A Carbon-Steel Pan, Six Months In
I bought a plain carbon-steel pan to replace the third non-stick pan I had worn out in as many years. The first week I nearly gave up on it. The second week I started to understand it. Six months in,…
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Markets, kitchens and the tools we keep coming back to.
Ten Minutes to a Better Salad
Most disappointing salads fail for the same few reasons: wet leaves, a dressing added too early, and nothing crunchy. All of them take minutes to fix.Dry the leaves properly. Water on the leaves dilutes the dressing and makes everything limp.Salt…
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The Stovetop Espresso Maker, Revisited
Before espresso machines arrived on every kitchen counter, there was the eight-sided aluminium pot on the hob. Water in the bottom, coffee in the funnel, and a gurgle a few minutes later. I went back to one for a month…
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A Weeknight Lentil Soup
This is the soup I make when the fridge is nearly empty and nobody wants to go shopping. It needs a bag of red lentils, an onion, a few spices and forty minutes, most of which you spend doing something…
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Sourdough Without the Stress
Sourdough has a reputation for being demanding: feeding schedules, folding every half hour, a vocabulary of its own. I tested the simplest method I could find to see how much of that is really necessary.The method is this. Mix flour,…
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Why We Should All Make Stock
A pot of stock is the cheapest way to make everything else you cook taste better. It is also the easiest way to waste less.Keep a bag in the freezer for onion ends, carrot peelings, celery tops, herb stalks and…
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Breakfast at The Long Table
This café does not exist; it is the demo’s idea of a perfect one. It has a single table that seats twenty, a menu written on a board, and a rule that you sit wherever there is space.The menu changes…
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A Month With a 75% Mechanical Keyboard
A 75% keyboard keeps the function row and the arrow keys but drops the number pad and squeezes everything else…
