Cool Tips

Once you have the salsa, making the guacomle is a snap!

So … the summer season is starting to wind down - the grape harvest is in full-swing here in Napa Valley - and we all are searching for more ways to enjoy the abundance of zucchinis, cucumbers, and eggplants … from our own garden, your friends’ gardens, or the farmers’ markets … before winter descends. And as we approach this bounty, with a variety of recipes in mind, the fundamental question is ...to salt or not to salt?

It’s that time of year when entertaining heats up, and house visits and dinner parties abound. While a lot of what follows is common sense, sometimes we get so busy that we forget. So here are a few simple suggestions that we’ve found help us, and we hope will help you, to be great guests.

Many of our favorite vegetables have a high water content: zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant (OK: my fave, but not Piper’s!), and more. And if you try to cook them just as they come in from the garden, that extra water will effectively poach the vegetable, turning it into a soggy, tasteless (or, worse, bad tasting) mess, and it will dilute any sauce or dressing you try to serve with it. So you need to remove a significant percentage of that water, and you do that with salt.

Your microwave is not just for reheating coffee or melting butter. Nathan Myhrvold has called its capabilities “underappreciated” and Mark Bittman wanted to rename it “the whiz-bang steaming oven”. We love it for cooking bacon, and Kennedy’s Favorite Chicken is a microwave reengineered recipe that reduces over an hour of stovetop cooking time to 15 minutes in the microwave (and the results are better, too). And everyday we’re discovering more ways it can produce wonderful food quickly. So how is this all possible?

Don’t you just hate it when you cut up an apple, pear, avocado, banana, etc. and it turns brown in just minutes? It makes it tough to prepare your ingredients ahead of time (make your mise-en-place). So, why does this happen and how can you stop it?

A frequently-asked question for the Home Cook is: what do I really need to keep my knives sharp?

Over the years we’ve all had various iterations of “non-stick” cookware. The attractions of cooking with less (or no) oil and easy cleanup have always been strong. But problems of durability and concerns over chemical toxicity have fueled debate over the years.

If we had to pick one sandwich to take with us if we were stranded on a deserted island, then it would be New Orleans’ incomparable Muffuletta. It’s a 10-inch round loaf of bread, cut horizontally and layered with a variety of Italian meats, cheeses, and a garlicky olive salad.

We started this experiment 2 weeks ago, and we thought you'd like to see the updated photos... Frankly, we were amazed that it worked so well. We've added more green onions as we went along, but the longest are the ones that were the in photo below. We reprinted the Cool Tip, in case you missed it the first time.

We talk about Stainless Steel ratings ...usually 18/8 or 18/10 in cookware or flatware. But what do these numbers mean? And which rating is “better”? Discuss!

Here are a few tips on ho to enjoy the new/old superfood: Pomegranates!

Here are some great tips from Mark Bittman on shrimp!

A new trick to make the perfect martini!

Why do you need to mix your thickening starch with water?

Tennis ball can covers have an after-life.

What to look for in choosing a pineapple. It may not be what you've always thought.

It's easy to make your own blanched almonds.

How to get the most out of your pump sprayer.

How to make a Better Lemon Wedge.