Seriously Useful

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for OpenSky, a merchandising venture that I first heard about when Michael Ruhlman signed on. Ruhlman was pretty enthusiastic but beyond reading his blog post I ignored it — just another marketing/advertising scheme. Then a couple of weeks ago my friend and colleague, Chef Jim Gray (The Kitchen Guy), announced he'd signed up for Open Sky and I decided to check it out.

For the first two or three years after starting Seriously Good I summarily dismissed any commercial taint to SG's noble purpose of promoting seriously good food. And then I found myself needing to earn income from SG. Furthermore, as a writer and cooking instructor I found myself often questioned about my tool and ingredient preferences. I certainly had evaluations I could offer, and I've never been shy, so...

I don’t have any illusions about income potential — if I can generate enough to cover part of my Internet connection bill I'll be happy.

Google Ads was a boondoggle, I had no say over what appeared. Amazon Stores was better, but if I thought the Carlisle loaf pans were superior to Chicago Metallica (I do) and Amazon didn't carry Carlisle pans (they don't) I was stuck. OpenSky promises to find a source, if at all possible, for any specific product I want to recommend. Ok, this sounds good to me.

I started making a list of products that have made a big difference in my kitchen as both a home cook and a professional and was appalled at how much time I spent searching out sources. For example, there's a particular set of dry measuring cups I like. The handle and cup are a single piece so there are none of the cracks between welded handles and cups that collect food debris. Unfortunately my set has no brand stamped on them so I spent a couple of hours (seriously) going through Web sites and image files looking for them. I did find the cups and hopefully OpenSky can source them (they offer other products from the same company).

It's all well and good for me to say, "Use single-piece measuring cups because there's no crack between handle and cup for food to catch in," and then leave it to you to find them. Far better if I can say, "Use the Amco one-piece measuring cups because... and here's a source." I can't say that in the case of these cups yet, OpenSky still needs to make arrangements, but I hope to shortly.

I hope to make a few bucks off of this, and I could use the money. But I don’t have any illusions about income potential — if I can generate enough to cover part of my Internet connection bill I'll be happy. But I'll be happier still if you find a tool or two in my list that makes your kitchen life easier, happier, or more successful. This blog will never be profitable, I write it because it's become a central part of my life. But there's nothing in my list I don’t or haven't used and I stand behind every recommendation.

Although some of my recommendations are expensive (copper ain't cheap), many aren't (cast iron is cheap).

The store is just getting started and while I'm still calling it Seriously Useful it's already more useful than when Amazon was my host. And as OpenSky arranges sources for the 30 or so tools that aren't already listed it will become even more useful.

So check out my link to Seriously Useful in the left side-bar. Keep in mind that Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is rich and probably can't cook while I'm not and I can. And if there are other tools you wonder about and I haven't mentioned, drop me a note. If I can offer advice I will, and if I can't I'll say so — no charge either way. I really am here to share.

And as for sharing, the first five people to make a purchase from Seriously Useful will get a free phone consultation on (almost) anything cooking related. I can help create a special menu, offer advice on cooking problems, or even create a recipe just for you. Just keep in mind that I'm not a pastry chef (although I do know bread).

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Review: Goat Song

I get a lot of books to review, or more accurately, I get a lot of PR announcements asking if I want to review a book. And as you might expect, most of these queries are about cookbooks. But a couple of months ago I received a book named Goat Song: A Seasonal Life. A Short History of Herding and the Art of Making Cheese by novelist Brad Kessler. I don't recall a query about it and I don't think it included a cover letter — both of which I'm careful to keep so if I do publish a review I can let the PR firm and author know. But I don't have either. So I think it was a gift from the blue.

And it was a gift. The story is charming. There's no other word for it.

Kessler, a city boy from New York, and his wife bought a farm in Vermont and started raising goats and making cheese. The book is not fiction but is instead a memoire about this period.

According to my mother, it's the most pornographic book she's ever read.

It's an odd sort of book blending roughly equal parts personal experience, the history of goats, the nature of goats, and the place goats have held in humans' spiritual and cultural lives. It's also, according to my mother, the most pornographic book she's ever read. She's right that it's fairly explicit when it comes to the sex lives of goats, but I hadn't even noticed because there's nothing prurient in the way it's presented.

Kessler glides gracefully from goats in the Bible, to the practicalities of making cheese, to the character of his American Nubian goats. Concerns about coyotes prompt the purchase of a guard llama, a skittish milker causes deep anguish, and the antics of the kids tug on the corners of your mouth.

The author devotes one chapter to a month-long quotation from his milking/cheese log, which quickly becomes tedious, but is worth sticking to because by the end of the chapter you have a sense of the reassuring rhythm of this seasonal activity.

Reading the book, I gained the impression that goats aren't really herd animals in the sense that sheep or cattle are. They're more like deer, social creatures who enjoy each other's company (as well as the company of their herder) but don't engage in group-think — more like democratic than republican animals. In fact, Kessler takes them on long rambles in the hills and woods around his farm, but it isn't clear on these rambles that anyone is in charge.

Kessler concludes with, "A goat has led me here. I'm the boy in the Yiddish tale who's followed her all along — she always knew the way back home." Read this book and you'll find a part, a piece, of your home. Highly recommended.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | goat song

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Review: Reynold's Handi-Vac

Suck It Up

I remember when the first home food vacuums came out, they were pretty expensive and the reports I got from friends who tried them was they didn't work particularly well. So despite their appeal I gave them a pass at the time. The price has come down since and apparently they do a much better job of creating a vacuum, but now I can't afford one. Then one of my fellow About guides told me about Reynold's new hand-held vacuum units.

Read the complete review...

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | cooking for two | handi-vac

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Review: Cooking for Two

Cook's Illustrated has been my favorite cooking magazine since issue 1 way back in 1993 — in fact I'm a charter subscriber. I own a few of their cookbooks but not many because I don't use cookbooks very often any more. Nevertheless, when I was sent a free review copy of the recently published Cooking for Two 2009: This Year's Best Recipes Cut Down to Size by the editors of Cook's Illustrated I jumped on it.

You can read the compete review at
CookingforTwo.About.com...

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | cooking for two | book

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Review: Frommer's 500 Placesfor Food & Wine Lovers

Damn! Why didn't this book exist five years ago - or ten? I used to travel a lot for both business and recreational reasons. Each trip, whether business or fun, was preceded by lengthy internet sessions as I attempted to decide where to eat and what (food-wise) to visit. A trip to New York required a stop at Zabars, Philadelphia meant Pat's King of Steaks, and London wouldn't be London without a visit to Harrods.

But such trips were often a crap shoot. Two weeks in Spain or Italy might justify a half dozen guide books and a month of research, but an extra day in Tuscon didn't.justify such an effort. So I rolled the dice. Not a bad choice, but not an ideal choice because I hated the idea of missing a restaurant, farmers' market, brewery, or vineyard I simply didn't know about. So when I got an opportunity to review Frommer's 500 Places for Food & Wine Lovers I jumped at it.

The book was compiled by Holly Hughes, the editor of the Best Food Writing series of books and it is exhaustive. In it's nearly 500 pages of extremely fine print (you may need reading glasses to use it) it covers restaurants, wineries, farmer's markets, tea and coffee houses, and almost anything else you can imagine related to food and wine. Specific places include Zabars, Pat's, and Harrods as well as far more obscure locations like The Puffin Place in Iceland, Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue, New York and Filadelfia Coffee in Guatamala.

The descriptions of places I have been, such as The Varsity in Atlanta, are fairly accurate so I would assume the others are as well. And just the sheer number of places discussed makes the book worth getting - or would if my traveling days weren't pretty much over with.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | book

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Grade B Maple Syrup

Eating the Tree



I had friends over for a pancake brunch yesterday. My friend Sara had mentioned that she hadn't eaten waffles in years, which led me into my now-common rave about how good Grade B maple syrup is. So, of course, I had to have Jake and her over to try it. I don't have a waffle iron so I fixed pancakes instead.

I didn't want to do anything fancy with the cakes — after all, this meal was about the syrup. So I made a basic batter except that I added about 1/2 a teaspoon of ground coriander to the mix. Not enough to show up strongly, but enough to provide an underlying hint that complimented the syrup nicely. A generous dollop of Amish butter rounded out the pancakes and some top-flight country sausage from a local country ham maker added a spicy/salty element to the simple meal. But this is about syrup.

Wow! It's like eating the tree.

Several years ago I started reading and hearing about Grade B maple syrup. Like, perhaps, most people I assumed Grade B was inferior to Grade A — not that I'd ever seen any Grade B on a grocery shelf, much less tasted it. What I didn't know was that the grading system was based on color and not flavor or quality. The lighter the syrup's color the higher the grade. Grade B and below is typically sold to manufacturers for use as a flavoring. This is partially because of the perception of inferiority and partly because it has a stronger flavor that is useful in manufactured products.

I finally located some in a catalog and tried it. Wow! We're talking maple flavor times 10. Since then it's become a staple in my pantry. It's good in bran muffins, on oatmeal, on biscuits, in sweet potatoes (try mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and rum), pretty much anywhere you'd use ordinary maple syrup. But my favorite remains pancakes. After all, syrup is why God invented pancakes.

Despite searching, I've never found Grade B in a store. I did once find it at a roadside stand in Vermont — but only once (Yankees look down their noses at it). I'm sure it's available from a number of mail-order sources, but I get it from King Arthur Flour.

The first time I served it to my brother Kerry his comment was, "Wow! It's like eating the tree." That's the best description of it I've heard.

Try Grade B Maple Syrup with...
Pancakes with Cormeal
Maple Wholewheat Bread
Squash with Maple Syrup and Horseradish

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | maple syrup

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Spot-On: Ratio - A Review

Have you noticed how the more succinct a book's title is the longer the sub-title is? An example is Michael Ruhlman's new book on cooking titled Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. The ratio is 1-to-9. I'm sure this title to sub-title ratio is more a publisher's call than the author's, but it was the first thing that struck me on receiving the book.

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on | book

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Review: GelPro Kitchen Mat

GelPro Kitchen Mat



I don't spend as much time on my feet in the kitchen as I used to, the economic downturn has hit the personal chef business really hard (look up "luxury" in the dictionary and you'll find my smiling face). But my classes are still doing well and I'm still doing some small parties and such. These events have me standing on my ceramic tile kitchen floor for eight hour days - sometimes two in a row. At the end of the day I'm stiff, my feet are sore, and my back and legs ache. I'm really getting too old to do this, but a man's gotta make a living and the truth is I love my work.

So when I received a press release about the GelPro kitchen mat that I mentioned in my Christmas wish list I gave them a call and asked if I could get one to review. As usual I made it clear that I not only wasn't promising a positive review, but that I wasn't even promising to review it at all - that decision depended on what else landed on my plate in the mean time. They were kind enough to ship me a small one about six weeks ago and I've been checking it out. I knew the real test, though, would be Christmas Eve when I was going to spend the entire day in the kitchen fixing dinner.

Michael Chu (who writes Cooking for Engineers) has been using one for six months and is still happy with it.

The mat I was sent is 20 by 36 inches and when I received it I placed it in front of my prep station/kitchen sink - the area where I tend to spend the most time standing. Over the course of a few weeks I discovered that although it doesn't slide on my floor, it does shift position so about once a day I have to reposition it, a bit irritating, but I wouldn't call it a flaw. And it certainly felt good under my bare feet (I never wear shoes at home). I enjoyed having it but the real work-out was waiting. I began Christmas dinner at 9:00 AM Christmas Eve.

Although I wasn't in the kitchen exclusively (I did have to clean house before family arrived) I was on my feet until serving at 6:30 that evening and I spent at least six hours in the kitchen, most of that time standing on the mat. We had a great dinner, exchanged gifts, and after everyone left I crashed on the couch and watched some TV. When I got up half an hour later my back was stiff as a board. However, my legs didn't ache in the least bit nor were my feet at all sore.

As a rule, after a day like that and then laying on the couch, I would have hobbled like an 80-year-old man. My back was stiff - but a mat doesn't eliminate bending over the counter and sink for six hours - and aside from my back the rest of me felt fresh compared to what I ordinarily would have felt. Since Christmas Eve, I've spent another couple of six-hour days in the kitchen and I would rate the mat a complete success at this point.

A caveat, at this point I can't speak for how well it holds up over time. I ran across an amateur review of the mat by someone who'd had one for two years and she complained that the edges turned up and became a tripping hazard - and I've noticed just a bit of that on one corner. On the other hand, Michael Chu (who writes Cooking for Engineers) has been using one for six months and is still happy with it.

The mats are available in two sizes, the 20" x 36" I received and also a 20" x 72." They are also available in plethora of styles including the Cordoba I received, Basketweave, Striated, and even Ostrich as well as a range of colors. I specifically asked for the Cordoba style because I was concerned about food and dirt getting caught in cracks in the patterns of other styles, but having seen the way the pattern is impressed into this mat I suspect that's not a problem with any of them. In fact, cleanup is quite easy, although the company says not to clean it with anything other than dish-washing detergent (a mild soap) and water. Frankly, that stipulation doesn't work in my kitchen which has to meet commercial cleanliness standards so it will be interesting to see if it can tolerate the bleach solution I use for disinfection. If not, at least they warned me.

Prices vary from $99.95 for a small Basketweave to $299.95 for a large Rattlesnake. Currently I'm trying to figure out if I can pay for a 20" x 72" mat to completely stretch across my prep/sink area and then put the smaller mat I already have in front of the stove.

If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, these mats are a well-worthwhile investment in comfort.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | gelpro mat

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Spot-On: Review - Domestic Caviar

I don't know how old I was when I first tasted "caviar", perhaps 9 or 10 - and it wasn't real caviar. It wasn't Beluga, Sevruga or even Osetra from the Caspian Sea. It was lumpfish roe, dyed black and salted. I don't recall if I liked it, but my guess is not. Nevertheless, this ersatz caviar became a regular canapé (on a cracker with cream cheese and a thin slice of lemon) at our family's holiday gatherings - along with the California sparkling wine.

Read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on | caviar

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Spot-On: Review Spanish Road Trip

I first fell in love with Spanish food while attending a programming trade show in Washington, DC. Some friends and I had dinner At Jaleo's, a tapas bar. Prior to that I'd had Americanized paella, which my mother occasionally made when I was growing up, but that was the extent of my experience with Spanish food. Then in 1997 two weeks with my family in a villa on the Costa del Sol confirmed my passion for this simple cuisine.

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | essay | kevin d weeks | spot-on | book review

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Spot-On: Review - The Science of Good Food

The publisher, Robert Rose, recently released a book named The Science of Good Food by David Joachim and Andrew Scloss. At 600 pages it's a massive compendium of facts about food and cooking starting with acid and ending with wine. Among the topics covered are carcinogens, frying, types of game meat (the book reports raccoon tastes like pork), and the anatomy of a bivalve.

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on

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Spot-On: Reading Periodically

I just renewed my subscription to Cook's Illustrated, my favorite cooking magazine. For years and years before the World Wide Web and before cookbooks had become one of the largest categories in book stores I subscribed to Gourmet and Bon Appetit, because those magazines were the best bets for a varied collection of recipes. In those days the first step I took in planning a dinner party was to sit in the middle of the living room floor with all my back issues and a note pad and go through every issue - often multiple times - putting together a menu.

Read the complete article at SpotOn.

Technorati: Food | essay | kevin d weeks | spot-on | review

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Spot-On: Review - King Corn

I've been wanting to see King Corn since it was released last year, but there wasn't a chance it would appear in a theatre here in Knoxville and I missed the PBS broadcast here so I had to wait for the DVD release of this documentary about the current state of the American agricultural business. This past week I finally had my chance to view it and my reaction was, "Not bad, pretty good in fact."

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on | king corn

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Spot-On: Book Review - Bananas

Many years ago, as a teenager, I ate lunch in an Indonesian household on most Fridays. The meal always featured a huge platter of what I thought at the time were fried potatoes. They were highly spiced and slightly sweet and I adored them. But as a callow youth I didn't think to ask anything more about them. Some 20 years later I was reading an article on plantains and realized that's what I had been eating. I ran out to the grocery store, bought a plantain, sliced it into rounds, doused them with curry powder and a touch of sugar, and fried them. Yep, that was it.

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on

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Review: Hawaiian Yellowtailfrom Kona Blue

Unadulterated Delight



A week or so ago I got an email from someone commenting on SG and wondering if I was interested in receiving some free fish: "I’d be happy to send you Kona Kampachi and invite you to prepare it any way you like. If you’d like to share about the fish with your readers, great, but if not, don’t worry about it – it’s completely up to you." I happen to be a great believer in getting free stuff I'm interested in with no strings attached, so after checking out Kona Blue's Web site I told her to send it along. I'd try it and might or might not write about it and I might or might not be positive about the experience.

I'm here to say, "Wow!"

Yesterday (as I write this) I received a large, heavy package from the company. I was expecting it having received notification that it had been picked up by Fed-Ex two days earlier. I opened the box and found a huge plastic bag. I opened the bag and found an aluminized thermal blanket. I opened the blanket and found about a dozen frozen freezer packs. I dug through them and found a smaller plastic bag. I opened it and found two fresh (not frozen) fillets weighing about a pound each wrapped in plastic. I stuck my nose in the bag and sniffed — pure ocean. Supper had arrived.

Kona Blue raises Hawaiian Yellowtail (also known as Almaco Jack and trademarked as Kona Kampachi) commercially in deep-water farms near Hawaii. The company claims their methods are sustainable and minimize environmental impact. I read about this type of ocean farming several years ago and from what I recall, if done properly it can meet both claims.

The fish I received had been harvested on Sunday. It then went into an iced brine which killed it. On Tuesday it was gutted, cleaned, and shipped. Kona only harvests enough fish at a time to serve that week's orders so the fish is always as fresh as they can make it, but most of their sales are wholesale and for whole fish to restaurants. The company's retail presence is limited.

It's not cheap. The two fillets I received retail for $17.00 each and shipping is another $33.00. Nevertheless, I could have easily fed six for that $67.00, about the cost of a good steak dinner at home. And as I said above, "Wow!" This was certainly in the top 10 of fish I've ever eaten. They say it's sushi grade so I tried a bit raw and it certainly is. But I elected to cook it.

I cut a fillet into thirds and brushed two of the thirds with olive oil, sprinkled sweet Spanish paprika on them along with a bit of salt, and then broiled it until barely cooked through. It was like eating butter. My plan had been to eat only one third and use the other cooked third in a salad for lunch today. Not possible. The fish was just too good and I ate it last night as well. I still have the third third and will do something with it this evening.

I also understand why the company was so laissez faire about whether I wrote them up or not. They knew that no real foodie could resist singing the praises of this fish once he or she had tasted it. It really gripes me to be so predictable, and I wish I could think of something negative to say to at least give the appearance objectivity, but the truth is saying something negative wouldn't be objective. The fish is just that good.

Hmmm, perhaps I should have held out for a press junket to Hawaii...

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | seafood | hawaiian yellowtail | Kona+Kampachi

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Spot-On: Review — the Art of Eating

Although I seldom buy cookbooks anymore, I do subscribe to food magazines. The magazines offer loads of ideas even if I don't follow a specific recipe. That's also why I publish recipes on this blog. It isn't that I expect a reader to follow the recipe explicitly — in fact I post a disclaimer warning against doing so (look in the right-hand sidebar) — but I hope someone may find my use of cornmeal in pancakes or the addition of juniper berries to beef stew worthwhile.

You can read the complete article on Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on

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Spot-on:Elements of Cooking

During a recent episode of Next Iron Chef America Michael Ruhlman, serving as one of the judges, criticized one of the chefs for serving a consommé that wasn't perfectly clear. "Technically, consommé is a clear soup or broth," according to Ruhlman and in this case the liquid showed the red coloration of the watermelon it was made from. Picky? Yes. Technically correct? Yes. Important? Not in my view.

You can read the complete article at Spot-on.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | spot-on | book

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Spot-On: Southern Belly

John T. Edge is a member of the food writing culinoscenti, although he would blush to read that assessment — perhaps not least because of the awkward neologism. But how else should I describe someone who combines a knowledge of food and culture with insight into the combination and an ability to articulate that knowledge and insight? He, along with Calvin Trillan, Russ Parsons, Michael Ruhlman, and a few others, is one of the best food writers in the business and his latest book, Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lovers Guide to the South, reflects that skill.

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin weeks | seriously good | book | southern belly

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Spot-On: How to Pick a Peach

Russ Parson's How to Read a French Fry is an outstanding introduction to the science of cooking and I enjoyed reading it immensely. So when his latest book, How to Pick a Peach:The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table, was released I was looking forward to reading it as well. Interviews with Parsons on All Things Considered and The Splendid Table further whetted my appetite for the book. Sadly, when I finally read it I was disappointed. Not greatly disappointed, less so as I continued reading, and I'm glad I stuck with it...

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | kevin weeks | seriously good | Pick a Peach | russ parsons

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Spot-On: Going for Silver

My mother gave me a copy of the first edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook for Christmas the year it came out and it quickly became my go-to book for recipe ideas, as it did for many other cooks. A couple of years later The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook was published, followed in turn by The New Basics Cookbook. By this time my siblings also had copies and we took to calling them the White Book (because of its white spine), the Red Book (because of its red spine), and the Big Book (because it was big).

You can read the complete article at Spot-On.

Technorati: Food | review | food column | spot-on | cookbooks

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