LoveTheJourney

Reader Mike writes:
Growing up, we never kept butter in the fridge, we kept it in a cupboard, in a cool dark dry place. I mentioned this fact aloud when I lived in CA or NY or one of the places in between, and my roommates looked at me like I had said I wanted [...]

I mentioned below that the strictures around alcohol levels in the bourbon distilling and aging processes may come off as a little esoteric to the non-specialist. I suppose they will, however you are about to become a specialist in whiskey distillation, so that shouldn’t frighten you. Read on!
All distilled spirits start out as beer, basically. [...]

Nary a year passes in which I don’t slow-roast at least a few tomatoes to stash away in the freezer. In the bleak month of February, their bright, concentrated flavors serve as a reminder of happier days past, and yet to come. Before I had a backyard garden, my standard operating procedure was to prowl [...]

Though tomatoes are classified as fruit — berries, technically — they’re sorely lacking in the thing we primarily associate with fruit: sweetness. Your typical farm stand tomato has as much sugar as a Brussels sprout. Some tomatoes, depending on the variety and the degree to which they’re allowed to ripen on the vine, can [...]

This question comes in from reader Nick:
You said cherry pits taste like almonds. Why is that?

Oh, I was hoping somebody would ask that, though I’m pretty sure I would have found a way to talk about this subject anyway. The reason cherry pits taste like almonds is that they’re part of the same family of [...]

So what’s the deal with using whole cherries in clafoutis? There are three main arguments for leaving the pits in. The first has to do with taste. Specifically that cherry pits give off a vaguely almond-y flavor as they bake, infusing the cherry flesh (and to a lesser extent the batter) with complex flavors and [...]

Is it racist to desire a whiter strain of whole wheat flour? Comparative literature professors around the nation are lying awake at night trying to answer that question. I’m content to leave it to the judgement of history, but in the interim I’ll made bread out of it.
White wheat flour has been available to [...]

Regular contributor (and critic), Jim C. of Chez Jim weighs in on Chantilly cream:
Creme Chantilly doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere around Vatel’s time (late 17th c) but in 1780, Bertrand described “Chantilly ices” made with cream which had been flavored with sugar and orange blossom water, then whipped, the foam then served in chilled [...]

There’s nothing better than a recipe that gives you a feeling of promise, especially when it involves something as mundane as carrots. Yes, carrots. I mean, just when I thought I’d done everything worth doing with carrots — shredding them into my favorite carrot salad, pickling them, roasting them for an avocado salad, grinding them [...]

No, it’s Supertaster! A man — or woman — with up to 100% more taste buds on his or her tongue than a typical mortal!
There is such a thing. In fact there are lots of them…living among us, existing in a taste universe up to twice as intense as our own. It’s thought that [...]