How to cook perfect rice – in a frying pan – This is a great how to article for cooking Japanese style “sticky” rice to make sushi rice, rice for riceballs and so on.
Tag Archives: cooking
First attempt at pancake civil engineering
First attempt at pancake civil engineering – I’m gonna go ahead and say that was a success!
The winner of Hell's Kitchen
Warning: This post does contain spoilers about the 7th season of Hell’s Kitchen on Fox. If you have not watched the season finale and don’t wish to know who was the winner, please stop reading. If you don’t Really care, then proceed on at your own will.
Spoilers are after the bump.
First, let me just say this. Every season of Hell’s Kitchen seems to get worse every time. It seems the chefs who compete are not chosen for their skills in the kitchen, but instead on the amount of drama they can generate. I understand the entertainment value. I Really do. But I like to see a genuine competition between chefs of equal caliber.
Top Chef, for instance makes Hell’s Kitchen look a lot like Jersey Shore. A Really big joke. Hell, I’ll even say that Gordon Ramsay’s newest series, Masterchef, makes Hell’s Kitchen look like a joke. I Really did not like any of the competitors in Hell’s Kitchen at all. There were a couple of people I thought might be worthy to win, however, a majority of the contestants this season were a joke. Seriously. Some of them I’d say you’d easily find them as line cooks in Old Country Buffet. Not to say they don’t belong there. But I have to admit the screening process could be better.
Anyways, enough of my complaining and on to the winner.
The Yoshiblade! yes, I own one.
Perhaps you seen the commercials or seen it on youtube. It’s the miraculous Yoshiblade! I must say if it has my name, it must be something else. So you know what? I had to buy one. I ordered it back in January for around 30 bucks. I receive 2 sets of blades and peelers. I gave one to my mom. Actually I haven’t asked her what she thought of it, and she hasn’t complained, so either she’s not using it because it sucks, forgot all about it, or it’s working great. You choose.
First of all, it took forever for it to arrive. After about 3 weeks, I received an email that said my order was back-ordered and there was no date of shipment. Luckily, the Yoshiblade did arrive about a couple weeks later. I’m sure that wasn’t a common occurance.
As for slicing and dicing, the knife is very sharp. It comes with a cover which is good, since most people (like me) like to keep their knives in a drawer. Of course, if I like a knife, then I store it carefully in another location such as a knife box or sleeve. But back to the Yoshiblade.
I love it so far. I’ve been using it for a couple months now, and I haven’t had any issues. I admit, however, the blade is a slicing blade. Don’t expect to do any big chopping with it. It’s not very heavy and is actually quite light. The handle is very nice. You can grip it and not worry about slipping, since it’s one of those grip feels similar to rubber and it’s feel.
Overall, I’d say it was a pretty good investment. The only thing I can say about it is the typical “As seen on TV” warnings of this: it might cost 19.99 but shipping and handling costs just as much if not more. Video after the bump.
The Worst Cooks in America
Really? I think Food Network has Really outdone themselves with this show. The premise is rather simple, the chefs have to choose the worst cooks out of 24 initial cooks. And these people are bad. They’ve pretty much been singled out as people who could boil water without burning something.
It’s rather like watching a train wreck. These poor people can’t cook worth a damn. But that’s ok. If you can serve say a can of tomato soup, that’s not so bad isn’t it? Well, that’s what one of the contestant did. Wow, that’s nothing, I’m pretty sure almost anyone can successfully make a Campbell tomato soup dish.
The final end game of the show is of course for the last two standing cooks to make a dish for a panel of food critics, who supposedly have no idea they’re Really cooking for them, and instead, Ann Burrell and Beau MacMillan, the Chefs of the red and blue team, are cooking for them. Of course, the reputation of the chefs are in peril.
This just seems to be a competition of who is a better instructor, and how fast they can teach. The cooks are just a bonus (if you can see it that way) to the show. There’s a lot of tears, a lot of under/overcooked meals.
How does this show seem to you? Is it as much a train wreck as I see it? I just think some of the cooks have got to be exaggerating their skills (or non skills) in cooking. But damn, I just can’t help but watch it.