cook's illustrated

Yesterday we ran part one of our interview with Christopher Kimball — editor, TV personality, and all-around food superstar — and today we've got part two. In this section Kimball compares gourmet cooking to gourmet sex. If you want to know exactly what that means, you'll just have to keep reading.

YumSugar: When you cook for yourself, do you follow recipes, or do you just make things up as you go?
Christopher Kimball: I have preached the value of a limited-recipe repertoire at home for years. Most folks should start with just 25 or so recipes until they can make them from memory and make them well. Then expand from there. So I have my repertoire and for those, I don't need a recipe. Plus, there are master recipes for roasting, braising, sautéing, stewing, etc., which — once one gets the hang of it — can be improvised. That being said, if I am making someone else's recipe, I always follow it religiously the first time. If it looks suspect or something seems out of whack, I just won't make it at all.

YS: I read an interview with you in which you said, "I think the gourmet cooking thing is over. That happened in the '70s." With our easy accessibility to fancier ingredients and exotic spices, do you think this is true still? If so, why?
CK: Gourmet cooking is for restaurants, not home cooks. This is hobby cooking and, for the most part, I am against it. It implies that everyday cooking is a chore and something to be avoided. I would rather focus on really good, everyday cooking — from-scratch oatmeal, a really good pancake, the perfectly-cooked skillet steak — then get all caught up in exotic ingredients and cuisines that most of us are not intimately familiar with. That doesn't mean that one shouldn't try new things once in a while for fun. But what would you think of someone who was promoting "gourmet sex" or "gourmet childrearing?" What's wrong with the day-to-day stuff? And isn't that more important anyway?

For the rest of the interview — learn all about his four freezers! — read more

The folks behind America's Test Kitchen have just released a new book called America's Best Lost Recipes. It's a collection of heirloom recipes that could have easily gone missing forever if it wasn't for this collection.

Recently we had a chance to ask editor Christopher Kimball — the one with the bow tie — a few questions. He chatted about the new book, what goes on at the test kitchen, and why you should quit trying to be a chef, and start trying to be a great cook instead. Here's what he had to say:

YumSugar: What brought about the Lost Recipes collection?

Christopher Kimball: I am a huge fan of old cookbooks and old recipes but have wondered for years where all of these great old recipes went. But I wasn't interested in recipes that were purely historical or anthropological in nature — I wanted tried-and-true recipes that still resonated today. That is, one would really want to make and eat them. So, we started with a nationwide recipe contest for "lost" recipes and received 2,800 responses, selected 300 that seemed the most interesting, cooked them all, and finally whittled the list down to 121 recipes that were interesting, delicious, and also still, I hope, relevant for modern cooks.

YS: What was the most unexpected thing to come out of this collection?
CK: Oh, all of those cooking techniques that I had never heard of before. Baking a pound cake in an oven that is cold when you put the pan in. Or, making a chocolate cake with no eggs, milk, or butter. Or, and this was our winning recipe, putting peeled peaches around a pie plate, placing an upside down ramekin in the middle, drizzling a caramel sauce over them, topping with pie pastry, baking, and then, when baked, turning the whole thing upside down and all the juices have been sucked up into the ramekin. Now there is a magic trick for you!

To read the rest of part one of our interview with Chris, read more

Although I know it's not the most healthy dish around, cheddar cheese soup is one of my favorite comfort foods. Creamy melted cheese dotted with crisp, crunchy croutons — could a meal be any more simply delicious? Besides the massive amount of cheese grating, this soup doesn't take a lot of time to make and is best eaten right away. I treated myself to a big bowl for a decadent dinner after a long Monday, but this soup would pair nicely with a green salad or make an excellent first course to a dinner party menu. The flavor of the soup depends on the quality of the cheese, so if you can, splurge on a good sharp cheddar. A glass of wine definitely complements this soup, as does an icy cold beer.

To see how I made it, read more

When it comes to washing veggies, most of us rely on good ol' water. Others use vinegar or soap, but are these techniques more effective? The folks at Cook's Illustrated magazine wanted to know and decided to put it all to the test.

In their test, they washed fruit with one of the following solutions:

1. Antibacterial soap (not recommended as food safety experts think soap isn't something you should eat)
2. One part vinegar and three parts water
3. Scrubbing with a brush
4. Plain water

Once they had washed their fruit, they then took a sterile cotton swab and rubbed it on the outside of the fruit. The grime collected on the swabs was then placed into Petri dishes and sat at 80F for several days.

Want to know what their results were? Find out, just read more

The folks at Cook's Illustrated really know their way around a kitchen. Not only do they have great recipes and fantastic ideas, but they've got an assortment of kitchen tips too. In fact they've got 834 of them and lucky for us they've put them in their book 834 Kitchen Quick Tips. The tips are laid out alphabetically and cover everything from almond paste (how to soften) to zucchini (how to seed). The hints inside (like spraying your knife with nonstick cooking spray before chopping sticky dried fruit) are quite clever and a book like this will be a great reference in your kitchen. I personally found the tips fun to read, and think it's going to become the gift I give at housewarmings!