{"id":40,"date":"2011-02-09T12:35:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T17:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2011-02-09T12:35:50","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T17:35:50","slug":"my-new-culinary-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/my-new-culinary-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"My new culinary hero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I bought the household a cookbook for Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>This was (is) part of the household&#8217;s new year&#8217;s resolutions, which include eating better and other nerdier ones which we&#8217;ll get to later.<\/p>\n<p>The cookbook is Mark Bittman&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocookeverything.tv\/\"><em>How To Cook Everything<\/em><\/a>, and two months out I think I can safely say it&#8217;s been a great purchase.\u00c2\u00a0 In that time, I have learned from this book:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How to make chicken stock.\u00c2\u00a0 This alone is an invaluable piece of information, and Bittman is correct &#8211; it&#8217;s totally addictive once you learn how much better homemade stock is than canned.<\/li>\n<li>How to wash and prepare a leek.\u00c2\u00a0 Who knew that the best way to really get them clean was to slice them almost in half lengthwise and fan them out?\u00c2\u00a0 (Well, he did, obviously.)<\/li>\n<li>How to core a cabbage.<\/li>\n<li>How to make popcorn on the stove.<\/li>\n<li>How to prepare risotto.<\/li>\n<li>How to roast your own red peppers.<\/li>\n<li>And probably a lot of other things I am forgetting about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s light on pictures, except for the informative line drawings used to demonstrate the various cooking techniques &#8211; but you know what?\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m fine with that, and this is coming from someone who typically prefers her cookbooks liberally laced with nigh-pornographic food photography.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a practical book that is full of practical advice, and while it may not have as many pretty pictures as other cookbooks I have known, it DOES have a heaping helping of useful tables, ideas and suggestions for modifying recipes, and (most important of all) a good index in the back.<\/p>\n<p>Bittman&#8217;s writing style is breezy, easy to follow, and has just a touch of humor in it that makes recipes for even food that scares most people (like risotto) seem less intimidating.\u00c2\u00a0 When an instruction comes up that might seem bizarre to a novice chef like myself, he actually tends to take the time to explain why it is that, for example, you don&#8217;t bother to peel the onion you&#8217;re putting in your chicken stock.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s like having a kitchen mentor that hangs about comfortably within range if you need to ask a question without being dogmatic or intrusive.<\/p>\n<p>And with two thousand recipes, if you can&#8217;t find something to add to your repertoire in here, you&#8217;re probably not trying hard enough.<\/p>\n<p>This one&#8217;s a winner, folks.\u00c2\u00a0 Consider it next time you&#8217;re hitting up the cookbook section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I bought the household a cookbook for Christmas. This was (is) part of the household&#8217;s new year&#8217;s resolutions, which include eating better and other nerdier ones which we&#8217;ll get to later. The cookbook is Mark Bittman&#8217;s How To Cook Everything, and two months out I think I can safely say it&#8217;s been a great purchase.\u00c2\u00a0 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/my-new-culinary-hero\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;My new culinary hero&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[24,26],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-reading","tag-books","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rampantbicycle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}