Food Stuff
YouTube Skills Week: Cake Decorating
Cake decorating seemed like an easy choice in my quest to sample a new skill each day. My goal was not anything as elaborate as a wedding cake, rather a simple cake that didn’t feature my signature sloping, delaminated layers and disjointed frosting that looked more like road rash than a sleek and smooth layer. …
Read MoreYou Tube Skills Week: Bread Making
This fanagram is the second in a series about “YouTube Skills Week,” where I attempt to learn a new skill each day based on a YouTube video. The first focused on taxidermy. —————— You Tube Skills Week: Bread Making The second item on my You Tube Skills week, following taxidermy, is baking bread, which…
Read MoreHair Today
As Nick and I entered the restaurant, I knew the food could not possibly meet our expectations. “Pig,” a farm to table restaurant located in the countryside near Bath, England, had been recommended by a local friend when she heard that we would be staying in the Cotswolds. “Best meal of my life,” she said,…
Read MoreThe Banana Incident
I hate bananas. Actually, hate is inadequate to describe the depth of my feeling. So is despise, detest, abhor, loathe and revile. Bananas assault all of my senses. The wet sticky sound when you eat them reminds me of dogs licking themselves. The smell gags me. The cloying drape of the peel makes me shudder.…
Read MoreThe Best of 63,000
I grew up in an atmosphere of food as fuel, though my mother would wince to hear her culinary efforts so lightly dismissed. But she was in charge of feeding five kids three meals a day, and then a separate meal for my father, who arrived home later. Our kids’ meals were simple and repetitive – hamburgers,…
Read MoreMarketing Unplugged: Madagascar Vanilla
Recently we dined at a local bistro, a casual spot falling comfortably between family dining and fine dining. Very straight forward entrées – grilled rosemary chicken, grilled salmon, various pasta dishes – but I was confused by the description of the crème brulée on the dessert menu – “Creamy Madagascar vanilla bean topped with a layer…
Read MoreMarketing Unplugged: Roasted Black Garlic Potato Chips
On a quick dash through the grocery aisles to pick up last minute items – mascarpone cheese for a lime pie, lemon for the kale salad – I impulsively grabbed a novelty bag of “Kettle Cooked Black Garlic Chips.” When I got home I was filled with remorse; I realized that I had succumbed to…
Read MoreTen Foods That I Have Demonized and Can No Longer Eat
We all have food preferences. What follows is a list of food I can no longer eat for, well, various reasons that make sense to me. Want to listen to this post instead? Click here! 1. Liver, because as a pathologist I have done too many autopsies where I have had to grapple with slippery,…
Read MoreMouth Feel
I first became besotted with mouth feel sitting to the right of my grandmother at Sunday lunches. The main course typically consisted of beef tenderloin cooked to a perfect dusty rose hue accompanied by roasted potatoes whose shiny and auburn surface gave way with a gentle crackle to the tender middle. But the star of…
Read MoreI Love Livers
My introduction to liver was perfectly pleasant. There was a period in my childhood when liver was a routine dinner entrée. This was when my mother had 6 children under the age of 10 and was assisted by a mother’s helper. My memory is a bit hazy on this point, but I don’t think that…
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