Or cold meat. Stick it in the freezer, it's easier to slice.
Also, ogged, when you recommend a "quater bottle" of soy sauce, maybe you'd like to share the size of the bottle? I mean, I know your bottle is huge and all, but some of us might have different sizes.
Ben, unless you have the World's Largest Bottle (and I know you might), just use a quarter of whatever you have; it doesn't much matter.
Yes Tim, Unf is the funny one, which I knew, and which made it seem like a good idea to start a blog with him. This plan hasn't worked in every particular, however.
I was actually wondering sort of the reverse, ac: does anyone with access to the internet bother to buy cookbooks anymore? I know that anything I want to make, I can find dozens of versions of online. So it would never occur to me to buy the cow when the milk is free.
I guess if I wanted, say, Wolfgang Puck's recipes, I'd go to the bookstore. But I can't imagine any other circumstance.
I guess if I wanted, say, Wolfgang Puck's recipes, I'd go to the bookstore. But I can't imagine any other circumstance.
I'd say most cookbooks are differentiated in this way. I don't want just any carrot cake recipe, I want the silver palate version. When I make an Italian meat sauce I want Lynne Rossetto Kasper's amazing Bolognese version.
For the basics, I often check out Joy of Cooking. I guess I'm a traditionalist and I like cooking from old food splattered books.
For me, the internet is useful if I have a lot of something - say fresh picked raspberries - and I'm just looking for tons of different ways to use them.
But the thing about those specialty cookbooks is, they usually call for ingredients that you either (a) can't get or (b) can't get the "special chef's version" of. At least, that's been my experience. And I'm sorry, I'm sure it tastes better, but I'm not going to make my own goddamn pasta.
While I have stolen many a recipie from Amazon's "search inside the book" feature, there are elements of cooking, presentation, and food-knowledge in general that you can't get just from recipies. I draw a bit of a distinction between recipie books and what I call cook manuals, and tend to buy more of the latter. I'll also admit there's something kitschy about spiral-bound recipie books which I like (though I've only get the one). I'd be interested in your-favourite-cookbook blogging.
Of course not, as there are zero, not one, occurences of the string "i." in the word "recipe". As for favorite cookbooks, hrm, I guess the one I use most frequently is Joy of Cooking, but I don't actually have that many. It's certainly true that you can get a lot of food-related knowledge from a cookbook that you can't necessarily get just from recipes on the internet, but good food blogs will transmit a lot of that info too. The chief good that a book provides is that it's a more congenial format; not only can you move it around in your kitchen where you wouldn't really want to bring eXXXpen$ive electronics but it's easier to flip through idly, generally has a good index and is organized thematically. It's true that you can browse better-organized blogs by category, but it's really not the same.
The JoC is good for the reasons Wolfson gives. There are also cookpooks that just have better recipes -- not just a recipe for whatever you want, but the best recipe. Anyone who ever bakes cakes needs Berenbaum's The Cake Bible. The recipes are insanely detailed, leaving you absolutely no room to screw up, and they produce the best cakes I've ever tasted. (You do have to read past the directions for making elaborately decorated stunt cakes, unless you plan to make a new full-time hobby out of baking.)
Oh yeah, that's a great book. I copied recipes for an insane flourless chocolate cake and creme anglais from there for Valentine's day. (This cake had three ingredients: chocolate, butter, and eggs. So good.)
Of course not, as there are zero, not one, occurences of the string "i."
I do not know what this means. This is a grammar-point which confuses me, actually. In some cases it does seem odd to put a period inside the quotation marks, but that's the rule I know.
I received the Gourmet (as in the magazine) cookbook as a gift for Christmas--everything I've tried out of there has been fantastic.
I like Tom Colichio's (sp?) Think Like a Chef immensely--it's short, but it provides some "philosophy of cooking" discussion that I think has been very helpful to my ongoing growth as a cook, in terms of improvisation, etc.
Jaque Pepin's Complete Technique has been immensely helpful a number of times--it's nice to be able to see a step-by-steph photographic illustration of how certain things are accomplished.
And for new ideas and a confidence that a new recipe is going to work exactly right, the first time, I turn to my subscription to Cook's Illustrated. Sure, the articles themselves get old, but when they get done with you, you really understand what to do.
Last, I'll confess to a completely unjustifiable desire for a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. It's food porn.
I use that recipe for her buche de Noel at Christmas -- if you want to show off, it's much easier than you'd think. The cake is a snap, and all the decorative stuff (ganache icing, pistacio marzipan for the ivy leaves, meringue mushrooms) is easy and can be made at your lesiure and stockpiled.
Looks pretty damn impressive when you assemble it, though.
Wolfson is trying to invoke a convention by which little bits of language such as letters and words, as opposed to whole phrases and quasi-sentences, get quoted British-style as opposed to American-style. That convention (as employed by professional philosophers) extends to this: Those little bits get quoted with single quotes. So, Wolfson's comment would have appeared in most major philosophy journals like this:
The cookbook which been most useful to me is Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food. It goes over a lot of the basics, and (great for nerds like me) delves a bit into the science of it all. It's a bit different as a cookbook; it spends a lot of time just talking about cooking and a much smaller amount of space is left for actual recipes. Also, it's not organized by food-type but by cooking method. I would say the focus isn't on creating great, spectacular meals but on understanding cooking.
Wolfson is trying to invoke a convention by which little bits of language such as letters and words, as opposed to whole phrases and quasi-sentences, get quoted British-style as opposed to American-style.
Actually, I prefer to quote everything that way, so I'm not actually invoking that convention (and tend to use, American-style, double-quotation marks for quoting, reserving single marks for quotations inside quotations). If I were going to quote the sentence of yours I've italicized above inline, it would look like this:
Weiner says "Wolfson is trying to invoke a convention by which little bits of language such as letters and words, as opposed to whole phrases and quasi-sentences, get quoted British-style as opposed to American-style.".
I'm quoting your whole sentence, so your final period is included within the marks, and as that's also the end of my sentence, there's another period outside the marks.
Hmmm. After an attributive tag, I'd put a comma. But that's just I. (I also use nominative-case pronouns as predicate nominatives, even if it sounds strange.)
Yum, chorizo and eggs! Thanks for the tips, Ogged.
"(You do have to read past the directions for making elaborately decorated stunt cakes, unless you plan to make a new full-time hobby out of baking.)"
Agreed. Though I still like to see the pictures. Pornography for women is different, or something like that. But she really needs to do a new edition: some of those showpiece cakes are too dated (but not dated enough to pass for retro chic). They scream 80s in the worst way.
And, um, not to lower the tone here, but as a woman, although I like occasionally looking at pictures of ambitiously decorated cakes --- that's not porn for women. I've seen porn. It did not involve marzipan. (Well, other than some of the odder holiday-themed videos.)
I know it's not really porn for women, honest. It was an ill-conceived and badly executed joke: a play on that (not to lower the tone) seminal article on mass market Harlequin-style romance, which was subtitled "pornography for women is different." Uh, anyway. Yeah, the Cake Bible is hot.
I quote from the Jargon File, chapter 5, "Hacker Writing Style":
Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase, and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks". This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck.
Consider, for example, a sentence in a vi tutorial that looks like this:
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".
Standard usage would make this
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."
but that would be very bad — because the reader would be prone to type the string d-d-dot, and it happens that in vi(1), dot repeats the last command accepted. The net result would be to delete two lines!
Somebody looking for me? Sorry for my absence, but I've been busy injuring myself while trying to fix up the house I just bought.
Kudos on the chorizo suggestion, ogged. I go on shopping excursions to France every couple of months, mostly for the cheap (a buck a liter!) and wonderful wine, but also because I can get real Spanish chorizo for next to nothing.
That's the spirit! One sip won't hurt.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-11-05 9:56 PM
I feel better already.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-11-05 10:01 PM
Coincidently, I just got my Japanese cookbook in today's mail, and it has a neat shabu-shabu recipie.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-11-05 10:33 PM
Shoop shoop shabu shoop shabu shabu shabu....
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-11-05 10:43 PM
So it turns out Unf is the funny, interesting one. Who knew?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:02 AM
Shabu-by-bu-by-buuuuuu!
Of course, to get those very thin slices, you need your handy-dandy Ginsu Knives.
Posted by Camera Obscura | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:04 AM
Or Malcom Gladwell.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:09 AM
Or cold meat. Stick it in the freezer, it's easier to slice.
Also, ogged, when you recommend a "quater bottle" of soy sauce, maybe you'd like to share the size of the bottle? I mean, I know your bottle is huge and all, but some of us might have different sizes.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:40 AM
Ben, unless you have the World's Largest Bottle (and I know you might), just use a quarter of whatever you have; it doesn't much matter.
Yes Tim, Unf is the funny one, which I knew, and which made it seem like a good idea to start a blog with him. This plan hasn't worked in every particular, however.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:56 AM
Maybe being exceptionally funny provokes bouts of deep melancholy and isolation.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:58 AM
Don't I know it, Joe.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:08 AM
Does anyone actually follow blog recipes? Or is the point an insight into what people eat, and therefore what they're like?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:08 AM
I've followed them. These are excellent.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:08 AM
I was actually wondering sort of the reverse, ac: does anyone with access to the internet bother to buy cookbooks anymore? I know that anything I want to make, I can find dozens of versions of online. So it would never occur to me to buy the cow when the milk is free.
I guess if I wanted, say, Wolfgang Puck's recipes, I'd go to the bookstore. But I can't imagine any other circumstance.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:14 AM
Maybe I ask now because this is a recipe I would never follow, being, like someone else on here (profgrrrl?) a pescavegetarian.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:28 AM
I guess if I wanted, say, Wolfgang Puck's recipes, I'd go to the bookstore. But I can't imagine any other circumstance.
I'd say most cookbooks are differentiated in this way. I don't want just any carrot cake recipe, I want the silver palate version. When I make an Italian meat sauce I want Lynne Rossetto Kasper's amazing Bolognese version.
For the basics, I often check out Joy of Cooking. I guess I'm a traditionalist and I like cooking from old food splattered books.
For me, the internet is useful if I have a lot of something - say fresh picked raspberries - and I'm just looking for tons of different ways to use them.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:48 AM
But the thing about those specialty cookbooks is, they usually call for ingredients that you either (a) can't get or (b) can't get the "special chef's version" of. At least, that's been my experience. And I'm sorry, I'm sure it tastes better, but I'm not going to make my own goddamn pasta.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 9:00 AM
I just find cookbooks easier to use than food blogs.
Plus, if I'm going to make pasta sauce, I want to make it with the smiling visage of Marcella Hazan gazing down on me.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 9:07 AM
that doesn't sound like good pasta sauce, wolfson
Posted by textualist | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 9:35 AM
You'll eat my pasta sauce and like it, tex.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 9:39 AM
Is "eating the pasta sauce" going to become some new kind of prison slang? Salad tossing seems passe.
Posted by tex | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 9:46 AM
While I have stolen many a recipie from Amazon's "search inside the book" feature, there are elements of cooking, presentation, and food-knowledge in general that you can't get just from recipies. I draw a bit of a distinction between recipie books and what I call cook manuals, and tend to buy more of the latter. I'll also admit there's something kitschy about spiral-bound recipie books which I like (though I've only get the one). I'd be interested in your-favourite-cookbook blogging.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 10:28 AM
I've followed them before, with excellent results, but who would expect less from Belle?
I've been thinking about buying some chorizo. Anyone here have recommendations as to what I can make with it besides paella?
Posted by Clancy | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 10:41 AM
Clancy, when I make lentils, I use chorizo. Also yummy in scrambled eggs/omelets.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 10:44 AM
Michael, it's "recipe", one "i".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 10:53 AM
Shouldn't that period have been inside your end-quotation mark?
And you're supposed to list your favourite cookbook, damnit.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:08 AM
Of course not, as there are zero, not one, occurences of the string "i." in the word "recipe". As for favorite cookbooks, hrm, I guess the one I use most frequently is Joy of Cooking, but I don't actually have that many. It's certainly true that you can get a lot of food-related knowledge from a cookbook that you can't necessarily get just from recipes on the internet, but good food blogs will transmit a lot of that info too. The chief good that a book provides is that it's a more congenial format; not only can you move it around in your kitchen where you wouldn't really want to bring eXXXpen$ive electronics but it's easier to flip through idly, generally has a good index and is organized thematically. It's true that you can browse better-organized blogs by category, but it's really not the same.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:19 AM
The JoC is good for the reasons Wolfson gives. There are also cookpooks that just have better recipes -- not just a recipe for whatever you want, but the best recipe. Anyone who ever bakes cakes needs Berenbaum's The Cake Bible. The recipes are insanely detailed, leaving you absolutely no room to screw up, and they produce the best cakes I've ever tasted. (You do have to read past the directions for making elaborately decorated stunt cakes, unless you plan to make a new full-time hobby out of baking.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:26 AM
Oh yeah, that's a great book. I copied recipes for an insane flourless chocolate cake and creme anglais from there for Valentine's day. (This cake had three ingredients: chocolate, butter, and eggs. So good.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:45 AM
Of course not, as there are zero, not one, occurences of the string "i."
I do not know what this means. This is a grammar-point which confuses me, actually. In some cases it does seem odd to put a period inside the quotation marks, but that's the rule I know.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:53 AM
JoC is good.
I received the Gourmet (as in the magazine) cookbook as a gift for Christmas--everything I've tried out of there has been fantastic.
I like Tom Colichio's (sp?) Think Like a Chef immensely--it's short, but it provides some "philosophy of cooking" discussion that I think has been very helpful to my ongoing growth as a cook, in terms of improvisation, etc.
Jaque Pepin's Complete Technique has been immensely helpful a number of times--it's nice to be able to see a step-by-steph photographic illustration of how certain things are accomplished.
And for new ideas and a confidence that a new recipe is going to work exactly right, the first time, I turn to my subscription to Cook's Illustrated. Sure, the articles themselves get old, but when they get done with you, you really understand what to do.
Last, I'll confess to a completely unjustifiable desire for a copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. It's food porn.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:53 AM
damn, right after I post I think I have it figured out. You're saying that since it's not an actual quotation, the period goes outside the "" marks?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:56 AM
I use that recipe for her buche de Noel at Christmas -- if you want to show off, it's much easier than you'd think. The cake is a snap, and all the decorative stuff (ganache icing, pistacio marzipan for the ivy leaves, meringue mushrooms) is easy and can be made at your lesiure and stockpiled.
Looks pretty damn impressive when you assemble it, though.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 11:56 AM
Wolfson is trying to invoke a convention by which little bits of language such as letters and words, as opposed to whole phrases and quasi-sentences, get quoted British-style as opposed to American-style. That convention (as employed by professional philosophers) extends to this: Those little bits get quoted with single quotes. So, Wolfson's comment would have appeared in most major philosophy journals like this:
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:08 PM
Thanks Chooper, those look good. Thanks for the food porn, too. Here's some New Orleans food porn.
The cookbook which been most useful to me is Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food. It goes over a lot of the basics, and (great for nerds like me) delves a bit into the science of it all. It's a bit different as a cookbook; it spends a lot of time just talking about cooking and a much smaller amount of space is left for actual recipes. Also, it's not organized by food-type but by cooking method. I would say the focus isn't on creating great, spectacular meals but on understanding cooking.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:11 PM
Matt, are you saying I was right in 26?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:14 PM
I've always favoured the British style over the American.
Cake for me too, please.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:22 PM
p.s. Except for the single quotes, which mock God.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:25 PM
Wolfson is trying to invoke a convention by which little bits of language such as letters and words, as opposed to whole phrases and quasi-sentences, get quoted British-style as opposed to American-style.
Actually, I prefer to quote everything that way, so I'm not actually invoking that convention (and tend to use, American-style, double-quotation marks for quoting, reserving single marks for quotations inside quotations). If I were going to quote the sentence of yours I've italicized above inline, it would look like this:
I'm quoting your whole sentence, so your final period is included within the marks, and as that's also the end of my sentence, there's another period outside the marks.Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:28 PM
BW, would you not put a comma after "says"?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:40 PM
Hmmm. After an attributive tag, I'd put a comma. But that's just I. (I also use nominative-case pronouns as predicate nominatives, even if it sounds strange.)
Yum, chorizo and eggs! Thanks for the tips, Ogged.
Posted by Clancy | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:43 PM
JD, depends on the time of month.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:46 PM
I can't compete with that.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:51 PM
Period followed by quotation marks followed by period is fugly. That's why it's not accepted usage anywhere.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:51 PM
It's accepted usage among me.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:53 PM
Though it's true that the inner period is only necessary if it's important to convey that the quoted sentence ended at that point.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:53 PM
It's accepted usage among me.
The surprise here is not wolfson's solipsism, but the suggestion that there is no less than a trinity of him.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:55 PM
The trinity is individual. I'm—we're—three separate entities.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 12:58 PM
I suppose it's accepted among you that you're hung like a horse, too.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:01 PM
I'm—we're—
Sobchak, your cue?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:03 PM
What?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:06 PM
It seemed like a good time for a "the royal 'we'" quote from Big Lebowski.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:11 PM
Matt's link reminds me; where's peter snees these days? I haven't seen him around these parts.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:17 PM
Run off with the lovely & talented Lucy Mangan, last I heard.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:19 PM
She'll soon be a lying, hurtful bitch, if history is any indication.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:23 PM
Ben, are you wolfson at gmail?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:26 PM
Yes.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 1:29 PM
Sobchak, your cue?
Dude, are you fuckin this up?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 2:54 PM
"(You do have to read past the directions for making elaborately decorated stunt cakes, unless you plan to make a new full-time hobby out of baking.)"
Agreed. Though I still like to see the pictures. Pornography for women is different, or something like that. But she really needs to do a new edition: some of those showpiece cakes are too dated (but not dated enough to pass for retro chic). They scream 80s in the worst way.
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 6:03 PM
Er, mcm, I'm a guy, and I like the food porn at the beginning of that book, and in many other books, plenty.
I also just like reading menus, though, so hey.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 6:18 PM
And, um, not to lower the tone here, but as a woman, although I like occasionally looking at pictures of ambitiously decorated cakes --- that's not porn for women. I've seen porn. It did not involve marzipan. (Well, other than some of the odder holiday-themed videos.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:11 PM
Actually, I could tell a semi-pornographic story involving a Norwegian boy and marzipan...
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:35 PM
I could tell a totally pornongraphic one about a middle-aged southern man and fatback.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:51 PM
"Pornongraphic" - so hot it needs an extra n.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 7:53 PM
Ben, I respect that in man.
I know it's not really porn for women, honest. It was an ill-conceived and badly executed joke: a play on that (not to lower the tone) seminal article on mass market Harlequin-style romance, which was subtitled "pornography for women is different." Uh, anyway. Yeah, the Cake Bible is hot.
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 04-12-05 8:48 PM
Re 39: I now finally understand what you're getting at here; needless to say, I'm right and you're wrong.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-13-05 8:19 AM
I quote from the Jargon File, chapter 5, "Hacker Writing Style":
Consider, for example, a sentence in a vi tutorial that looks like this:
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".
Standard usage would make this
Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."
but that would be very bad — because the reader would be prone to type the string d-d-dot, and it happens that in vi(1), dot repeats the last command accepted. The net result would be to delete two lines!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-13-05 8:30 AM
link to the Jargon File.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-13-05 8:31 AM
Somebody looking for me? Sorry for my absence, but I've been busy injuring myself while trying to fix up the house I just bought.
Kudos on the chorizo suggestion, ogged. I go on shopping excursions to France every couple of months, mostly for the cheap (a buck a liter!) and wonderful wine, but also because I can get real Spanish chorizo for next to nothing.
Hmm, excuse me while I go book the Eurotunnel...
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 04-13-05 8:38 AM
That makes perfect sense, if you're a hacker.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-13-05 8:41 AM