Voice-transcription service Vlingo has launched a really fantastic new iPhone application that lets users talk into their phones to search the Web, dial contacts, and update their status on Twitter and Facebook. Much like Google's iPhone app which was released early last month, users are able to do all this without ever having to use their keyboard. The big difference between Google's efforts and Vlingo's is the addition of Yahoo search, meaning users can pick the search engine of their choice. You're also able to auto-dial contacts by speaking their name. This, along with speech-to-text search of Google Maps, and...
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Filed under: Grains, Recipes, Newspapers Farro (emmer wheat) and spelt are not the same thing, as this New York Times essay amusingly points out. While farro cooks like pasta, high-protein spelt needs waaaay more time and love to become edible. So what is spelt, that oft-mocked hippie grain, good for? Apparently those brick-like 1970s "health loves" have gone the way of the Earth Shoe, and the new generation of spelt bread is like wheat bread but with a tougher crust. And spelt flour can be made to make genuinely edible pancakes, pizza dough, pasta and crackers as well. Plus, for...
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, Episode Reviews(S05E03) Three episodes in and while Top Chef has been fun with really good challenges and interesting food, something is missing. Or maybe it just hasn't simmered to the surface yet. I'm talking about conflict, drama, hatred. Everybody is just too damn happy with each other. I mean, last night the only nasty interaction was one chef flipping a finger at the other -- which Bravo actually blurred out, give me a break -- and Jamie commenting that she's fed up with Dave. Compared to previous seasons, that's pretty tame. Turn up the...
Well folks, if you haven't noticed by the lack of people at work or canned pumpkin at Kroger, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The day we Americans celebrate Jesus's first bite of whole foods (some say it was a wise man's camel) and the subsequent poisoning of the Native American population with a laced cornucopia. So, to help you get in the spirit of it all, a Thanksgiving-ish post! The Nuwave Oven Pro is a $120 portable oven that can allegedly cook a 10-pound turkey (or small sibling) in a mere two hours. "NuWave performs this miracle using three kinds of...
From Serious Eats The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read all her mission reports here. Photograph from tisay on Flickr Chicken wrapped in pandan leaves and grilled. Photograph from doubtless on Flickr Before I knew vanilla, I knew pandan. Mind-boggling, I realize, but I was well into my teenage years before I set eyes (and greedy hands) on a plump vanilla bean, whereas my family had a pandan plant growing right at our doorstep. In fact, the corridor we shared with our neighbors was lined with pots...
The “Oil-Less Turkey Fryer” is a device which looks just like a normal turkey frier, but, as the name suggests, cooks it without oil. This can only be described as a lie. To fry, you need oil. That is the meaning of the word fry. Misleading semantics aside, how does the “fryer” shape up against a real deep-fryer, or even a standard oven? Not very well. My copy of the Larousse Gastronomique recommends cooking the bird for 25 minutes per pound in a 325º F oven. The Perfect Turkey website tells us that in a 425º F oven, an...
From Serious Eats Fill the cylinder of the Turkey Cannon with your favorite cooking liquid, stick a turkey on it, and let it roast to perfection. Like in a beer can chicken, the liquid helps cook and flavor the bird from the inside resulting in a faster cooking time and more flavor. [via CNet Blogs]...
Most of us don’t realize the attraction power of two-minute Ramen noodles. So let me explain… You’re hungry. You boil some water while you desperately tear open the packet. The water bubbles away madly as you reach to cut the tastemaker within the two-minute noodle packet. Two minutes, maybe three minutes later, you’re burning your tongue as you wallop down the noodles. What you’ve experienced is an instant result. And readers too want to experience that very same instant result with your content. They don’t want to waffle through mountains of information. They want a nice, quick bite to...
Last night the 2nd episode of Top Chef New York aired, beginning with an oh-so-NY-themed Quick Fire challenge: Hot Dogs! After Padma declares that New Yorkers spend $100M a year consuming the "dish," the cheftestants were put up against the Top Dog (heh) in New York, Angelina D'Angelo (from Dominick's hot dog truck in Queens) and had 45 minutes to cook up their own recipes (which season 4 cast-off Spike says is enough time "to build a cart"). Serious Eats points out that you can head to Woodhaven Boulevard and 65th Road in Rego Park for a taste of...
Filed under: Recipes, Lists, Fall Flavors, America, Comfort Food, Real Kitchens, Thanksgiving, FallWhether you call it filling, dressing, or stuffing (and whether you know that, to some, there is a distinction between each); whether you make it from sourdough, cornbread, or white bread (or spelt if you're sensitive to wheat or are Ancient Roman); whether you embellish it with chestnuts, oysters, cranberries or chorizo; no Thanksgiving table is complete without stuffing. It plumps up in the roasting turkey's cavity and then cozies up to the finished product on your plate -- and both benefit, as your taste buds do (though...
From Serious Eats Photograph by David Hagerman of Eating Asia If you find yourself in Jakarta, this looks like the man you'd want to buy your satay (or "sate" in Indonesian) from. Between his happy face and confident stance holding that wad of stick meat, I would trust anything he cooks. Robyn Eckhardt of Eating Asia was lucky enough to try his food after waiting in a long line. (Smiling Satay Man seems to have a following.)...
From Serious Eats From the Telegraph: For Feast, a forthcoming series due on Channel 4 early next year, Heston [Blumenthal] interprets historical banquets and cooks an entire pig in a sous-vide."We couldn’t find a water bath big enough so we went to a hot-tub warehouse," he says. "We took the limiters off so it went up to 62C and we cooked it at this temperature for a day and a half. Then we spit-roasted it, cranking the heat up so it got the browning. It was the best pig that I ever tasted." The rest of the profile is worth...
Filed under: On the BlogsSince the colder weather finally settled in, I've been making at least one pot of soup or stew a week. However, I often feel like a bowl of steaming, brothy goodness isn't complete without a bit of bread or a couple of crackers to go along with it. Some weeks I buy a multi-grain baguette at the farmers market but sometimes I like to make my own rolls or biscuits. I've had my eyes open for new quick bread options lately and there are two that struck my fancy today. I haven't actually made either yet,...
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