There are people who think Eggs Benedict is a recipe. I don’t. It’s a format. Once you understand the format, breakfast gets a whole lot more interesting. Because a benny is really about four things: a sturdy base, something savoury,…
There are five sauces every chef learns about eventually. Béchamel. Velouté. Espagnole. Tomato. Hollandaise. They’re called the mother sauces because they’re the starting point for a whole family of other sauces. Which sounds very fancy. But here’s what I actually…
There’s a point in cooking where you realize the knife isn’t just a thing you use to cut food. It’s part of how you cook. And if you’ve ever stood at the cutting board hacking your way through an onion…
I have a confession. I cannot follow package directions. I don’t mean I won’t follow them. I mean I genuinely cannot. Give me a box of pasta, a packet of rice, a frozen lasagna, a jar of sauce, a package…
There are five basic tastes we’ve all been taught to recognize: Sweet.Salty.Sour.Bitter.Umami. And then there’s kokumi. Which, until recently, I had never heard of either. Apparently I have spent decades cooking food without knowing the name for something I have…
There are very few things in this world that make me happier than making a big fucking pot of soup. Not because soup is complicated. It isn’t. That’s the beauty of it. Soup is one of those rare foods that…
I’ve cooked in fine dining kitchens where a single plate cost more than most people’s weekly grocery budget, and I’ve cooked on a coffee truck where I did math in my head to figure out if I could afford both…
Why does restaurant food taste so damn good? You know the feeling. You make steak at home. You order steak at a restaurant. Somehow theirs tastes better. You make vegetables. They make vegetables. Their broccoli has you questioning every life…
There are certain things you discover in life and immediately wonder: Where the hell has this been all my life? Chocolate and whiskey is one of those things. I have spent most of my life around food. I’ve cooked in…
There are some things professional kitchens do that nobody bothers to tell you. Not because they’re difficult. Not because they’re some mystical chef knowledge handed down from Escoffier through a secret underground society of cooks. They’re just little habits. And…