As many of you know, I love cooking; it is my main hobby. Over the years I have discovered little tips that make cooking so much better. These are things which are most often lacking when someone presents you with bad or dull food. If you follow all of these tips, your cooking will improve dramatically.
The Microwave Oven is good for one thing only: defrosting; and even that can be done just as easily by putting something in the refrigerator one day before your need it to defrost gently. Microwaves do not add to the flavor of anything they cook, whereas stove top or oven cooking does – through the caramelization of juices (which is what gives us the brown crispy outside of meat). Having a microwave in the house leads to the temptation to cut corners. I have not had a Microwave for 3 years and I can still cook an entire meal from scratch in less than 40 minutes – and I guarantee it tastes a hell of a lot better than anything cooked in a microwave.
If you are using a recipe, read it twice from beginning to end before you start doing any cooking. So often we skim a recipe and then in our hurry (once things start to heat up) we neglect certain steps. By reading the recipe twice, you are less likely to skip a step which can result in disaster. Having said this, I also recommend that try to experiment with your cooking – don’t become a slave to your cookbook – but make the choices intentionally, not through forgetfulness.
If you are cooking a meal with multiple components – such as a roast chicken with vegetables, it can be very helpful to write a list of what you need to do and when. You can write down specific times (I find it useful to work back from the time you want to serve). This results in a much smoother working process and you won’t have people waiting for dinner to be served late.
Wine can add a lot of flavor to a meal; if you are braising meat – for example in a pot roast, pour in some wine. The alcohol content left after cooking is not enough to make this an “adults-only” meal (on the other hand, I think children should be given wine with dinner from a very young age anyway). The general rule is to use red wine with red meat, and white with white. If you are going to pan fry some fish, just pour in a half cup of white wine and some herbs, and you can make a lovely meal with a ready made sauce.
Dried herbs have little or no flavor. This tip alone can transform bland food in to masterful food. You can either grow your own herbs, or you can buy them fresh from the supermarket. The herbs you are most likely to use repeatedly (and therefore the best ones to grow yourself) are thyme, bay leaves, parsley (use the Italian flat leaf type – it has a lot more flavor than curly parsley), and (to a lesser extent unless you like to do a lot of oriental cooking,) coriander (cilantro). Another less common herb that you should try if you haven’t is tarragon – it has a slight aniseed flavor and is excellent with fish or chicken; buy the French kind – the other type (Israeli) has no flavor.
Forget everything you have been told about salt and health. If you want to eat good food, you need to use plenty of salt. A real pinch of salt involves using 2 fingers and a thumb, not the forefinger and thumb. People have been frightened off using salt by government advertisements, and it is ridiculous. The French eat a lot of salt (and butter) and they have a very low cardiac deathrate compared to a nation such as England which has a bizarre obsession with salt reduced diet. When boiling pasta, make sure the water tastes like the sea. If you have never tasted seawater, it tastes like it is so salty that a mouthful would make you gag. For a very large pasta pot of water, I usually use two small handfuls of salt. When cooking vegetables in water, always add salt. Contrary to popular belief, salt in cooking water does not stop the color from leeching out of vegetables, it simply enhances their flavor. Also, if you boil your potatoes before roasting, salt water helps to give more color and crunch to the outside.
Butter is fundamental in good cooking. When you fry a steak, you should always fry it in butter (with a little oil added to stop the butter burning). Butter adds flavor to anything, and can also be used as a thickener (see sauce below). Do not use margarine, do not use semi-soft butter. Always cook with unsalted butter (then you can decide exactly how much salt you want the dish to have). If you really want to improve boiled or steamed vegetables, undercook them, then add them to a pan with a big knob of butter and finish the cooking over a high heat. Add salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.
They say that a good sauce is the difference between a cook and a chef. Sauces are extremely easy to make and you should almost always prepare a sauce to go with your meals. If you have fried meat in a frying pan, leave the heat on and pour some wine in to the pan – scrape all the bits off the bottom and cook until the wine has evaporated by half. Pour in some stock (any type will do, but do try to match the stock with the meat – or use chicken for everything except fish) and cook down until it is half again. Taste it and add salt and pepper if you need to. Strain and serve. Additionally, if you want your sauce to be a little thicker, whisk in a knob of butter off the heat.
Fresh ingredients make all the difference. Vegetables and meat bought from small producers (such as local farms) is even better. Supermarkets have strict requirements about the appearance of food and very little concern about taste. An apple bought from the local market will always be better than anything you can buy in a supermarket. Add to that the overpacking that we see so often in chain markets and you have a recipe for disaster. I guarantee you that any of your regular recipes when made with fresh ingredients and not supermarket ingredients will be 100 times better.
Tasting is the most important part of cooking. You must constantly taste what you are cooking as you cook it. This is true even of things like hamburgers. You should take a little bit of your hamburger meat and fry it – then taste it. Keep adding more salt and pepper or other ingredients and repeat the frying. When it finally tastes right, you can make your burgers. Because this is such an important part of cooking, many chefs will not cook with ingredients they do not like. Tasting early in the cooking process can save you from a disaster later on – when it is too late to recover.
Practice, Practice, Practice. that is the best way to get good at everything.
Amazing. I love to cook myself. A trait passed down to me by my mother. I knew you liked to cook JF, but I didn’t know to this extent. Absolutely stunning list.
Oh yeah, and excellent advice about knowing the recipe without being shackled to it. my main thrust of cooking is the department of baking. being creative with the order of processes and amount of certain ingredients, usually salt and chocolate, has led me to some wonderful results.
Experiment as much as possible !
I’ve never once in my life ever used a “booked” recepie. I’ve had great success. But I was taught the rules of cooking. All my measurements are done by eye. I measure spoonfulls in my palm, liquid amounts by time, etc. But of course, I’ve done little to no baking.
Bakings an exact science if I understand right, DiscHuker?
I fully agree with dischuker, the more you practice your cooking, the more likely you are to know what things can go wrong, what works, what doesn’t etc… My brother’s gotten to the stage where he makes specific touches to everyone’s plate depending on what they prefer, he’s amazing. I think that this and your other list about unusual food combinations are some of the most interesting on the site. I chucked in some aniseed into my mum’s meat once, just to see what would happen, and it turned out to be the best thing she’s ever made.
And mate, with all the time you spend on this site, how do you have time to cook all the time!
For an interesting change use Ghee instead of butter.
It is a clarifed butter from India. If kept in a closed container it does not need refrigeration, so it is softer than regular butter.
Great taste as well.
I agree with everything except number 10.
You would be better off bringing it to a recycle center
DiscHuker: that is so true – I think it is a good idea to really perfect a few base recipes then play around with others until you perfect them too. On your other point about baking – I find baking terrifying – though I have no problems with cooking – I am always worried that things will go wrong.
Borka: definitely true of cooking – you can come up with some weird and wonderful stuff!
Levi: Thanks
I love writing food lists 
If you like this list you might like this one too: http://listverse.com/miscellaneous/top-10-basic-cooking-tricks/ (top 10 basic cooking tricks)
11. Use olive oil
carpe_noctem: I love cooking so much that I make time
Sometimes dinner is at midnight – but at least I have fun on the way 
And you are dead right about the aniseed thing – I almost always use it when cooking slow cooked meat now.
stevenh: oh – that is a good point – if you use ghee you don’t need to add oil to stop the butter burning because Ghee doesn’t have the solids that butter has.
juanjux: I do use olive oil – but only when I am cooking something from a region that produces it – ie, Italian, Greek. I always use butter for standard European fare as that is what the French use (and they invented modern cuisine)
I hate cooking. I took Home Ecenomics in 8th grade. I got a C. For those non americans – I took a sewing and cooking class when I was 13-14 yrs old and I barely got a passing grade. We were making cookies from a recipe. We thought we read the recipe. Somehow we missed the word melted. We were supposed to melt the chocolate before adding it. OOPS. Course I was in a group with 2 other people so I guess I shouldn’t take all the blame. They didn’t quite turn out like they were supposed to. I am saying your number 9 of read read read and read again of the recipe is always a good idea.
I always like cooking on a gas stove top rather than electric
i’m so glad australia has normal subjects… it seems like home economics is just the class you take when you can’t be bothered to do anything else… i’m terribly sorry jfrater if you do that over in new zealand (incidentally, i’m the only aussie in existence who likes you guys!)
and i love cooking too, i made my family wait until like 11 at night to eat once because i was too busy making it right. i think something that worries people is when something goes wrong, and maybe it’s just the aussie mentality of ‘oh well, so that didn’t work, try again’ but if something doesn’t work, or it’s completely unsavable, start again, who cares!
JF: From reading the comments in this list and the other one, it sounds like you’re a marvelous cook. Perhaps posting a list of your favorite recpies wouldn’t be a bad idea.
and jfrater, do you like music? because there doesn’t seem to be an enormous amount of music-related lists on the website. i know i’d love to see something on some composers of the romantic or classical period, or anything on piano works of the last couple of centuries… just a thought!
JwJwBean: how can you hate cooking?! I am shocked!
islanderbst: me too – by far! Gas is so much easier to manage
carpe_noctem: I have the same attitude as you with starting over – I have no problems throwing something out and starting again. And NZ does do home economics (or used to) – but it is very brief (only in the two years prior to starting high school).
levi: that’s an awesome idea! jf your fans have spoken
levi: I was thinking that before actually
I might do that – I have a great recipe for lamb shanks!
I know jfrater, I know. Absolutely shocking. Anyone want some Easy Pineapple Cake, er bread, er goo…
And I had many things I wanted to take in school. I chose Home Ec. because at the time I thought I wanted to cook and sew and be a Future Home Maker of America (I was the vice pres. of the FHA at the time). I guess it is better to learn those things at home. My mom is an excellant cook and seamstress. She just didn’t have the patience to teach me.
carpe_noctem: I do – I have done a few opera and 20th century classical music related lists. I actually studied opera and worked as a professional singer for a number of years. Here is my favorite piano concerto (Concerto for Piano and Strings) by Alfred Schnittke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9DEfeU1lis – it is in three parts – listen to them all – great stuff.
Great List; Great job Jamie. Y’all know I love food. The microwave tip is the very best. My family all works on different shifts; the only thing we use our microwave for (not including stuffed green peppers – sorry they turn out better – you don’t have to blanch them) is for heating up the dinner they missed.
I own about 40 cookbooks. I read them, I close them, then I go cook. The only exception is cakes and pastries.
I don’t find it necessary to make a list anymore, (unless I’m catering a dinner), but it took me 25 years to get the timing thing down pat.
The only other suggestion I would make is to cook seasonally. What I mean is don’t decide to have raspberry coulis in May. Raspberries are only good (ie; not trucked from 10,000 miles) in august/september. If what you need is not seasonally available; frozen is a better bet. They at least are processed immediately, generally picked ripe, not picked hard and disgusting and sprayed with some ***** to make them ripen.
Again – as Jamie said – buy the very best ingredients you can afford.
Jamie – we are finally getting some decent purchased stocks where I live – unfortunately they are marked as organic so cost about 4 X as much as they should. They are worth it.
When I find myself eating something delicious at a restaurant, I’m constantly thinking about how I can replicate it at home. After many tries and mistakes, I usually can come up with the same thing at home. I hear people say they don’t want to cook when they come home from work or whatever, but I find it relaxing and a worthwhile activity. The smell in your house after baking bread – not from a friggen machine but with your hands – is reason enough to try it.
Most of what you’ve suggested here is well taken.
Cooking for yourself is satisfying and rewarding, but you have to be patient and curious. Cookbooks can help, as well as watching decent cooking how-to shows. But there’s no substitute for curiosity and an adventurous spirit. And you’re right on about salt and butter, and I would add olive oil and cream to the list.
I read Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential and he has a chapter devoted to why he’s a chef and you’re not, not a in a snobby way, but he explains little things that you can do to improve your cooking skills and much of what jfrater listed is also in his book. My entire taste in food was transformed after I made my own batch of Emeril’s Essence. Whether you like the guy or think he’s an annoying troll, that spice is damn tasty on just about anything savory. And anyone who watches something like Top Chef or Alton Brown, or even Gordon Ramsay’s programs knows, simple fresh ingredients and good preparation always trumps anything pretentious that you might think you need to do to be a good cook.
Jfrater:
Great list (amazing that some people don’t view these suggestions as common-sensical, even now). I’d make only two additions:
And *always* use good, extra-virgin olive oil (except for high-heat frying and deep-frying).
And when a recipe calls for lemon juice–use LEMONS… not the stuff out of a bottle.
one other one—never use tomato sauce from a bottle. Make your own.
(This from 1/8 Greek, 1/4 Italian Randall).
I should clarify; here organic (unless you buy directly from the farmer) is a crock of *****. They are still processed by the same companies that produce the regular non-organic food. Using too much cow-***** is not any better for you than processed nitrogen fertilizer. Natural pesticides are just as toxic as man-made poison. Shop the markets. Get to know your green-grocer. or Grow your own.
Mom424: you are dead right about seasonal produce – by shopping at a farmers market you should really only have seasonal stuff available. I think it also makes it nice for the seasons to be marked by different foods – it gives you something to look forward to as the new season approaches. As for the list for timing – I still need it – big time!
Bucslim: good points – I try to guess what is in everything when I eat out too – and I also find cooking relaxing – I am happy to spend an entire day in the kitchen – or even weekend if I am making something especially complex. It makes the eating so much more worthwhile when you know the effort put in. And I also agree about the bread machine – I should have mentioned that in item 10 too – that is another device you can certainly throw away
Mom – you get smarter every time I read your comments. What’s for dinner?
Randall: true about the olive oil – it is good to have very high quality olive oil in the house because if you just want a quick snack for guests you can put oil and balsamic vinegar in a dish with bread on the site and no cooking is needed at all! And you are right about the lemon juice – I didn’t mention that because in NZ it is incredibly rare to see people use bottled lemon or lime juice – people generally squeeze their own; I guess it is more common in the US to use pre-packed.
Mom424: I am of two minds about organics as well – which I why I said farm fresh but did not say organic. Unfortunately in the UK, organic is about the only way to get good quality fruit as people will excuse blemishes, etc. The rest of the fruit and veges taste like rubber. And as for growing your own – I just bought 50 packets of vege seeds today – I will be planting them once I return to NZ
Hey Bucslim; I make my own Bam seasoning mix too. Damn tasty! I got sick of Emiril pretty quick; is it just me? it seems he seasons everything the same.
I do swiss chalet chicken better than swiss chalet. Also whole stuffed (with t-bone tails, red wine, peppers, onions) potato skins. Stolen from the Keg. Gazpacho stolen from LaFayette Restaurant. Quite the thief I am.
bucslim: if i’m ever at a restaurant and i really really love it, i ask the chef how he made it. maybe it’s different in america (i’m assuming you’re american, don’t hold it against me if you aren’t) but most chefs seem quite willing to share their secrets. it’d be like a doctor not telling you how he fixed you, people get into these careers because they love what they do, not because they’re making a lot of money out of it
jfrater: i’ve already seen that concerto, i love it! my favourite is rachmaninoff’s first concerto for piano and orchestra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mi96lHAlOg if you’re interested), i got to play that with my school’s orchestra, it was amazing! i started playing piano when i was 3 (i’m almost 19 now) and the french people (i’m in france for a year on youth exchange) can’t seem to comprehend that anyone would do something for so long a time… and that’s amazing about the opera thing, i was never much of a singer haha…
carpe_noctem: Nice to know that Schnittke’s appeal is well spread! And you are in one of my favorite countries in the world! I love France and the French! Take advantage of your time there. It must have been great to play Rachmaninov with an orchestra; I am not the biggest fan of his stuff but I recognize that a great deal of talent is needed to play it. Planning on tackling the number 3 anytime soon?
jfrater – have you read Kitchen Confidential? If you haven’t it’s really interesting to anyone who cooks. Salty language and ridiculous stories from the restaurant kitchen including stealing, substance abuse and burning flesh.
Meh… This list seems very ‘preachy’. What you like isn’t necessarily what everyone likes. Fair enough some of them are common sense (9,8,2), but what if someone isn’t a big fan of wine for example? I can’t tell the difference between fresh and dried herbs, we use both at home, whichever is closer to hand. Microwaves are really useful for warming up leftover quickly, & they (mostly) taste the same as heating them up in the oven, & take a fraction of the time.
Why do you think young kids should be given wine with meals?
Just a little note; you don’t need a formal vegetable garden to grow your own. I have beautiful flower gardens all around my house (I will post some pics over on the picture thread later today) in the midst of my flowers, if you look close, you will find garlic, lemon thyme, basil, peppers etc. I grow patio tomatoes. I live in potato country, and close to the Holland Marsh, so I don’t grow any root vegetables. Potatoes, Carrots, Onions, turnips, cabbage, are available in good condition all year here.
jf: i’m having the best time here, they let me join the youth orchestra at the place i’m living in haha! and the third has to wait for a little while, it’s bloody hard! not many people know about the first one, but it’s awesome… i love liszt as well, i’ve been looking for ages for the original liszt version of the 2nd hungarian rhapsody, and (i have no idea if you know these, but you definitley should listen to them) i’m learning his paganini etudes, they’re bloody impossible! you have to watch La Campanella, i started it when i was about 13, and it’s by far the hardest piece i’ve ever played!
Mom – I used to love Emeril before his live show. His solo show seemed to be more about cooking exciting food. His live show was just annoying after about a week, the excitement was overblown and with every gutteral scream, he started to become chalk screetchings. I loved his enthusiasm, but he stepped on that gas pedal too many times. I prefer Alton Brown’s Good Eats much more. And I love Gordon Ramsay’s salty language and sheer commitment.
carpe – I once ate a bowl of rice noodles and grilled pork at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was heaven. I must have tried cooking that at home in a wok 20 times before I came up with something similar. i would have asked the chef how she did it, but I don’t speak vietnamese.
Dangorironhide; Wine for cooking, alcohol is evaporated out of it. I don’t drink very often (I prefer red when I do), but I use it at least 2 or 3 times a week; for sauces, gravy (thick sauce), marinating pot roast. That kind of thing. Zabaglione is the only thing I can think of off-hand where the booze isn’t cooked out of it.
Honestly though a glass of wine with dinner (they do it in Europe all the time) isn’t gonna hurt your kid. In fact I believe it promotes responsible drinking. Drinking as an accompaniment to a meal, not to get wasted.
Mom – I produce a television gardening program. Our website is undergoing some construction issues right now, but if you want to check it out go to http://byf.unl.edu. It’s also podcasted under “Backyard Farmer.” And the features I produce are also on YouTube and Yahoo Video.
dangorironhide: because I think it promotes responsibility with alcohol and takes away the mystery of alcohol. I think the French attitude to wine (which is the same as mine) is why the French don’t have problems with youths binge drinking like the English do. As for your other point – I guarantee you would taste the difference between dried and fresh tarragon in a chicken pie
bucslim: good point… you can always try to ask him and see how far it gets you… but hey, at least you got there in the end!
Mom424: that sounds like the sort of garden I would love to grow- I just need to buy some books now – to learn about the ins and outs of growing from seed.
carpe_noctem: I am familiar with the pieces you mentioned – it is good to see such passion for music – an essential element in success
Oh – and I forgot to mention to dangor in the last comment – the taste of cooked wine is not the same as when you drink it – it develops in the cooking.
Rosemary is another spice that is way better fresh. The flavor is much more subtle, less perfumy, just better. Carefully slip your hand between the skin and the meat of a whole chicken. Make a pretty pattern with fresh rosemary. Salt well inside and out. Roast. Yum. Even lamb chops (not my fave) with garlic and fresh rosemary and olive oil. To die for.
“I think children should be given wine with dinner from a very young age anyway”
Care to explain why ?
Thanks
i can’t believe some people genuinely believe that food with wine added to it is alcoholic… there’s more alcohol in a chocolate liquer than in a steak with a bottle of wine upended onto it… and i do fully agree with the french method, wine with dinner promotes healthy drinking in later life. it’s like *****, if you don’t educate kids about it early, they’re going to pick up a whole heap of stuff at school and on tv, which doesn’t really promote a healthy education…
is it a mortal sin if my dad adds beer to food?
Mom424: lamb chops are about the only thing I use rosemary with – I am not a fan of it otherwise.
Bucslim; very cool site, some questions I needed answers to. I have a flowering crab apple tree that needs pruning.
Jamie; I’m not sure about the growing season in NZ but here we need to start some stuff in the house in peat pots. Tomatoes & pepper plants for instance. Swiss chard, peas, beans, radishes, beets, all are started in the garden. I always have a patch of chard. Harvest it with scissors, it keeps growing back. I much prefer it to spinach or beet greens or kale.
carpe_noctem: definitely not (the beer thing) – Heston Blumenthal puts beer in his fish and chips batter – it is quite common. You can also make beer bread. Yum.
boab: see above. Additionally, I don’t see any problem with children drinking alcohol with parental supervision (this does not mean I would give children vodka, etc.) In New Zealand (where I grew up) children are allowed to drink at any age in a restaurant as long as they have adult supervision (and without adult supervision from 18). I believe the same is true of France, and Italy. Not sure about the UK. I am not quite sure why alcohol is so demonized.
Mom424: the NZ season is the opposite of the US – and the climate is similar to England though in the major cities it doesn’t get as cold as England and summers are hotter.
Jfrater; I know dried rosemary has a taste similar to after-shave. Honestly I like most regional foods, chinese, thai, mexican (not taco bell), japanese (i skip the chicken heads and fish guts), but I cannot get my mouth around Middle Eastern – North African food. It all tastes, even the candy, like you should be spraying it in your armpits. Cardomam, pine nuts, rosemary, juniper berries – yuck.
Fresh ingredients is probably the most important thing on this list IMHO.
I don’t like fish at all. It tastes bland and plain and downright odd. Last Christmas my family and I went fishing on the Great Barrier Reef and cooked the fish as soon as we got home – without ever freezing it (it was on ice in the cooler on the boat but that’s it) – and it was some of the best meat I’ve ever tasted; I can’t wait to go back this year and eat more!
i’m going to go with mom on this one, north african food really doesn’t taste like anything that’s meant to go in your mouth… and food (with music, film and rugby) is one of my loves of life, i’m willing to try anything from anywhere in the world, and almost always love it, but i never managed to get around the whole, this smells an awful lot like un-food thing that the middle east has got going on there…
jfrater: beer bread! oh dear god yes, that’s next on my to-do list. and the french love their bread, so i could introduce the next big thing ha… is it possible to add too much wine to food? like, i would have thought almost definitely yes, it’s like salt, if you add too much, it doesn’t work, but my mum seems to think you can just chuck as much as you want, it’ll just enhance the flavour more
I cut up a couple of hotdogs and threw them into a pot of Kraft Shells ‘n Cheeze. It was…okay.
boab – I think one of the reasons is to develop a child’s palate. And I think we have such an over abundance of fear about alcohol that other countries like France don’t have because they are introduced to wine at an early age.
But we rely on fast food so much in America to feed our children I sincerely think it stunts children’s appreciation for good food that goes beyond not wanting to finish your vegetables. Sure there’s a danger of drinking too much, which probably won’t happen if mom and dad are sitting at the table. But helping a young adult figure out what actually tastes good is never a bad thing. And it’s probably better than chicken nuggets and orange goo. But realistically it’ll never catch on here, there’s too much fear when it comes to alcohol. I don’t know how the stinky French do it, but I raise my glass to them in that respect.
SlickWilly; as long as they were either Nathan’s or Schneider’s Red Hots I could stomach it. Being Canadian I prefer the original Kraft Dinner in the box. (We have the highest per capita consumption of KD in the entire world). We actually have it every couple of weeks or so. Instead of potatoes or rice. Last time we had Bar-B-Que’d marinated loin chops (lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, dried herbs, salt & pepper), stir fried veg and 3 boxes of KD. I feed 7 people every meal.
carpe_noctem: if it a long cooking casserole I think you could be fairly liberal with the wine – at least a bottle. If it is a dish being cooked on the stove, or a sauce, you would use the wine to taste.
bucslim/boab: i have no idea how the french get away with it, but they drink more than any country i know, and there’s almost no trouble with alcoholism here… i agree that much of america’s reluctance probably stems from fear about what might happen, but realistically, the kids are drinking anyway, and it promotes a much healthier attitude towards alcohol if they’re introduced to it earlier. my parents have always been very happy to let me do pretty much whatever i wanted in regards to drinking, and there’s never been any problems towards it, if i wanted a drink, i could ask for one, no questions asked…
jfrater: my parents tend to drink the wine as they’re putting it in, so over-wining is rarely a problem, but it’s good to know! my mum definitely follows your last rule about tasting, she always makes sure that it still tastes like it’s meant to… and i think i completely forgot to mention this: great list! every one of those points i agree with!
Mom424: I have the same problem with Middle Eastern. I think it is the overwhelming (and ubiquitous) combination of brine and sweetness that turns me off. I had, however, the most amazing roasted rosemary chicken at a Lebanese restaurant the other weekend. mmm.
There’s been some mention of the boxed Mac-N-Cheese here so I thought I’d share this little tidbit:
In addition to producing television shows, I also have produced distance education classes for the University I work for. Most of the classes I’ve been a part of have been in entomology – the study of insects for the uninitiated. Anyway, the professor told me for one of his freshman introductory classes he had the students bring in a box of Kraft Mac-N-Cheese as well as generic brands. In 10 years of looking at the packet that contains the cheese powder through a microscope he has NEVER come across a packet WITHOUT cockroach parts or rodent hair/feces. I know that stuff is in virtually everything we put into our mouths, but I pretty much stick to making my own home-made version of Mac and Cheese.
If I get nostalgic, I can always sprinkle some cockroach parts and rat hairs on top.
Bucslim; Some how it doesn’t surprise me. KD is almost a comfort food here. Like Apple pie. It actually doesn’t gross me out very much. I also eat hotdogs (I am picky about the brand, but that is for flavor, I’m sure Schneider’s if full of ears, lips, hair and god knows what) and peanut butter. The allowable ratio bugs/peanuts is pretty high last time I heard.