3 posts tagged “cooking”

The reason Drake and I moved to Seattle, in 1983, was so that I could attend culinary school.

I had been working as an archaeologist and after five field seasons I was weary of the summers away from home.

The full story is a tale for another time, but I eventually shifted out of a culinary career. I wound up in the technology field, where I've been working (mostly happily) ever since.

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Maybe it was the hours watching the food channel while I was in Chicago over the summer--or maybe it's the sweet little cooking school across the street from my office (which I walk by twice a day, to and from the parking garage). Or maybe it's turning 50. But I've had a hankering again to do something food-related.

Another career change is not in my future. But, starting a cooking blog is. My goals with it are extremely modest, because I have limited time to devote to it. Mostly, it will be a place where I can work on learning food photography and practice food-related writing (something I've thought about trying when I eventually retire from consulting). I have the domain all set up; I've been designing the blog and working out the format for the content.

There are so many wonderful food and cooking blogs; I think this will be a good creative outlet for me. And if nothing else it's given me some motivation to get my recipes better-organized!

Pie!

Right now we've got both fresh apricots and raspberries available, so that means making my #1 favorite fruit pie. If you are pie-phobic (my mother who was an otherwise accomplished cook avoided making pie crust like the plague), I highly recommend this recipe for Easy Pie Crust. Truly, this is no-fail. It's so easy to handle - great for making a pretty lattice top.

I break pie-making into small do-ahead tasks over a few days so that it isn't so daunting time-wise.

1. Put the recipe out on the counter; serves as a visual reminder of the pie-making project.
2. Measure out the pie crust ingredients; wrap and put butter and shortening in the freezer.
3. Mix the pie dough; wrap in two pieces (lower and upper crust) and refrigerate.
4. Pull lower crust pie dough from fridge, let stand 1 hr, roll out and place in pie pan. Wrap finished bottom crust in plastic wrap and store in fridge.

All of the above can be done a few days before you actually bake the pie. In general, I like to bake pies early in the morning before it gets too hot,so having the bottom crust all ready to go gives me a running start on it.

Corn zipper

I saw this advertised in one of my cooking magazines. It's not quite local corn season yet, but I plan to get this smilely-faced little tool this year for all my corn zipping needs. From the NY Times:

It looks like a tiny Venetian carnival mask with a winsome smile, but the new stainless steel corn zipper, made by Kuhn Rikon, is an effective gadget for summer cooking. Knives can cut into the cob even when used by the steadiest hand, but the corn zipper's little teeth precisely separate the kernels from the cob so that they drop into a bowl.