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One of the most frequently asked questions members on our team report trying to answer is “what’s it like to work in a test kitchen?”  Truth is, it’s a great job if you like to cook and solve puzzles. Here’s another way to say it: working in a  test kitchen is like  combining home ec class with science lab but with no lockers, spares or cute teenaged boys to flirt with during the boring parts.

I took this picture yesterday morning after I saw Sabrina’s station all set up and ready for a day of recipe testing. Looking at it now, I realize that a picture really is worth 1,000 words: As you can see, you measure things in a lot of different ways in a test kitchen just like in science class.   In fact, if as a recipe tester you don’t spend a lot of time jotting down measurements of various kinds, chances are you won’t measure up in this business!

Lord knows this is not my best food photograph. Nor was this my best Daring Baker’s challenge ever. Sigh. My kitchen karma was severely out of whack when I went to make these tuiles.  The result: most of them turned out pretty much ugly.

I paired my not so pretty tuiles with my semi-famous microwave butterscotch pudding (made with homo milk instead of the 2% called for in the original recipe and with demerrara sugar for a deep, rich flavour). The recipe uses two egg yolks so it was a perfect choice as a companion for the tuiles on a practical level.

My embarrassing results sting badly; you see I used to make a version of these feather light cookies on a daily basis when, at the beginning of my career, I was the pastry assistant in a restaurant kitchen. Oh the shame! Am I washed up?  Have I lost my touch? Or, was it just a bad baking day?  Sometimes the simplest tasks can be the most humbling!

But, enough whining about my uninspired results. Visit the Daring Baker’s site and click on the links to see what my fellow bakers have cooked up. Some of their results are absolutely lovely!

Credits:  This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

When I started working in the test kitchen of Canadian Living magazine in the early nineties, I remember being surprised to learn that tea kettles, although common kitchen items in Canada, were relatively scarce is US kitchens. The rationale at the time was that Americans were more likely to drink coffee than tea so they didn’t give up counter space to an appliance they would use only rarely.

According to this poll and lengthy list of responses in popular New York City blog thekitchn, it looks like tea kettles are now popular on both sides of the border.

What about you? Do you plug in a kettle or put one on the stove top when you need a cuppa? And, are your current kettle habits new or rooted in long standing practice?

Edited to add:  I just saw this post on Not Martha which features a supremo kettle that has temperature settings for different kinds of hot drinks. So, if a kettle is on your shopping list, you might want to check this baby out!

Recently my trend tracker’s radar screen has picked up buzz about not only goat milk but also products made with goat milk. Turns out I’m not the only one picking up this static; this article highlights the trend, too.

If you’re wondering what’s enticing consumers to give goat milk a try, you should know that many people who are sensitive to cow milk can drink goat milk with no ill effect since the fatty acid and protein structure of goat milk is different than cow milk, making it easier to digest. Likewise, compared to cow milk, goat milk is higher in calcium and some other nutrients, too.

I haven’t tried goat milk or any products or recipes made with it myself but, I’m very curious about it. In fact, I really want to try these LaLoo ice creams.

Have any of you tried goat milk or goat milk products?  If so, are they very different in taste and texture to cow milk versions?

We all know the saying:  ”the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”,  but how do you get him to listen?

According to this British gravy mix commercial, the stomach route works pretty well then, too!

It’s come to my attention that our American friends have had a pretty fantastic week. Not only have they been enjoying Obamapalooza but last week they had NATIONAL PIE DAY!  That’s right. A day devoted to celebrating double crust goodness.

What did we have?  Nothing. What do we have to look forward to? Family Day. Boring. Oh how I wish our government had made our new holiday Pie Day instead!  

What do you think – is Pie Day more interesting than Family Day?  It certainly seems more inclusive since there are some people who don’t have families while, at least to my knowledge, there is no one who doesn’t like some kind of pie.

At the very least I’m going to bake a pie for Family Day and, I’ll read Harold and Purple Crayon with my son (who cares if he’s 12 and well past these kinds of books) since Harold — who has 9 favourite kinds of pie — is truly a pastry fan extraordinaire.

 
BTW: If you are in the Muskoka, Ontario area and you like the idea of pie day, you may also be please to know that Gourmet on the Lake’s Muskoka Food Boutique has started “Fresh Pie Fridays” so that you can have a great slice of double crust goodness without getting flour on your black pants.

Photo credit: Euranna.net

Over the holidays I felt sorry for vodka. People were drinking gin martinis, Manhattans and many other spirit based drinks but vodka bottles, the former darling of the modern bar, were growing dusty on the back shelf. In fact, I made only one batch of pomegranate martinis during the whole festive season.  

Always keen to help a friend (even if it is a distilled spirit) in need, I did a little internet sleuthing and discovered that a strong faction of vodka support remains.

Check out these interesting ways to enjoy vodka. They might come in handy as you couch surf in the next few wintery weeks enjoying the return of Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Damages (oh, how I love a cocktail and a good hour long drama!):

• Skittles vodka
• Vodka in a tube
• Sweet Tea vodka

And, if you want some truly innovative ways to use vodka around the house, consult this list.

What’s your favourite use for vodka? Do you drink it in martinis, infuse it with candies or use it as a foot odour cure like the site above recommends?

Cheers!

There are literally thousands of kitchen gadgets available on the market. While some (such as vegetable peelers and timers) are ubiquitous in every home kitchen, there are tools that appeal to cooks who share certain enthusiasms (such as specialty ice cream scoops) and others that are not very popular today but will be soon.

Here’s my prediction for items that you may not have in your kitchen now but may consider during 2009.

1. Salt cellars to hold artisan salts
2. Smoker boxes and smoking apparatus for conventional grills
3. Cedar grill wrapping sheets
4. Ipod/Nintendo DS/iphone to use as timers, for recipe storage and for making shopping lists
5. Mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder for grinding specialty pepper

What gadgets or kitchen tools do you think will become more popular? Likewise, what underrated kitchen gadget do you recommend?

I’ve never really embraced the term Domestic Goddess that Nigella Lawson popularized. Although I:

• love to cook
• enjoy setting a nice table
• find cleaning satisfying on a number of levels
• and, love to organize stuff,

I never see myself as particularly goddess-like or glamourous when I do these things. No, instead I feel more like my Baba (which, if you didn’t know, is the Ukrainian word for grandmother) when I’m involved in housekeeping.  And, although she was not without her charms, Baba was not – at least during my lifetime – a glamourous person.

My Baba taught me a lot of great lessons both in the kitchen and around the house but one of the best lessons she shared is to add chicken feet to the pot when making chicken broth. Chicken feet add great flavour and exude lots of gelatin into the broth so that it sets up to a wiggly jelly when it’s chilled and cooks down to a lovely, syrupy glaze when you make sauces or braised meat dishes.

When I was a kid, most grocery stores had in-store butchery departments so finding chicken feet was as easy as walking to the corner and asking the butcher for a bag of them. Today most national grocers bring in their meat if not fully portioned and packaged, at minimum dressed and cleaned. As a result, buying chicken feet now requires the skills of a treasure hunter.

Once you get your hands on some chicken feet, you’ll need to prepare them for the soup pot. Simply blanch them for about five minutes in boiling salted water; plunge into ice water and then remove the skin and toenails before adding the feet to the stockpot.

I find Asian markets are the best place to find a ready supply of chicken feet (in fact, I found these ones packaged and ready to buy in the case at my local T&T supermarket).

Have you ever made broth or stock using chicken feet as an ingredient? And, if not, would you try it?

Related posts:
• Chicken Broth Tips
• Easy Economical Parsnip Lemon Soup
• Rob’s 10 Tips for Making Soup Stock
• Slimming Satisfying Soup

As I’ve mentioned recently on television, specialty pepper is HOT in more ways than one.

Above is a picture of Comet Tail peppercorns from Just a Pinch. These peppercorns have a sweet flavour reminiscent of juniper and bay leaves that is fantastic in stews and cabbage dishes. Also new and notable is their smoked tri-colour pepper that is perfect for encrusting a steak before it goes on the grill.

How many kinds of pepper do you have in your spice cupboard? Given that pepper has a healthier halo than salt, will you use more if it than you do specialty salts?