Hand-painted diaries and home-cooked meals

[polaris134]

Awesome Library Find o' the Week:

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, 1906: a facsimile reproduction of a naturalist's diary, by Edith Holden. Exactly what it says, it's a hardbound, full-color facsimile of a diary that an Englishwoman kept throughout the year of 1906. The diary is separated by month, and each month starts with a

Comments

[agentfroot]

This is going to sound like a Food Network commercial (ye gods, I love that channel), but you might want to check out Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade show or Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals. They have some great ideas and shortcuts. You can also find a bajillion recipes at the Food Network website. I like watching cooking shows when I seek culinary inspiration, and it's the only time my mom doesn't harass me for watching more than an hour or so at a time (in fact, she harasses me to get the delicious recipes and make dinner

[polaris134]

So I watched the Thanksgiving special of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade show and it just didn't jive with me. I watched it with the Hykes family and not only did she make some cooking choices that we flat-out disagreed with (like using those cheap-o store-bought one-use meat thermometers), but she also relied a whole lot on pre-mixed 'seasonings' for flavoring, which basically meant loading everything with MSG. Thankfully I don't have an MSG allergy; all the same, I am trying to limit my intake and learn to prepare meals that are tasty without resorting to mind-altering neurotoxins.

That said, thanks for the tips! I'm fond of cooks.com, which has a great recipe search feature, and also Good Eats, but I can definitely check out the Food Network.

[agentfroot]

I'm not fond of Sandra Lee myself (she's just so... well, you know how she acts, it annoys me). And I prefer fully-homemade, with nothing that will have my stomach doing gymnastics later. I'm more of a fan of Paula Deen, Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa), and Alton Brown (who DOESN'T love him?). I've started using the big chef's knives and santoku knives (my dad and I call them sudoku knives) and paying attention to the hints they throw in the shows.

Oh, also, The Joy of Cooking is kind of like the culinary bible. I recently bought a copy for myself and have been itching to bake some bread. It has information and recipes for just about anything.

[polaris134]

Brian's whole family watches Good Eats, and that's how I found out about Alton Brown. We record it on our DVR. I love how he's willing to actually test (and sometimes bust) old cooking myths by examining the actual science behind it. That's the kind of teaching that I pick up well, because it doesn't tell me just the "what to do" but "why to do it."

And of course, every so often I'll ask Brian for a cooking suggestion and he'll give advice and follow it up by saying "'cause blah blah blah, and blah blah blah is good eats."