Category

Tuesday Techniques

  • Spaghetti Carbonara For Beginners

    Spaghetti Carbonara For Beginners

    I frequently have to remind myself that there was a time when any exotic-sounding, technique-heavy recipe would fill me with terror. Cook the pasta until al dente? How will I know when it’s al dente? Toast the garlic until golden brown? What’s golden brown? How’s that different from brown brown? And by facing my fears…

  • Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Craig’s cousin Matt came to stay with us this past week and he and his friend (who also stayed with us) had a wild time. Out every night, hitting up the town, they’d wake up bleary-eyed every morning and ask me what Craig and I did the night before. “We, ummm, bought a keg and…

  • Tuesday Techniques: Cheese Soufflé

    Tuesday Techniques: Cheese Soufflé

    We all remember those episodes of bad sitcoms where a character would be making a soufflé and insist that everyone stay quiet in the kitchen lest their precious prize collapse. Then, of course, an Urkel or a Punky would knock over a tray of pots and pans, the soufflé-maker would cry out and hilarity would…

  • Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart

    Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart

    I would like to begin this week’s “Tuesday Techniques” column–a column which appears regularly on Wednesdays–with a discussion of the word “technique.” I think people are intimidated by the word. It implies a “right-wrong” dynamic, something hammered home by Tom Colicchio on “Top Chef” when he criticizes improper technique. “You don’t know how to cut…

  • Tuesday Techniques: Home Fries

    Tuesday Techniques: Home Fries

    Last week I started a series called Tuesday Techniques, a series where I cook my way through Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques the same way that Top Chef Judge Tom Colicchio did at the start of his career. Already, I’m on shaky ground: (1) my Tuesday techniques posts always show up on Wednesday, but Wednesday Techniques…

  • Tuesday Techniques: Cooking with Demi-Glace (Hunter Chicken)

    Tuesday Techniques: Cooking with Demi-Glace (Hunter Chicken)

    Tom Colicchio, that most formidable of judges on “Top Chef,” shocked me the other night when, during an interview on PBS’s series Chef’s Story (with Dorothy Hamilton) he revealed that he hadn’t gone to cooking school, he taught himself everything he knows using Jacques Pepin’s “La Technique” and “La Méthode.” (This is corroborated on his…