Tag Archives: Cooking

Corn on the Cob the Easy Way!

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IT WORKS! I think it’s better than boiled or steamed, too. I hadn’t eaten corn on the cob for many years because it’s such a pain for one person, one ear of corn. I have two more corn ears and plan to buy more as long as it’s in season.

See: SFGlobe’s short 22-second video on Facebook.

Corn-on-the-Cob

If you can’t reach the link, or just want the bottom line:

  • Don’t husk the cob(s). They cook in the husk which preserves their moisture,
  • i.e. leave the cobs intact inside their husks.
  • Don’t wrap them in anything or put them in a microwave bag.
  • microwave for 4-4/1/2 minutes.
  • remove from microwave with a hot pad.
  • CUT the stalk and about 1″ of husk off with a sharp knife.
  • squeeze the pointy end and the cob will slide out of the husk.
  • this method removes the silk too.
  • ready to eat. Butter and serve. HOT!

I couldn’t get the cob to slide out as quickly as the lady in the video on my first try, but slide it did. I think the trick is to squeeze the husk right up at the tip and work your way down – with a hot pad, of course. Practice makes perfect. Delicious!

 

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Maybe Real Men Eat Quiche After All

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I’ve said before, cooking shows never shout at you. What about a cooking show that scares the bejeesus out of you? I caught part of PBS’s “New Scandinavian Cooking With Andreas Viestad.” Our host is apparently both a chef and outdoorsman; the show is apparently both cooking show and travelogue. In the first segment, Cooking host Andreas prepares his vinaigrette salad. He has a cutting table set up on a flat stone slab about the size of a large living room floor. Disturbingly, we discover the slab is actually the very top of a thousand foot high basaltic granite stone monolith, projecting up into the sky from out of the depths of a Norwegian fjord. The work table is set up about eight feet from the edge, a sheer drop. Due to some unnecessarily foolish experiments with great heights in my youth, I’m already getting the creeps.

Chef Viestad is chopping tomatoes to add to the coarsely shredded lettuce and fresh dill. He says, “this tomato is bad,” and throws it over the edge to the ocean waiting far below. He adds cheerily, “in a few seconds, it will be catsup!”

The salad is done. Viestad enlists a friend to help him eat this masterpiece. They both sit down very carefully at the cliff edge, feet dangling over a sheer drop to certain death, and enjoy a very fresh salad with vinaigrette dressing.

Later, Chef Andreas prepares a Brisling Sardine quiche on a manicured green lawn at the edge of another fjord. Maybe real men eat quiche after all.

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Cooking for Partisans and Politicians

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Lidia Bastianich

Lidia Bastianich on her cooking show

I enjoy watching cooking shows. And this is odd, because I rarely cook. Nowadays, my idea of a gourmet meal is Camembert and crackers.

I enjoy most all of the TV chefs. I didn’t quite “get” Julia Child until she’d passed on. I used to watch Rachel Ray with my late partner Bob. Mostly these days I enjoy “Lidia” – Lidia Bastianich.

It’s true I do enjoy really good salads, pasta and such (when I don’t have to prepare them myself). What I enjoy most about these famous chefs is their unpretentious, task-oriented attitude. The show isn’t about them. It’s about the food. It’s about quality ingredients. It’s about allowing the ingredients to shine at what they do best.

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