I now know what I want for my birthday! This BBQ sword is a giant meat fork and comes with an awesome mask to keep your identity a secret. Perrrrfect.

A sweet action shot.

Ok not really… Do NOT buy me this for my birthday. I wouldn’t use it. I just liked the joke.

I don’t understand the obsession with extra virgin olive oil. The last couple times I went to Central Market and to Whole Foods I spent what seemed like forever going through each bottle of the hundreds of different olive oils to try and find at least one… ONE… that wasn’t extra virgin.

See the problem with extra virgin olive oil is that it has a great olive oil flavor. It’s great for salad dressings, mixing with some fresh ground pepper or some balsamic vinegar as a delicious bread dip or otherwise as a kind of “finishing” oil.

Found this excellent article via tastespotting. The picture caught my attention and I was initially a little frustrated about the fact that the picture had very little to do with the article, but in the end the article turned out to be worth it.

Cast iron is inexpensive but excellent kitchen gear.

The article covers 8 points which I paraphrase here. You should go read the full article though.

1. Use better salt and pepper, and use them judiciously. The one thing I don’t agree with here is that he suggests salting at the end. Use salt and pepper judiciously, but definitely don’t save them for the end. You need to be salting slowly throughout the entire cooking process.

If you love food and food science this site will quickly become one of your favorites:

www.playingwithfireandwater.com

I was poking around on tastespotting, which I have to warn you can be very addictive, and clicked through on a variety of good pictures when one of them took me to playing with fire and water. I was surprised I hadn’t found it sooner, but it turns out the first posts are only from January of this year… and as far as I can tell the writer’s background wasn’t revealed until just a few days ago.

So today I convinced some coworkers to try this new rotisserie chicken place that went in nearby. Although the food wasn’t horrible, we’ve decided never to return… and that Peru had earned some negative publicity from the event:

• Strike 1 - The peruvian pan flute mafia. How else can you explain how they have a crew running in every major city?
• Strike 2 - The apparent total lack of salt in Peru. I read the article they had posted on the wall. The chicken is rubbed with spices and lemons, marinated in wine and stuff for 24 hours, rubbed with spices again, then rotisseried for quite a while… and ALL WITHOUT ANY HINT OF SALT.