Norm Matthews

I have seen beautiful, amazingly appointed, very modern kitchens and the cooks speciality is making reservations. I have seen cooks whose only knife is a dime store paring knife which just came out of the dishwasher who turn out some very good meals. They usually take a little longer to do it though.

Yesterday while making the clams and mussels, I noticed an unopened stick of pepperoni so decided to make pizza today. I also saw some green and red peppers in the fridge yesterday and was going to use those too but I didn't see them today so left them out. I used some tomato sauce from a can with some basil from the garden, onion, garlic, sage and fennel for the sauce. Topped that with some parm. cheese, hamburger, pepperoni, Genoa salami, ham and black olives. Used mozzarella and some left over stick cheese on top.

I suppose it would help if they defined "chef" James Beard would bristle if someone called him a chef. At one time the only ones entitled to be called chef were graduates from the Cordon Bleu. It was the title bestowed by them upon graduation as I understand it. Now the term is applied to a head of a commercial kitchen. Even some graduates of any cooking school think of themselves as chefs even though they may not even have a job yet. I know some people who consider themselves as a chef if they teach cooking classes. I don't know what the state of some culinary institutions are today but I see some signs that make me wonder about the credentials of their graduates. I also wonder how many go to a cooking school thinking the job the get will be glamorous and make them wealthy. What are the motivations of those people? I know reality cooking shows are unreal but if some of those contestants are really chefs, I wonder at their level of training too. Perhaps totally unrelated but I was an art teacher. When I got my degree, I had to get a degree in art before I could get certification as a teacher. Now days teachers have to major in education and pick up art classes here and there. Have cooking schools watered down their cooking emphasis for classes in management and nutrition? I don't know.

We had a seafood dinner here in Kansas yesterday.. steamed clams, stuffed mussels, salmon appetizer 'pizza' and a grilled salmon which i turned into a spread -or salad- with sour cream, mayo, onion, cilantro, dill, red pepper flakes and hickory smoked salt-not pictured. Mussels stuffed with minced ham, onion, garlic, butter white wine and bread crumbs and topped with parm. cheese and parsley.

I have seen Martha Stewart do it. I have never done it and never had any mishaps... knock on wood.

I guess SOMEBODY has to post after dcarch so the rest of those following won't look so bad. LOL I always intended to make Eggplant Parmigiana someday. Today was the day I finally did. We all really liked it. Son said it was better than chicken parmigiana and I'd he would not mind if I made this again. In other words, its a keeper.

$300.00 low-fat fryer to save money on oil? For fries? I don't see the value there.

My son's SO gave me a recipe she wanted me to try. It is called Wasabi-Crusted Chicken Breast. It was served with a teriyaki sauce made with Korean style sauce, sake and chicken stock. While at the Asian Market today the owner-lady told me they had some freshly made kimchee so I got two cucumber kinds, a radish one and the regular cabbage kimchee. I made steamed rice and made the chicken breasts, served the kimchees and there was dinner.

Just remember, please, onions, celery and green pepper is correctly and originally referred to as the trinity,,, NOT the holy trinity.

I have a Ginsu that is older than the one you pictured and still use it nearly every day. I also have an 8-inch Henckles chefs knife which is about 28 or 30 years old that I still use but one newer one is old too and i really like it as well. By that I mean I have not had it a really long time but it was forged pre-WWII and comes from Sabatier. It is a 9-inch chef's knife made from carbon steel. It is really sharp but needs a lot of attention-ie polishing and honing and sharpening. I do all my sharpening by hand with stones. One of the stones is probably older than the knife.

Plugra is made from creme fraiche so I am sure the butter would be very good but my experience with butter making is that a pint of cream makes only a couple ounces of buttermilk.

I don't know what you should do and I don't think there is anything the restaurant can do either but I imagine the owner/manager would want to know about it. One time someone called me and said they got sick at my restaurant. I got their name and address and suggested they call the health dept. right away. I then called the health dept. and reported what they told me. The health dept. said no one else had reported getting sick at that time and doubted it was our fault but sent an inspector out and checked us out and found nothing wrong. We always got a high rating anyway. I was told someone asked a health inspector which restaurant he would have no problem eating at himself and he recommended ours. I suspect the person who called me was hoping I'd give him some large financial incentive to keep quit about it.

Before refrigeration, it was nearly impossible to keep cream fresh all the way from the dairy to the creamery. Butter was churned from sour cream and the resulting buttermilk was also sour. Now days buttermilk is made by adding a culture to milk. That is why using lemon juice or vinegar to make buttermilk from whole milk is a better solution that trying to churn butter from fresh sweet cream. The resulting liquid made from sweet cream isn't really buttermilk in the traditional or even the more modern sense. Making creme fraiche into butter and milk will probably work but it is a lot of extra time and effort for butter and buttermilk. plus you would need quite a bit of cream to get any substantial amount of buttermilk.

Most Italian pasta is just an egg, a pinch of salt and enough flour to make the dough. It takes about 2 cups flour per 3 eggs. Two kinds of dough are used most often: Semolina and 00 or a combination with AP flour. A close approximation to 00 is 3 parts AP and one part cake flour. Working with semolina requires some rest time -like overnight, wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator in order fully hydrate the flour. I have the kind of attachment that makes the sheet kind. I have heard no one say anything good about the extruder but there is a new pasta attachment that the put our within the last couple of years that I know nothing about.

I don't know anything about the cheese you mention but any cheese in shrink wrap can't breathe or age. I have doubts that there is anything you can do in a normal residential setting that will significantly improve any cheese, especially after it has been cut. In order to keep you cheese in the best condition, look at the directions here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/cheese/how-to-store-cheese-what-to-do-when-you-get-it-home-the-cheesemonger-100285

I also use hot water and plenty of bleach. I also have separate kitchen towels for drying hands, dish cloths for cleaning dishes and messes and dish towels for drying clean utensils, dinnerware and cookware. I try to relegate dish cloths to messy things and relegate the ones that don't come spotless to under the sink for future possible staining chores. When they get really bad, the go to the garage, then the trash. They aren't expensive so I have no problem replacing them when they are beyond help.

There is no gluten in corn starch, potato flour, or arrowroot. You can thicken a sauce with any of those but they won't be exactly the same as classic bechamel.

Making bechamel with regular flour is not difficult. Use a tablespoon of butter and a generous tablespoon of flour and cook together a minute or two. Meanwhile heat a cup of milk but do not boil. When the flour and butter is cooked together a short time... for white sauce, don't let it brown... add the milk a little at a time whisking all the while until all it is all mixed together, bring to a simmer and it will thicken. Add more milk if you want it to be thinner. Add salt and pepper and a touch of chicken base if you want it to be a Southern style milk dinner gravy.

For the best thickening of cream soups, use an egg yolk over a double boiler. For basic bechamel sauce, all purpose flour will work just fine. Wondra is easier to use because it is an instant flour that blends easier. Potato flour, corn flour(starch) tapioca are thickeners that act differently than the wheat flours I mentioned and are more for thickenen sauces. They do a good job of thickening without the use of fat, but the result won't be a classic French white sauce or Southern style milk gravy but rather more like sauces used in Chinese dishes.

When I spoke of glass lids, I was referring to regular glass. But the Pyrex (and Silex) I picked up at antique and thrift stores and didn't get them if they were not reasonably priced and in very good condition.

I like glass lids. Heck I like glass in general. I think in 35 years I may have broken one lid. Not only glass lids but I have a Pyrex collection of a glass coffeemakers, teapot, and a double boiler. I even prefer glass for refrigerator storage.

Make sure the oil is around 325-350 degrees before you start deep frying. Try using half corn starch and half flour. A sticky batter using egg is also good. 1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 C. flour
1/2 C. corn starch

Fat should float to the top of jus and be removed. By itself there is no reason for it to separate.

Before storing at room temp, put it in the freezer overnight to kill any microscopic eggs that can hatch later into those flour bugs.

I have done beer can chicken a few times. First you have to pierce the can around the top several times and pour out about half the beer otherwise the beer will foam up and spew out when you add the rub. About half the remaining beer steams out of the can by the time it is done. I roast it over indirect coals in my Weber for 50 minutes ( make a slit under the wings and thigh so the meat will cook more evenly. That is the part that takes the longest to cook. I also add a couple chunks of hickory on the edges of the charcoal so it will smolder and smoke instead of burning. After 50 minutes, I cut the chicken in half with shears to remove the can and discard it. I brush the chicken inside and out with a red BBQ sauce and finish cooking it over direct coals about 5 minutes per side. Watch closely so the sauce does not burn.