wimpy's burger making skills: "Notice how even in...
At first everything was fine. Taking a cue from Adam Kuban , we decided to make our own onion rings instead of the normal burger pairing of fries. The recipe was taken from Simply Recipes , which soaked the onions in buttermilk and coated them in flour and cornmeal.
We fried them in canola oil set to 350 degrees for a few minutes, until nice and golden brown. We stashed them i...
My favorite passages from Bill Buford's Heat are set in the Babbo kitchen, when he describes with fear and awe the wonder that is a busy restaurant kitchen at dinnertime-- tickets flying, steam vaporizing, oil popping. Orders arrive faster than they can be made; you are perpetually behind. The heat, of course, is unbearable-- like a shimmering wall when you enter the kitchen. Sweat...
About ten days after I hung a salt-cured duck breast in the vestibule of my garden apartment, wrapped in cheesecloth and suspended by kitchen string in a little tent of wooden dowel rods, I retrieved it, unwrapped it, and laid it on a cutting board in my kitchen. It was my first attempt at curing, my Duck Prosciutto .
The flesh had taken on a dark red, almost black color on the outside...
With the time change and a long flight ahead of us, we have to leave by 4pm just to arrive home in New York at midnight (Correction: arrive in Newark. I'm never doing that again). With a morning left and having had scarce time to explore Olympia itself, we asked Scott exactly what to do with the remaining hours. “Well, there’s this Mexican taco truck,” he said casually. And it wa...
A warm comfort food that, in this case, is remarkably easy to make. Generally chowder is thick and hearty with bacon and potatoes and thick creamy base, but this version instead goes for elegant. It’s almost (but not) too thin, almost silky, surprisingly tasty considering the lack of any complicated seasoning.
By Blake Royer
On a Sunday afternoon, corn chowder is the idea. A soup bot...
Step 1: Find a Spanish Man.
Step 2: Find a Spanish Ham.
Preferably, a wildly handsome Spanish friend with a hunk of Spanish ham that his mother sent him. Jorge had looks. And he had the ham. What follows is an evening of many, many stages that included overcoming fears of anchovies, quail eggs, and two romantic party members who ate their share, doted on each other, and c...
Gnocchi. No idea. For years this has been the unpronounceable dish on the menu that starred me down and begged to be blurted out to the uproarious laughter of the seasoned waiter. "Did you hear what he just said?" Hell, I didn't have any idea what it was. Was it a type of pasta? Dumpling? Did it have a filling? This feeling of inadequacy kept the recognizable dish on the menu page...
With minds planted firmly in the dirt, we probed the...
With minds planted firmly in the dirt, we probed the starchy tuber for secrets buried within, all in search of the perfect cooked potato. Armed with a bag of $2.99 Idahos, we set aflame preconcieved notions, sexed things up, and tried to find the courage (and stomachs) to eat nothing but potatoes like our poor brethren of the 19t...
With Blake off for the weekend, Nick blew the whole...
With Blake off for the weekend, Nick blew the whole Paupered Chef budget on a $20 Chinatown Bus ticket to Philadelphia in search of the city's quintessential greasy delicacy...the cheesesteak. Armed with locals with serious appetites, he checked out some of their favorite institutions in search of the real thing...Wait, with cheez w...
