I know, I know, you already know that you need to have your oven hot before you put food into it. But do you know that it takes a lot longer than you think for your oven to fully heat up? To get the most out of your home oven, you need more than hot […]
READ ONSo then, when last we left off I was talking about ovens and heat…wasn’t I? My thought was that since the vast, vast majority of folks out there don’t have brick ovens taking up large sections of their back yards, I’d demonstrate how to make your own home oven more like a big hearth. It […]
READ ONRegular reader and pain in my rear end, Nick R. from Washington, D.C., launched his brand new food blog today. It’s called imafoodblog.com and you can find it here. Nick is a smart and funny guy with an unusually tenacious personality, which means we should be able to expect some lively conversation from him, his […]
READ ONI sure know how to get myself in trouble. Yesterday’s post on food and politics really put me in the dog house. In fact it set a Joe Pastry record for angry responses. I can’t address them all, so in the interests of time, I’ll try to summarize the basic points of contention. First there […]
READ ONI can’t tell you how many people I’ve said that to over the past couple of weeks and it feels so good. The down side is that I really will be forced to say goodbye to one of my favorite baking topics for a while. But I couldn’t close without showing off my favorite fruitcake-related […]
READ ONAll you Catholics out there know that yesterday the Church celebrated the Feast the Epiphany, which marks the day when the Magi first laid eyes on the infant Christ. Once upon a time in the Christian world, this feast (which is technically observed on the 6th of January of each year) was bigger than Christmas, […]
READ ONTo a man with an icing spatula, everything looks like buttercream. Actually the idiom has to do with hammers and nails, but the principle is the same: whatever you carry around with you tends to color the way you look at the world. That’s as true of us “foodie” types as it is anybody else. […]
READ ONClair checks in from the Continent to shed a little light on why crème fraîche is called “fresh cream” when it’s actually cream that has soured. She writes: With regards to “crème fraîche”, you were wondering in an earlier post, why it was called “fraîche”. Please allow me to try and explain: in this instance, […]
READ ONFor my New Year’s Resolution this year I’m going to resolve to keep the resolution I made last year…but never kept. That was to do more savory baking. The only savory item I made this last year, other than bread, was that Alsatian tart. So…here’s to a savory 2009!
READ ONHope your doughs rose and your glazes stayed shiny and chip-free this holiday season. Overall I was pleased, especially with the fruitcakes (English and German both). Next year I’ll make a point not to talk quite so loudly about the virtues of fruitcake, since I received a higher than normal amount as gifts this year. […]
READ ON