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A Pressing Issue
Oct. 8th, 2011 12:49 pmTodays breakfast represents a confluence of several interesting themes. First, let me introduce the new gadget, the tofu press, shown here pressing Napa cabbage:
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furr_a_bruin inadvertently turned me on to this. I'm a very anti-gadget person, and the tofu press would seem to be the very last thing in the world I would buy. In fact, it solves a pressing issue with the management of vegetables in my cuisine. I had been aware of Japanese pickle presses for some time but the construction of this one is much better suited to my needs.
I keep threatening to write a cookbook titled "Cooking With Water" because the big issue in every cuisine is the management of water. If you use decent ingredients, you get the water right, you get the salt right, and you get the heat right, you literally cannot go wrong in cooking. Every living thing we commonly eat is basically delicious if you don't overcook it and don't drown it. The tofu press prevents the drowning of vegetables by removing water before it causes trouble. In particular it lets you cook watery vegetables much more quickly, and get a much better texture.
[Aside: it took a while to get the thing. The package was tracked as "delivered" but was nowhere to be found. Turns out our delivery person had put the lockbox key in the wrong mail slot down at the highway. The company agreed to send me another for the cost of shipping, and once i had paid for that, not an hour went past before I got a call from the post office letting me know someone had brought it in. So now there is another on the way and I am wracked with guilt. The company rep asked me to let them know if it turned up and they would send me a mailing label to return it. AM I REALLY THAT HONEST??? After all the runaround I am suffering a wholly unjustified and thoroughly antisocial sense of entitlement.]
Anyway, John is away for the weekend and Bill is hiding out in a little cabin trimming marijuana all month. I cook rather differently for myself than I do for the rest of the household.
( So what is Alsatian chow mein anyway? )
furr_a_bruin inadvertently turned me on to this. I'm a very anti-gadget person, and the tofu press would seem to be the very last thing in the world I would buy. In fact, it solves a pressing issue with the management of vegetables in my cuisine. I had been aware of Japanese pickle presses for some time but the construction of this one is much better suited to my needs.I keep threatening to write a cookbook titled "Cooking With Water" because the big issue in every cuisine is the management of water. If you use decent ingredients, you get the water right, you get the salt right, and you get the heat right, you literally cannot go wrong in cooking. Every living thing we commonly eat is basically delicious if you don't overcook it and don't drown it. The tofu press prevents the drowning of vegetables by removing water before it causes trouble. In particular it lets you cook watery vegetables much more quickly, and get a much better texture.
[Aside: it took a while to get the thing. The package was tracked as "delivered" but was nowhere to be found. Turns out our delivery person had put the lockbox key in the wrong mail slot down at the highway. The company agreed to send me another for the cost of shipping, and once i had paid for that, not an hour went past before I got a call from the post office letting me know someone had brought it in. So now there is another on the way and I am wracked with guilt. The company rep asked me to let them know if it turned up and they would send me a mailing label to return it. AM I REALLY THAT HONEST??? After all the runaround I am suffering a wholly unjustified and thoroughly antisocial sense of entitlement.]
Anyway, John is away for the weekend and Bill is hiding out in a little cabin trimming marijuana all month. I cook rather differently for myself than I do for the rest of the household.
( So what is Alsatian chow mein anyway? )
