thermochemistry
It's always throws me off when two of my worlds collide, as they did when I saw a Slashdot post (geeky world) about a
Wired article (hip geeky world) about
Alton Brown (foodie world), one of my favorite Food Network hosts. Alton Brown is a very funny man, and I learn a lot from his show,
Good Eats. Anyway, the Wired article is all about how AB breaks down cooking into scientific components. For example, when talking about how pie crust becomes flaky, he'll talk about protein structures and what not. The article describes Good East as "a cross between Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom and MacGyver." Ha. I liked MacGyver.
The article mentions a time in a show where "[AB] gets punched in the head by Boxing Nun puppets named Tender and Flaky, as they fight over whether the two textural qualities can coexist in one pie crust" How funny is that? I saw that show. It was very funny. It's shows like this, and Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals, and Tyler Florence's Food 911, and good lord, anything that
Jamie Oliver does, that really make me like to cook.
Because of the shows and books by these folks -- good cooks with great personalities who really know how to teach someone to do something without being all...Martha Stewart -- I've almost broken myself of the eating-boxed-food habit. However, there are two really good, really cheap things that I've found recently. First,
Annie Chun's fresh-pack noodle bowls, Miso and Udon variety. They list at $3.29 each, which is more than I'll pay for meals-in-a-box, but Whole Foods has had them for $1.99 for the longest time, which is a good price. Cut up some shiitake mushrooms and throw 'em in, and these make a hearty meal. The other good finds were the various
Thai Kitchen instant rice noodle packs...for $0.69 each. That's twice the price of Ramen, but Ramen
sucks and these do not. I usually do two packs of the noodles to one pack of the flavor stuff, because I'm just like that...not because they're overly salty or anything. I haven't decided which I like best yet, but I am leaning toward the Lemongrass & Chili flavor.
Golly, now I'm looking forward to lunch!
