Most of us have all heard the tale of how, at age fourteen, the young Italian Catherine de' Medici married Henry II of France and subsequently, perhaps single-handedly, brought about the creation of what we now think of as French cuisine. Not so, according to John Mariani. In his book "How Italian Food Conquered the World", he... Read more →

What do people mean when they say that conventional butcher's steels don’t actually sharpen your knife. According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary, sharpen means to "make sharp or sharper." It seems to me that is why I use a steel, and the effect that it has. --Art OK, this is something that really bugs me too. It all boils... Read more →

What is the difference between salsa and Pico de Gallo? They seem to be used interchangeably on restaurant menus. --Denise Salsa is the Mexican word for "sauce". It can include both cooked salsas, like those found on supermarket shelves across North America, or "Salsa Cruda", meaning uncooked sauce. A salsa cruda is typically prepared... Read more →

Flabbergastronomy (ˈflæ bə gæ ,strɒn ə mi): the shock of realizing just how many calories are in that slice of gourmet cheesecake you just ate.... Read more →

Hi. I was wondering just what Petit Fours are, how the word is pronounced and where the name came from. Can you help? --Denise The word Petit Four is pronounced most often in North America as "PET-ee for", but comes from the French term for a small fire or oven, pronounced more like "PUH-tee foor". Petit Fours are small baked goods... Read more →

In response to my previous posting Breadmaker Jewish Rye Bread, SeaBee asked: Shouldn't there be some sugar involved somewhere? Now, I'm not sure if this is a specific questions because SeaBee thinks that Jewish Rye Bread should be sweet(er), or a more general question like: I notice in your posting on Breadmaker Jewish Rye Bread there... Read more →

The folks at Aroma Housewares Company kindly offered to send me an ARC-150SB rice cooker to try. Since I have always been a "stove-top rice cooking kinda guy", I saw this as a chance to see how well they work, and whether the technology could entice me from my old habits. Growing up, we cooked rice on the stovetop in a pot specially... Read more →

At the end of January, Pat and I enjoyed an Eastern Caribbean cruise leaving from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. After our travel fiasco of last April, we decided to play it safe and give ourselves an extra day for unplanned interruptions. That ended up giving us an extra day in Ft. Lauderdale before the cruise, which we used to wander around... Read more →

Generally, I am not a fan of unitaskers, those kitchen tools that have only one purpose. An asparagus steamer or a fish poacher may be just the tool for the job, and if storage space is never a problem, you may want one of each, but for a practical home kitchen, we just don't have enough room for every device that comes along. That said... Read more →

What is the purpose of drawing out all the juices from a piece of meat with salt just have to have them all reabsorbed again. To me, this doesn't make any sense. --Linda I mention this process in the posting Salting Meat Before Cooking. It is also part of the working of dry rubs containing salt that are used on meat. There is some... Read more →