Category: Ingredients

Make Your Own Stock, Get Raves From Friends + Family

I’ve gotten compliments from my friends and family for the food that I’ve made, but I received the most enthusiastic raves for my cooking these past two nights. The secret is no secret at all: I made some seriously kick-ass vegetable stock from scratch and used it in my dishes. Good food really does come [...]

Thursday July 29th, 2010 in Ingredients, Tastes & Experiences | 4 Comments »

Chicken Should Taste Like Chicken

Enjoying food is about flavor, texture, aroma, and visual appeal. And yeah, okay, nutritional value too. If any of those elements isn’t up to snuff, the food isn’t good. Unfortunately, the food industry today is about producing volume, not about producing food that’s actually good. It’s about quantity, not quality. Feedlot beef has no beefiness [...]

Thursday July 8th, 2010 in Ingredients | Comments Off

Upper Canada Cheese Company’s Artisanal Comfort Cream vs Supermarket Brie

Cheese is cheese, isn’t it? Not necessarily. There is an obvious difference in taste and experience between artisanal cheeses & run-of-the-mill mass produced cheese. Yes, there’s definitely a price difference, but the dollar difference is reflected in the experience when you try the cheese. I dropped by the Upper Canada Cheese Company yesterday. It’s a [...]

Tuesday May 25th, 2010 in Ingredients, Tastes & Experiences | Comments Off

It’s the Rice that Makes Great Sushi

Making excellent sushi means making excellent sushi rice. No matter how good your fish is, if the rice sucks, your sushi sucks. Unfortunately, my sushi sucks. I’m working on it, though. I know that apprentices in real sushi restaurants – not the all-you-can-eat variety – can take years to perfect their sushi rice. I might [...]

Monday April 12th, 2010 in How-To & Techniques, Ingredients, Tastes & Experiences | Comments Off

Caviar from Spain? Gordon Ramsay Checks It Out

I know almost nothing about beluga caviar. All I know is that it’s sturgeon eggs, the best stuff is supposed to come from the Caspian sea, and they cost a lot. But why do they cost so much? Can caviar be farmed? What is it like to produce caviar? This video with Gordon Ramsay takes [...]

Saturday March 6th, 2010 in Ingredients | Comments Off