burning question

Aside from the occasional glug of white wine, most of my cooking is done san alcohol. But after making a fiddlehead fern salad dressed with a luxurious cognac vinaigrette, I was reminded of how spiking a dish truly can take its flavor profile to the next level. As for my concerns about getting everybody woozy: "Don't worry about cooking with too much booze," every television chef has said over the airwaves. "It'll all burn off anyway." But is this true?

According to authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, it's not. "Every dish made with booze still has ethanol in it," they write in their forthcoming book, Lobsters Scream When You Boil Them: And 100 Other Myths About Food and Cooking.

In fact, one minute into a full simmer, your braise, stew, or sauté will still have 85 percent of the alcohol's ethanol left behind. To get that number down to five percent, you'll need to cook your dish for a whopping three hours!

Ethanol isn't without its benefits, which include tenderizing meats and making flavors more accessible. But if you want to cater to those with personal, social, or religious conflicts, sub in white grape juice or vegetable broth instead.

Source: Flickr User enersauce

Though the terms "smoked salmon" and "lox" are used interchangeably, they're in fact, not quite the same thing. Real lox (also called belly lox) refers to the midsection of a salmon that's simply been cured in a salt brine; consequently, it possesses a saltier flavor than what many of us associate with smoked salmon.

Part of the confusion arises from the use of the term "Nova lox" or "Nova salmon," which originally referred to the lightly cured and cold-smoked salmon that hailed from Nova Scotia.

Today, smoked salmon is often prepared using wild and farm-raised salmon from both the Atlantic as well as the Pacific — and modern-day usage of the term has further blurred the distinction between lox, Nova lox, and smoked salmon. Did you know the distinction between the two?

Source: Flickr User jeredb

A timely sale at the supermarket recently had me forgoing granulated white sugar in favor of the caramel-colored raw kind. But it was only after I'd begun using it in everything from agrodolce sauce to cocktails that I realized I didn't truly know what turbinado sugar really is. Is it brown sugar? Or simply a less processed version of the white stuff?

A little digging revealed that the answer is, in some respects, yes to both. Raw sugar — sometimes known as turbinado or demerara sugar — is a not-so-refined version of its white counterpart.

Sugar is made from the heated juice of crushed sugarcane, which contains both sugar crystals as well as dark molasses. The two are separated in a centrifuge; what remains is granulated white sugar. To achieve brown sugar, some of the molasses is added back into the granulated white.

Unlike standard granulated white sugar, which is rid of all impurities, raw sugar maintains a certain level of molasses, which, in essence, makes it a sort-of brown sugar lite, with caramelly and coffee-like flavor qualities. But don't go too crazy with it: even though it's slightly less refined, there's no proven health benefit to eating raw sugar over its refined counterpart.

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Source: Flickr User Pen Waggener

I've always wondered: if fruits, vegetables, seafood, and certain types of meat are in season at different times of the year, shouldn't cheese have a peak season, too?

Yes and no; the answer depends on the cheese. I asked cheese expert Juliana Uruburu to elaborate. "Spring and Summer are best for young, fresh cheeses," she explained. "Cows are feasting on grasses and brambles, and have a complex, bright, floral-fruity flavor." For this reason, cheeses made during the summertime tend to be the most vibrant.

As the seasons change, so do animals' diets. By Fall, cows are grazing less on fresh grasses, and more on dry grasses such as straw and hay. And come Winter, they'll be keeping warm in the barn — and the less animals move, the fattier their milk will be. Winter tends to be the time when cheeses are at their richest.

All of these variants, of course, pertain to artisanal cheese. Those made in massive quantities by big-name brands are carefully blended to ensure flavor is consistent from one experience to another. You're unlikely to see any variation in these cheeses throughout the year.

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Wine terminology has a tendency to be confusing, not in the least the American term "Meritage." What does it mean, exactly?

Meritage (which, by the way, rhymes with "heritage") is a fancy word used to refer to Bordeaux-style red and white wines made in the United States. The term was made up by Napa Valley winemakers in the 1980s, who, frustrated by the phrase "red table wine," coined a proprietary name for their high-quality blended wines, made from Bordeaux grape varietals.

In order for a winery to produce a Meritage wine, it must be a member of the Meritage Association, and the blend must be one of the estate's top bottlings. Red Meritage wine must be a blend of two or more of the five traditional Bordeaux reds (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec), and white Meritage is a blend of two or more of the three traditional Bordeaux whites (Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Muscadelle du Bordolais).

Do you buy Bordeaux-style blends by American producers? Has the term Meritage confused you before?

Source: Flickr User dionhinchcliffe

Have you ever dropped a coveted piece of food, only to pick it right back up, citing the "five-second rule"? I've always wondered whether this cultural phenomenon could actually contain an iota of truth. If something's only been dropped for a moment, does that mean it potentially picked up fewer germs?

A recent New York Times article sets the record straight. The five-second rule should really become the zero-second rule, because the time on the floor doesn't at all change the risk. In fact, a 2007 Clemson University study indicated that 99 percent of bacteria was transferred nearly immediately, and neither contact time nor various surfaces (wood, tile, carpet) affected the bacteria count.

Does this change your attitude toward food that's been dropped — if only for a second?

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Come Christmas Eve, Italians everywhere will be celebrating with the Feast of the Seven Fishes — a meal that'll involve lots of seafood (and even possibly a few local, fresh crabs). But if the table's set by an Italian purist, don't expect to see any parmesan. Among classic Italian cuisine experts, there's no greater sacrilege than sprinkling cheese on top of linguine con vongole, squid in risotto, or any seafood dish, for that matter. But what's the reasoning behind that? Find out after the jump.

During soup and stew season, few things are more indispensable than stock or broth. But what's the difference between the two? Are they simply the same thing?

The answer depends on whom you're talking to. Colloquially, the two terms are often used interchangeably, and in some types of cooking, such as classic French cuisine, there's no distinction between the two. But in North American cooking, the definitions can vary.

While beef, turkey, or chicken broth is made generally from meat, stock is produced by simmering browned vegetables and bones. As a result of the gelatin released from the bones, stock tends to have more viscosity and a fuller mouthfeel. The browning also creates a darker color and a roasted flavor.

If you've never made your own stock, trust us: homemade vegetable stock and chicken stock are easier to prepare than you think.

Reader Brisas has brought up an interesting baking question to the YumSugar Community, in particular the Kitchen Goddesses. She asks:

With Fall on its way, I wanted to started baking again and start experimenting with pies and tarts. I noticed on a lot of the recipes, they call to cook the crust before hand and to ensure it doesn't bubble to place tin foil over the crust and fill it with beans or pie weights or pie weight chain. I was just wondering if there are any bakers out there that have a preference and why?

When I make a pie, I normally use dried beans, then I toss the beans after using them. It might be more environmentally friendly to purchase weights, like the ones shown here from Williams-Sonoma ($13.50), but I don't make pies often enough to need them. What do you use? Please share your pie-baking tips with us below!

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Following my latest Name That Dish! challenge, I was surprised to note that many people considered a flauta and a taquito to be the same thing. Being from Texas, I'd always thought they had subtle differences, but just to be certain, I conducted some further research.

Turns out my suspicions were correct. There are small, if distinct, differences between the two Mexican specialties. First, while taquitos are generally made with corn tortillas, flautas (Spanish for "flutes") are usually made from rolled-up wheat flour tortillas.

Second, in certain regions, taquitos are often the petite-sized, appetizer variety, while flautas are the lengthier form of the dish, made from burrito-sized tortillas and served as part of the main meal. However, in occasional situations and some places, the two terms are used interchangeably.

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Source: Flickr User the.dugger