Kitchen Stuff

January is a pale month. The holiday lights come down, the belt comes out a notch, the 1099’s hit the mailbox and the tax dread begins.

To celebrate such cheery times, we here at the How to Eat (that) studios worldwide are focusing this week’s entries on how to, with ease, eat better and waste less food, energy and water.

The first thing you’re going to need to do is buy a set of Pyrex Storage containers

The overall advantage to Pyrex is that it makes the kitchen work more efficiently:

Less Trash: They last longer than plastic.
Better Food: Glass doesn’t take on the flavor of the food they are storing.
Easier: They wash up in the dishwasher, where as plastic always comes out of the dishwasher wet.
Faster: You can cook in the same container you store food in and visa versa. Pyrex glass is tempered you just pop them in the oven or (arg) microwave.
Cheaper: The less food you have to transfer from container to container, the less you have to wash and the less water and soap you have to use.
Prettier: Let the shelves of your refrigerator be vain and look classy.

I used to cook a small whole chicken every Sunday, in a large Pyrex Deluxe container and store it in the same container for the week. Now that Erik and I have joined forces there is far too much food to explore and chicken is rarely on the menu these days.

Still, the Pyrex is used for everything from storing sauces to baking beans.

Tomorrow:
Homemade Stock
The Next Day:
Sardines– 3 bucks 14 cents of Glory

There was an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about synthetic truffle oil, which all truffle oil. Or, as Erik says, it’s a processed food.

We travel with truffle oil (white and black) in our wine bag. I prefer the black, Erik prefers whichever bottle is open. I like to drizzle it on popcorn and potatoes and salad. (It also goes well on a salad of halved quail eggs, roasted figs fava beans and arugula.)

I’m not going to lie to you, I was disappointed to hear that truffle oil is synthetic. But in reading Dan Patterson’s article I found renewed joy in the stuff– mainly because of Patterson’s foodier-than-thou-tone and his proclamation that he discovered truffle oil in the late 90’s. Discovered could, if one were a little more humble, be replaced with introduced to. Ahem.

Patterson makes truffle oil out to be the equivalent of cheez whiz and snubs those chefs who use it even though he himself had used it in his own kitchen before he discovered it was synthetic. Sigh. I am going to assume that Patterson doesn't do made-up things like watch TV dramas or read fiction or drink vodka made from wheat.

Truffle oil is like cheap and cheerful Cotes du Rhone (which is clarified with ox blood)– it tastes good, big and fun. That is what food can be: an experience that isn’t precious.

This whole article smacks of something that we must all fight against: Food as status symbol. Food, in a democratic society, is a joy not a form of superiority. After all, to Patterson, tasted good enough to serve in his restaurant.

However, if a person is so super unhappy with the idea that truffle oil is synthetic they might want to discover truffle salt.