Thanksgiving 2019

Thanksgiving went smoothly. This is the turkey BEFORE going into the oven. I had already molested it with my own compound butter under and on the skin.

And this after it comes out of the oven.

Everyone was clamoring for the crispy skin.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Zz.

Vivian Howard Keynote Address at 2017 NC Rural Assembly

This is why I love Vivian Howard.



I will miss her "A Chef's Life" series, even though she's coming out with another new series on PBS. I almost cried watching the final show.

Thank you for introducing me to the food of your family and the food of your region.

Zz.

Biscuits And Butter/Jam For Afternoon Tea

We have afternoon tea almost everyday. We're not British, but we still have this quite often.

Today, it is Jasmine tea with homemade whole wheat buttermilk biscuits, served with butter and raspberry preserves. For you not familiar with American's "biscuits", it is not cookies. It is more of a quickbread.

I posted a recipe for a buttermilk biscuits a while back. This one substitutes one cup whole wheat flour for one cup of all purpose flour. Everything else remains relatively the same.

When served slightly warm, it is very satisfying and comforting.

Zz.

Badly Translated Food Menu On Graham Norton Show

This is just plain hysterical.



Zz.

Why Brick Ovens Bake Better Pizza

... or at least, the traditional, thin-crust pizza, rather than the Chicago-style deep-dish or thick crust pizza.

This is a fascinating article that reviewed a recent preprint uploaded to an e-print arXiv. The manuscript studied the physics of baking pizza, and explained, among other things, why baking thin-crust pizza in a brick oven is better than in a steel oven.

Chewing this over, the physicists realized the key difference lies in how much more slowly brick transfers heat to the dough compared with steel — a measure known as the material's thermal conductivity. A brick oven heated to 626 degrees will heat the crust to roughly 392 degrees, while the pizza top receives indirect heat from the oven and stays at 212 degrees as water boils off from the cheese and tomato sauce. Glatz says that after about two minutes, both the pizza top and crust reach perfection.

But pizza crust in contact with a steel oven at the same temperature will hit 572 degrees because the metal transfers heat far more rapidly than brick. That's much too high for dough, Glatz says, "so it simply burns." Unfortunately, because the top of the pizza must cook as well, simply lowering the oven temperature to 450 degrees doesn't work. While that will heat the crust to 392 degrees, the rest of the pizza won't receive enough heat to boil by the time the crust has cooked — resulting in cooked dough but undercooked toppings.

I think Elton Brown one time had an ingenious idea, which is to put a baking stone in one of those Weber dome grilling kettle and bake the pizza in there. This is where you can get the baking stone to be very hot, hotter than what one can get in a conventional home oven. I haven't tried this yet, but now, after reading this paper, maybe I will.

Zz.

Restaurant In Business For 250 Years Due To A Single Dish

This Japanese restaurant has been in business for 250 years, is famous for one dish called Oyakodon, and have long lines with wait times up to 4 hours!



And Noma thought it has a fanatic following! :)

It's a nice video. However, I wish there was a bit more description of the dish that is is famous for. Instead, the video focused more on the current owner of Tamahide restaurant in Tokyo.

Anyway, I found another video on the preparation of an Oyakodon. It may not be identical to what they serve in Tamahide, but it will tell you what the dish is. And now, I haven't had the opportunity to have something resembling this yet.



Zz.

Hamburg Inn No 2

Having breakfast at an Iowa City institution.

Supposedly, other than Trump, every single US president since Ronald Reagan has come and dined  here during their presidential campaign.

The breakfast is average. But the service was very friendly and the food came very quickly.

Zz.