Your stove top is not a campfire, you can’t just hold food over the fire until it’s done. You need pots and pans. Like with all kitchenware there are seemingly limitless variations and specializations when it comes to pots and pans, but I’m a generalist and if you don’t want to spend a lot of… Continue reading Hardware: Pots and Pans

Real talk: You can’t just throw food in your oven, you filthy animal. You need to put it in something, obviously. So to that end we’re going to talk about oven safe vessels. Like with knives, you’re only going to need a few basic pieces for the vast majority of applications. First and foremost is… Continue reading Hardware: Oven Vessels

   Is a copper pot the same as a stainless steel pot? Would I ask you that question if the answer was yes? The composition of your cookware will have a significant effect on your cooking process and unfortunately there is no best choice so it will be important to understand the differences. I’m about… Continue reading A Note on Materials

Cooking is at it’s essence a violent act. You can cook without heat. You can cook without pans. You can’t cook without knives. I mean, you can make like bread or tortillas or whatever, but you can’t cook a meal. Salad mix and dressing doesn’t count, somebody had to cut that lettuce. Like half of… Continue reading Hardware: Knives

There are some kitchen staples so important that I nearly forgot to mention them, I’m talking crystals bro. Crystals are integral. SALT: Oh man. There is so much to say about salt, it’s like a really big deal. Nobody doesn’t use salt. Nearly every human settlement on earth exists because there was salt there. Wars… Continue reading Crystals are Integral

Today we’re talking about roots and bark, which just happen to be the last two spices on your list of basic seasonings. CINNAMON: If you’ve never encountered cinnamon you should call child services and have them dropkick your parents for negligence because it’s likely you’ve never eaten a dessert of any kind and that’s just not right. I don’t need… Continue reading Spices Part 3: Roots and Bark

Our next group of spices are the berries and flowers; from our six essential spices we have one of each (notice a trend yet?), black peppercorns and cloves. BLACK PEPPERCORNS: Black pepper is the dried fruit (technically a drupe and not a berry but whatever) of a vine native to South and Southeast Asia. The most prolific pepper… Continue reading Spices Part 2: Berries and Flowers

  As I said before, any seasoning that isn’t an herb is a spice, which means we have a lot of plant parts to work with. Today we’re talking about seeds and pods, specifically seeds and pods from that list of elementary seasonings I gave you earlier.   NUTMEG: Nutmeg is the seed of a tree that is… Continue reading Spices Part 1: Seeds and Pods

I’m going to give you some herbal background now. If you remember from last time, herbs are leaves, all other plant parts used for seasoning are spices. These five herbs are widely used in western cuisine. You can find them anywhere. BAY LEAVES: Also known as Bay Laurel, these aromatic evergreen leaves probably originated somewhere in the… Continue reading Herbs