Introduction and Kitchen Equipment

I was around 10 when my best pal and neighbor Alison and I decided to make sugar cookies at her house. I don't know where her mother was. We started at the top of the recipe, getting out each ingredient in the list and putting it in the bowl; eggs, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, salt, baking soda, baking powder.... Then we got to the first paragraph. Turns out certain things were supposed to happen to the various ingredients at different times. Paragraph two confirmed that. I remember staring at the mess and wishing for what now would be an undo button.  I don't remember what happened after that. I know there were no cookies involved.

Incentive to do this Blog
Julia, my niece, asked me to put together some of the tried and true recipes that I've made over the years; some of which she actually ate. She was motivated out of near starvation - she and her buddies switched from a seven-meal-a-day plan at Lewis & Clark to a one-meal-a-month plan or something like that. Apparently there is sufficient technology and equipment in the common kitchen area for them, not just to survive, but thrive - if they can get beyond brick bread, soggy pizza crust and squash as a fluid.

I'm pretty sure Julia and her pals know how to follow recipes. The problem is which recipes to follow. For this reason, it's important to understand a few of the axes in recipe space.

Recipe Space
The Good - Bad Axis
Some recipes are just bad. When you get familiar with cooking, you can often pre-determine this just by looking at the ingredients and noting the way they're assembled or cooked; game over. This skill takes a little experience. You can hasten the learning curve by making a bunch of bad recipes. Unfortunately, I won't be putting a lot of bad recipes in here for practice. But I will identify a few sources of generally bad recipes in the course of this project if you want to get up to speed.

The Easy - Complicated Axis
Some recipes are too freaking complicated for what you get in the end. The "for what you get in the end" is the operative phrase. In some cases, complicated recipes are necessary for complicated things. If you have the time, it's quite satisfying to master something most of us have only seen packaged.

Many of the recipes that I fall back on, and included in this blog, come from my neighbor and favorite cook Kay Shumway who created three meals a day at the Moose Mountain Cross Country Ski Lodge for many years without killing anyone - biologically or physically. (It seems wrong not to suggest that my mom was my favorite cook but she was my favorite sense of humor; her bible was the "I Hate to Cook Book" and using electrical tape, she covered over every instance of the word "Joy" on the cover of the "Joy of Cooking" .) I worked for Kay when I was 13 and out of politeness or pity, she kept me employed through my teen years. In my experience, if Kay suggests a recipe, it's bullet proof.

Circling back, all of the recipes in this blog will be easy unless indicated. For example, one star would be something like boiling water; five stars would identify a recipe so complex it could lead to hari-kari or a kitchen homicide.

The Available - Unavailable Ingredients Axis
Some recipes call for ingredients you can only find in anaerobic lake beds in countries undergoing civil war.  I don't include any of these. However, like music genres you need enough of the key components to complete the effect. If you want to do Indian food, there's a more or less finite set of spices; having these on hand makes Indian cooking fun, missing some and having to go out and get them makes Indian food a pain. Same for Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Russian, etc.

Your pantry can get a little crazy if you go multi-cultural often - and it isn't just the spice genres -- Oils, vinegars, and grains are often very different between cooking cultures. I like a crazy pantry so I'm not troubled but I have no idea what space is available in dorms or public kitchens.

Finally, given that Julia is in a highly ecology conscious college and a heavy promoter of fresh local food, I'll indicate which recipes are more "Oregon" than others so ingredients will be easy to come by.

Recipe Sources
There are some classic fail-safe recipe sources. Here are a few I've used and pass the test.

Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer (if you can find the edition published in 1975 grab it. It shows you how to skin a squirrel.)

How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman. I defaced my copy by adding "nearly" to the title when I failed to find a few recipes I thought ought to be included. Squirrel recipes were missing.

Kay Shumway's Moose Mountain Lodge Cookbook (This is a bit of a tease since I don't know whether of not she still has any copies left.)

Cooks Illustrated. This is a magazine. If you can't talk someone into giving this to you as a gift, you may find old copies at a garage sale. At least go to their website. All the recipes are well tested, no nonsense and educational.

About Equipment
I aspire to a Yankee perspective on equipment; do something the hardest possible way first using the least mechanical advantage. After mastering that, inherit a tool from your great grandmother, and take worshipful care of it. Only when that tool gets stolen can you put aside a small portion of your income for months to purchase a more modern replacement. I, and a bunch of my old fashioned friends, have already paid this due so that Julia and her clan can leap frog to gadgetry without the Karmic expense. I'm going to make  recommendations for equipment that not only make the recipes in this blog practical but significantly reduces kitchen rage.

My Favorite Things, in no particular order:

Knife Sharpener -(below) ceramic kind. Hand held = more Yankee. Often knife sets come with the spear shaped sharpeners. These are good for touching-up a nearly sharp knife and are fine if used frequently. But the ceramic wheels inside this one are great for putting a scary edge on things. People say you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife. Presumably because you are frustrated and pushing harder so when your finger is underneath you're putting more muscle into the cut. I don't know about this theory. Troy seems to cut himself equally with sharp or dull knives. Either way, once you've experience a sharp knife, it's hard to go back to a dull one.

Garlic Press - Zylus brand recommended.

Cuisinart Food Processor - (below)(these aren't cheap, find a used one somewhere). There are a couple of recipes which I use all the time (french bread and pizza dough) that make this device indispensable. Also good for grating cheese, carrots, coleslaw, etc. Don't pour any liquid into them until they are running. I've made this mistake more times than anyone with an average ability to learn from their mistakes is allowed. The liquid seeps up underneath the cutting blade and pours down the side of the machine and all over counter. Don't make Margaritas in it.

Thermometer - essential for making bread

Lemon gooser - (below) not sure what these are called. Cut a lemon or a lime in half and ream it with this. A word of advice; rinse it right after you use it, otherwise the pulp transforms into a unique citrus polymer.

Chef knife - (below) The balls. This one is a Henkel. I got it ages ago because I liked the logo which has since worn off. Turned out to be a really good knife. The shape is good for many things, particularly chopping which you tend to do a lot of when cooking. Chef, refers to the shape not the person using it, though they may be the same. Wiki has a basic description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef%27s_knife

Paring knife - (below) Maggie Schneider gave me this as a gift when she came over to dinner. It was one of the coolest dinner gifts I've ever gotten. Traditionally you're not supposed to give knives as wedding presents unless you stick them into something like a loaf of bread. It's bad luck, as if the knives have a life of their own and you must direct that energy into something inert like bread; Un-directed, I guess knives might give the newlyweds dangerous ideas when the Oxytocin wears off. Dinner gifts are a different category. My little red Victorinox knife went right into the eye of a potato.

Cast Iron pans - (below) A lot of people throw these out and get nice toxic non-stick pans. I found a full set of cast iron skillets beside the road. Once they are seasoned they are awesome. What? Season!? Here's a quick video of how to season a new cast iron pan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5z-Nx3Zl9Y   Here's a longer video, much more colorful, don't you just love Rita Heikenfeld http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THgcMtxecvE

In the picture below, you might notice that my pan needs seasoning - see the dull surface and slight rust. Bad dog Cleo. BTW never use the dishwasher on your cast iron pans. In fact you don't even have to wash these with soap....  see the videos.

Cast Iron Dutch Oven - this is my favorite cooking pot, it is perfectly seasoned because we make popcorn in it all the time.

Pizza stone - (below) Get one as large as you can afford and that still fits in your oven.  They say don't clean it with water. The stones are absorbent and may retain little pockets of water which will expand in the heat and could crack the stone.  Maybe that's why my first stone broke. Just brush it with a wire brush. You can steal one of these from somebody's grilling equipment. Stains are considered seasoning. Mine could use a brushing now that I'm looking at it in the cold light of day.

Pizza peel - (below) Get one large enough to fit a pizza which is large enough to fit on your pizza stone which is no larger than your oven. This is a vital tool. My cousin Bobby Walp made pizza in Chicago. When he came to visit he bought me a stone and a peel and showed me why you need them. You can't transfer the pizza to the oven without one. Maybe you can, but we call those Calzones. Don't get the peel wet for long or they'll warp. I de-laminated one that way.

Wooden spoons - you don't need a photo but these are some of my favorites. Collect these when you are traveling around the world.

Good silicon spatula - I use this more than I thought I would. Silicon doesn't melt but the plastic handles do while you leave them resting in a hot pan. The blade part should be pliable not stiff.

Tongs - Troy uses these more than I do but I'm getting more dependent on them. They are great for tossing vegetables or spinach in a pan. The silicon version is good for non-stick pans which you'll probably have one or two of if you are too lazy to properly keep a cast iron pan seasoned.

KitchenAid mixer (below) (only if someone's mom can donate one for the cause) These are good for cookie dough, most bread recipes and tearing fingers off your hands. Always unplug them when you are fussing around with the attachments. Seriously. Troy broke his finger in a KitchenAid mishap. Unplug. Just do it. Just like you'd never use a cell phone while driving, right? When you turn it on make sure the head is locked too. Memorize the Kitchen Aid two step: Unplug it, put on the hook, lock the head, plug it in, turn it on. Try that a few times. Oh another thing. When you're adding flour to anything while the hook is going around turn it down to low or you'll look the guy on the couch when Woody Allen did his first line of coke.

 

Wood cutting board - higher marks for sanitation than plastic (and nicer looking) http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

Stainless steel cooking pot - The only time you want a heavy bottom is if you're a cooking pot. Double clad or some such terminology is key. Thin bottomed pots burn stuff which will piss you off more that the extra you might have had to pay for the pot.

Hanging Basket - No kitchen is complete without one of these ratty hanging baskets. They sift out onion skins and potato eyes to a handy pile on the floor. They are great for mulching or drying depending on how deep down the forgotten items are. It's amazing how much stuff you can fit in these before one of the three little wire hoops blows out sending the whole collection across the kitchen floor. Unless the times have changed they are ubiquitous and cheap.

Other...

There are obviously lots of other basic items that are necessary, cookie sheets, pie pans, roasting pans, cooking utensils, graters, sauce pans, mixing bowls. These were the items that first came to mind as tools that are deserving of a little attention.  As I blog along I'll keep adding to the list.