Feb

19

Ultimate Recipe Showdown: Chicken Winners

Posted by Chris

February 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

Did you catch The Ultimate Recipe Showdown?  It was all about chicken, stewed, fried and roasted!  The recipes looked great but I wish they’d spent more time showing the actual cooking and less time on everything else. 
The grand prize winner was Amparo Alam with her Rotisserie Chicken, with Fried Yucca Root
The runners […]

Feb

14

Get Your Celebrity Italian Cookbook Free!

Posted by Chris

February 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

Barilla really knows Italian and so does Mario Batali!  He and Barilla have teamed up on a project that will not only warm your tummy, it will warm your heart.  It’s the Celebrity Italian Cookbook and Barilla will donate one dollar to America’s Second Harvest for every copy that is downloaded from their website.
The […]

Feb

4

A Chocolate Covered Weekend

Posted by Chris

February 4, 2008 | 2 Comments

This weekend, the Food Network is devoting their entire schedule to chocolate!  Personally, I couldn’t think of a better food to put in the spotlight.  Rich, dark, creamy, and oh so versatile!  How many foods do you know that you can use to make both a scale model of the Statue of Liberty?
On Saturday […]

Sep

1

Geoduck - What, Exactly, Is It?

Posted by Chris

September 1, 2007 | 3 Comments

For me, the exotic protein challenge at the beginning of this third season of Top Chef is still one of the season’s most fascinating. Beyond such oddities as eel and black chicken, we were introduced to geoduck (pronounced “gooey duck”). I must admit that prior to the show, even though I consider myself […]

Aug

25

Mise En Place…or Separating the Amateurs From the Pros

Posted by Chris

August 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment

So…everyone that is at all serious about cooking has had that moment when they were in the middle of executing a recipe and suddenly realized they needed to peel and chop 3 potatoes, or mince 2 cloves of garlic, or heat an oven to 350. Avoiding these moments that can seriously derail cooking are […]

Aug

10

Sriracha: Condiment of the Gods?

Posted by Chris

August 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

When Casey decided to use sriracha, the Thai red pepper sauce, as a mix-in for Coldstone Creamery ice cream in this past week’s Top Chef QuickFire challenge, some viewers were perplexed, while many of us understood why she at least considered it as an option. Named for the Thai port of Sriracha, the […]

Jul

9

Plating Meat

Posted by Chris

July 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment

We’re all still in Top Chef withdrawal since the 4th of July holiday scuttled any hopes of a new episode this past week. However, I wanted to mention an important element of Howie’s winning dish from the last Top Chef episode.
Howie did an outstanding job of plating the meat in his dish, […]

Jun

29

What Is Chicken a la King?

Posted by Chris

June 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

In this week’s episode of Top Chef covering recreations of classic family dishes, one of the most confusing dishes presented to the judges was Sara M.’s version of Chicken a la King (seen at right). The judges agreed that they were confused about how this dish related to real Chicken a la King. […]