Accidental Hedonist

In the course of doing reading and research (both for this site and my own pleasure), I often come across weird its of symmetry in the most unexpected of ways. Two weeks ago, I was reading this book on Absinthe, where the author goes into some detail about French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud, for those [...]

I include this as another ethiopian spice that you may need if you wish to cook within their cuisine. It is clarified butter simmered with various spices, dependant upon the taste of the person who makes it. So consider this a recipe for Niter Kebbeh, rather than the recipe, as there are as many types [...]

Butter is composed of butterfat, water and mild solids. Clarifying butter evaporates the water and separates the milk solids from the butterfat. Clarified butter does not brown as easily as the butter you and I know, and can be stored for longer periods of time without refrigeration. Clarified butter is used in Ethiopian cooking (and [...]

In the recent post about Starbucks, Dan alludes to a really good point: Why should a company be penalized in the realm of public opinion, simply because they are successful? The questions about fair trade aside for the moment (and they are important questions, to be sure), why is it bad that a national chain [...]

Here’s a secret I have. I’m not a big fan of pancakes. Oh, they’re okay as far as taste is concerned, and if that’s the only thing on the breakfast menu, I wouldn’t turn them away. But for breakfasts, I’m an egg person. However, there are those in my house who are most certainly pancake [...]

I’ve been wanting to get back to writing about Italian food. The cuisine holds so much interest in me, that I cannot stay away. The food of Sicily holds a special place in my heart, as I grew up in an area of Pittsburgh that had many Sicilian immigrants. I can easily recall the Italian [...]

Yogurt is one of those products that owes its popularity to various health movements. in 1908, a Russian biologist by the name of Dr. Elie Metchnikoff, wrote The Prolongation of Life. In this book, Dr. Metchnikoff documented that a certain type of white blood cell known as phagocytes ingest and destroy various dangerous bacteria. He [...]

I hadn’t made pasta in several months. I know that this may not be of concern for many of you out there, but for me it was akin to giving up breathing for a week or so. There’s only so long a person should go without noodles and a decent sauce. Anything beyond that time [...]

Again, not so much an e-mail, than a comment left on a post. Dan, from Starbucks, left the following comment on this article talking about my experiences taking the Starbucks Challenge: Author: dan [Visitor] Type: comment IP address: 199.233.178.253 couple questions. 1. do we all hate Starbucks because there so big? Cause i live in [...]

One of the ironies of the world that brings a smile to my heart is the one surrounding pasteurization and homogenization. The French have long been recognized as the purveyors of all that is good and tasty in the culinary world. From their wines to haute cuisine, their defense of the taste of food has [...]

From the New York Times comes this tidbit of a story: If some of the meat in supermarkets is looking rosier than it used to, the reason is that a growing number of markets are selling it in airtight packages treated with a touch of carbon monoxide to help the product stay red for weeks. [...]

I’m working on Ethiopian food when time permits. The problem I am running into is that, unlike Italian cuisine, I can’t walk into the local grocery store and pick the spices and ingredients needed in order to do certain dishes. This means either scouring the little Ethiopian stores in the Central District here in Seattle, [...]