Interesting! I'm about to run out the door, but I know that with homemade bread, I always wrap it in a flour sack so it turns stale before mold can start to grow. (Without preservatives, and damned if I know which sorts of preservatives I would want to use in my own bread, mold happens after just 3-4 days, so you let it go stale faster than that). Once it's stale you can make bread pudding or french toast.

I knew the searing thing, from Alton, yet a friend who spent years as a chef (and went to school for it) insists that searing is necessary. I suspect it's because he was taught that, given that info in the article.

I think I also knew the salt thing from Alton. Ever since, I've switched to Kosher salt. And one thing the article neglected to mention is that there is a difference between the brands of Kosher. My family might think it's nutty but I travel with a container of MY kosher salt (because I always end up cooking dinner). What happens when I use anything other than my Kosher salt? I end up oversalting it because I'm so accustomed to my own. I use Diamond brand, and the "flake" size is pretty big. If I even had to use the Diamond brand fine Kosher (which is just ground up to work in a salt shaker, I bet) I screw up.

We don't really need the iodine added to our salt anymore; I can taste a difference if I have to use regular Morton's table salt.

One other thing that I think would have been a nice addition to the article is about wine glasses. Like the pasta shapes he talked about, they don't make umpteen types of wine glasses just to get people to buy more. It actually does make a difference in how the wine tastes. My parents only ever had the standard wine glass. My now-husband's parents had the whole array, right down to tiny sherry and absinthe glasses. So after drinking hub's favorite Pinot Noir in my mom's standard glasses, and finding the wine a bit too knock-me-on-my-ass I thought I didn't like the wine. But one day I had it in an actual Pinot Noir glass (which is huge with a fat bowl bottom and smaller opening) and it was like I was drinking a totally different wine.

I did NOT know about the stale bread thing. I must now call my mother and gloat horribly, because she ALWAYS keeps bread in the fridge and since it's just her she'll freeze it, too. I always complain it tastes like shit and she never believes me!

Do people really think the lobsters are screaming? I mean, kind of a given

Thats was veery funny to read.

I'm glad my hero, AB, was mentioned. I've never been steered wrong by the guy.

I know that anytime someone doesn't squeeze all the air out of the bag, the bread gets stale faster. That's the way it works in my house. We also live in a humid area, so that may also work against us in general. Might explain why there's very little in the way of native breads for tropical and sub-tropical zones. Except Cuban bread ... that's stale right out of the oven.

Doesn't matter how you cook the meat, if you stick a fork in it while cooking that's the fastest way to get rid of the juice - it all floods/squirts out (the immature among you may giggle now).

I remember recently that the gov-spec numbers of pork's cooked internal temperature were lowered. I wonder what my old boss at the diner had to say about that?

I've always known that oil won't stop sticking. But my mother still throws a fit when I don't dump oil in the pasta (and still wonders why it sticks). The only advice I can give for that is either mix it with the sauce, or eat it right away.

Oh, and laying a wooden spoon across a pot of boiling water will not stop it from boiling over. Lower the temperature, instead.

My guy puts his bread in the fridge insisting that it doesnt get stale, but he also puts in in a tuperware. I think he just isn't noticing the texture change.

The thing about the steak is true, it doesn't "lock in moisture" but searing steak is not at all something to be avoided. It's flavor and texture. Technically, you don't have to cook a high quality steak at all. Most people don't care to. The biggest thing to remember as far as moisture is concerned is to 1. not overcook it and 2. don't fn pock and prod and pick at the steak to see if it's done. If you sear it, let it sit. You can look up the amount of time it should sear for whatever level of doneness you're trying to achieve. Let it sit, flip once.

I personally cook my steaks by searing between 3-5 minutes on one side in a cast iron skillet with a bit of butter, salt and pepper, flipping it, and then immediately sticking the whole thing in the oven for a couple minutes. If you don't stick it in immediately, the latter side will cook more than the first side. The oven is used to raise the internal temperature to the desired level. I usually only like my meat medium-rare at the max, so it never takes very long.

Searing isn't gonna preserve juices (I love Escoffier, though!) ---but doesn't everybody love the crisp outside? I mean, that's why I sear things. Crisp contrasting with tender center. Yum.

I would have thought that more than 15% of alcohol evaporates, though.

I thought trichinosis was still a risk, too. Yay processing standards for improving things.



Lobsters scream, microwaves stealing more nutrients than stovetops, searing for *moisture* rather than *crispness*, adding oil to pasta---I never believed those.



The enzyme one---what? Enzymes don't *die*---they're not *alive*. They're just proteins. They catalyze reactions. They are a chemical, and chemicals can't die! Become denatured, sure, but humans don't need plant enzymes for digestion anyway. But say "denatured," not "die"!


And salt? Sorry, salt is just salt. Table salt packs more salt in per volume because it's not flaky like kosher salt, so if the recipe calls for kosher salt, just add *less* table salt and then it won't be oversalted! That wasn't hard, right?

I knew lobsters didn't scream, but knowing their nervous system is nothing like ours, and they feel much, much less, I feel less evil cooking them.