http://culinaryunderground.com Cooking Instruction for the Home Chef Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:25:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Culinary Underground booths at this past weekend's Applefest in Northborough and the Spirit of Shrewsbury in Shrewsbury. We really enjoy taking our show on the road and having y'all come by to chat and nibble on samples of representative recipes from our classes. ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2009/09/fall-festival-recipes-2009 Years ago when I worked in Cambridge, I became friends with a woman from a big Italian-American family. She grew up on “the Coast”, as the area outside of Central Square in Cambridge was known in those days; her husband was born in Italy and came to the ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/11/lucky-number-seven Everywhere we look, there are recipes. Do you ever feel just overwhelmed by all the choices? How are we supposed to decide which are good recipes? How should we read them? How do we evaluate them? Experience is, of course, the best tool you have for perusing recipes, ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/11/recipes Unless you’ve been meditating in an alpine monastery or pouting under a rock, you are probably aware that there’s a little election coming up in two days that everyone’s been buzzing about. Hey, laugh about it, shout about it, you’re gonna have to choose. People don’t usually ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/11/vote-for-cake-2008 My mother was a frugal food shopper. She bought fresh, healthy ingredients, but counted every penny. She bought only one kind of cereal, one kind of cracker, and no dessert. There was one kind of cheese as well – sharp, store brand cheddar. It was great for open-faced ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/10/say-cheese   Here’s my football story and it’s no exaggeration. Just out of college, I moved to California and got a job at Stanford University’s math department. On my way into the office one morning, I was physically assaulted by a strange woman because I was wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/10/healthy-game-days-favorites-and-an-anecdote The days are shorter and cooler – it’s sausage-making time! The Chaucuterie: Homemade Sausage workshop is coming up on October 19. It’s one of a couple of do-it-yourself classes we’re offering this fall. We already encourage our students to make their own fresh ricotta cheese, jellies, and chutneys. Why not ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/10/the-daily-grind I used to do a lot more canning and preserving when we lived on our “farmette” in Royalston, MA. We had a very large garden, dwarf fruit trees, an asparagus bed, Christmas tree plot, and a rhubarb patch. My husband kept bees and made his own beer long ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/10/can-do What do we mean by artisan, or artisanal, breads? Definitions vary. Some insist that they are any breads that are hand-crafted, not mass-produced, while others insist that they also must be low leaven/long rise breads. If you’re a bread lover and you’ve been paying attention for the last ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/09/your-gums-will-bleed-but-your-stomach-will-thank-you Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Culinary Underground booth at yesterday's Applefest in Northborough. We offered samples of some of the recipes that students learn to make in our classes. These recipes emphasize fresh, local, seasonal ingredients to celebrate autumn in New England: cranberries, maple syrup, apples, and Concord ... http://culinaryunderground.com/2008/09/applefest-2008-recipes