After a few years of observing the kitchen habits of myself and others, I’ve decided to put together a little list that I think a lot of us could benefit from. This list briefly details 10 things that I believe will help make cooking less stressful and more enjoyable.
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MacGourmet Deluxe 3 Giveaway (closed)
**This contest has ended**
The winner was chosen via the awesome random.org, and the winner is Travis Washburn!
Congratulations, Travis. I’ve sent an email to you at the given email address. Please note that if no response is received within 7 days, another winner will be chosen.
Thanks to the generous folks at Mariner Software, I have one full license to give away for MacGourmet Deluxe 3 (a $49.95 value)! Please note that this is a Mac-only application and will not run on a PC running Windows, Linux, or anything other than MacOS 10.5 or higher.
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Is Beeswax the Cure for Allergy Suffering?
AAACHOOOO!!! My conversation was cut short as I hastily whipped my head to the left and brought up my arm just in time to block my sneeze before covering the lady two feet in front of me with a goobery barrage of Chris germs. “¡Perdóneme!” I said while fervently searching my pockets for anything to wipe my nose with. I had inconveniently used the last of my tissue paper just minutes before. The only option was to keep my arm up in front of my face; to bring it down would mean displaying to the world the inner workings of my nasal cavity.
The sneeze had made my eyes water, adding to their itchy redness. “I’m not sick,” I hastily commented. “It’s just allergies; they’re killing me!”
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A Peach Full of Memories
Of all the fresh fruits I look forward to eating the most each year, peaches rank the highest (raspberries take a very close second). Peaches are better than candy–and I don’t care how much sugar content they have, I can eat six thousand and one in a single sitting and remain 100% guilt free.
This morning I blended up the last of my second bushel. When only four peaches remained in the box, I realized that if I didn’t eat one of them, I would most likely not have another fresh peach until September of next year. Without a second thought I cut it open, removed the pit and skin and sunk my teeth into its juicy flesh. My taste buds knew exactly what to expect and they weren’t disappointed. But what I didn’t expect was the flood of memories that came rushing into my head with that first bite.
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Book Review: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman
I’m on a book craze right now and can’t stop stuffing my face with awesome literature. I recently finished reading An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward and immediately after finishing, I picked up Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman which I quickly devoured in each spare minute that I had. In my opinion, Ratio should be required reading for anybody who cooks in the kitchen.
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Book Review: An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward
This year I decided to spend my birthday money on kitchen stuff that I’ve had my eyes on. I wound up with some awesome kitchen tools and some more books which I’ve been wanting to read and study for a while, among those books was An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives by Chad Ward (affiliate link). Using a 5-star rating method, I’d give it a 4 out of 5; using a 10-star rating method, I’d give it a 7 out of 10.
Chad Ward is a knife nerd, seriously; his kitchen knife expertise makes those of us who frequently use our kitchen knives and already know a moderate amount about them realize that we’ve been playing in the kiddy pool most of our lives. Although his book has quite a bit of “geek speak” in it as it relates to kitchen knives, metallurgy, and whatnot, it’s a pleasure to read and is easy to understand. And, as Chad says, once you learn the terminology you can impress all your friends and the guy behind the knife counter with your wisdom (extra bonus!).
The hard part now is figuring out where to begin…
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Tapatio Doritios, Tapatio Fritos, and Tapatio & Lime Ruffles Reviewed
Author’s note: Frito lay asked that I review these chips. They provided the chips, but no other compensation was given. Enjoy!
Not too long ago, I received a request from Frito-Lay to review some of their new chips that will be hitting the market this month. Naturally, I’m always curious to know what’s new so I accepted and a few days later, courtesy of Frito-Lay, a box arrived at my door with three bags of their new flavors.
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The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.
I’ve gotta’ say, Halloween is a dangerous holiday. It’s too easy to buy candy long before October 31st; it’s even easier to justify buying it early when you say to yourself, “Oh, I’ll stick it in the top cupboard and save it until then…”
Yeah right.
I don’t know of anybody who has ever successfully done that. Before too long, it just starts gnawing away at you because you know it’s there… eat me, eat me, eat me… *sigh* … Two years ago I bought my Halloween candy on October 31st, Halloween Day. I went to the store to find nearly empty shelves and ended up coming back with the stuff nobody wants: stale pumpkin peeps, Sunmaid raisins, and a mini-size candybar mix. Mini size. Really? Halloween is about packing in the goodies, not skimping on treats that you don’t even have to chew before swallowing.
So this year I decided to–yep, you guessed it–buy my goodies early. I bought them two weeks ago during a “weak moment” on aisle 5. Needless to say, I’m going to have to buy more. Dangit. At least there is one huge benefit to buying your Halloween candy early; besides having to buy and eat twice the amount of candy for Halloween, you get the best of the best. No stale pumpkin peeps for me this year.
So this year I’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best Halloween candies (I cheated and added more than one candy to some numbers), that if I had to buy twice this month, I wouldn’t complain.
In no particular order, behold the list…
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Does Food Packaging Make You Overeat?
I came across an article today on Psychology Today that was pretty interesting. It’s basically a quick summary of a study done by Adriana Madzharov and Lauren Block in the October, 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Here’s a snippet of the article.
Many snack foods show a picture of what the product looks like. A box of chocolate chip cookies will show sample cookies on the front. A bag of pretzels will show pictures of the pretzels. A box of crackers will show the crackers.
The studies in this paper make three main points…
First, the number of items on the front of the package affects people’s judgments of how much food is inside the package…
Second, when given the chance to actually eat, people ate more food from packages with many items pictured on it than from packages with few items pictured on it.
Third, this effect was strongest…
Visit That Package Made Me Overeat to read more.
One More Summer Has Come and Gone
Now that summer is over, I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule. Every summer I have great plans for this blog. This summer was no different I planned on focusing on a billion—yeah, that’s right… a billion—ways to make incredible smoothies and post them on the blog, but I never got around to it. Do I regret it? No, not really, although I missed all of you. Even though I made smoothies nearly every night and often for breakfast, it felt good to take a break from the ordinary schedule.
This summer I spent some excellent time with family and friends, which was a lot of fun. It was a good summer for me, despite working long hours at my FTJ. We took lots of trips and spent a lot of time bonding–awwwww. Let me share with you some of our good times…
Pictures after the break.
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