Tomorrow, December 5th, at midnight is the absolute final deadline for entering our giveaway of the great Canal House Cooks Every Day, Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s inspiring, user-friendly cookbook. It’s a beaut, a cookbook definitely to have and definitely to give.
Since we first got our copy of Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s Canal House Cooks Every Day, we’ve been inspired by its simple, straightforward, delicious and REAL recipes (we made their dry-brined roast turkey for Thanksgiving.) Right now, their Apple Tart recipe (below) is calling us.
(Video link here.) This morning, the great Manhattan User’s Guide (which is great WAY beyond Manhattan), posted something of a tribute to Rube Goldberg, the guy behind the term Rube Goldberg Machine: ”a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation“ according to Webster’s.
What always delighted me about Rube’s inventions was that they were always designed to solve some utterly practical problem, but did it in the most imaginative — and mind-bogglingly indirect — way, all-the-while reminding you of the very real possibilities for invention using everyday objects.
Although I’ve have seen a lot of clever Golberg-esque machinations and artworks, I’ve rarely seen a person who was as true to Rube’s brilliant craziness as Joseph Herscher, who seems to be carrying the mantle with his wondrous Page Turning Machine. All he does to set it in motion is read more…
For the past couple of days, we’ve been getting calls from friends asking for recommendations for the Thanksgiving meal: the best way to cook the turkey, what side dishes, what to drink. So for all our readers who may still be at odds with what they are going to make tomorrow, here’s our round-up of favorite Thanksgiving recipes (which, taken together, make a perfect menu). And since we view recipes as rough formulas and idea generators, we encourage your to take them in whatever direction you want. read more…
Like many people, we’re always trying to find ways to increase productivity without stressing ourselves out. We’ve discovered that along with the idea of being more productive and in control comes the pressure to accomplish things. I can have the effect of making us “look over the fence at other people’s greener grass” and be too hard on ourselves.
Recently, we’ve taken to periodically take stock of the big things we’ve accomplished over the year, or several years, i.e. the broad picture as an antidote to thinking we’re getting nothing done. Then the other day on Lifehacker, we came across the idea of making a DONE wall, where you post all the tiny steps accomplished. read more…
Inspired by designer Pamela Hovland‘s hand-drawn place settings, we’ve just ordered a 48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper ($26!) for the holidays. Pamela unrolls a long swath of paper to act as a tablecloth, then draws each persons place setting, with their name, right on it (taking care of seating arrangements in one fell swoop). At the end of the meal, she hands out pens so that guests can write on each others “plate”, like a high school year book — at Christmas, they write the imaginary gift they would give.
In the days after the party, Pamela cuts out the plates, attaches mailing labels and sends them to each guest, so they’ll have big memories of the wonderful day. read more…
Apparently a Japanese farmer dug up a “leaping” daikon and had the inspired idea to suspend it from a string and take pictures of it leaping all over the place. read more…
With Thanksgiving soon upon us, the debate about whether to brine or not-to-brine the turkey before roasting rages on. We’ve long been a fan of brining, having found it the foolproof method for insuring a moist, well-seasoned bird. Until recently, when two things made us question our belief.
Yesterday, on Serious Eats’ Food Lab we read a very long post documenting the wonderfully-obsessive J. Kenji López-Alt exploring and testing our brining works like a scientist. AND in Canal House Cooks Every Day, the swell prize in our current book giveaway, we read Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s use of the dry-brine technique — simply salting the bird 3 days ahead — pioneered by chef Judy Rogers in her great Zuni Cafe Cookbook.
We trust Christopher and Melissa’s sensibility SO much that we’re publishing the recipe below. read more…
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, we followed the New York Time’s blog Storm Aftermath: Live Updates and hit upon an amazing post called “Finding Good Neighbors in Wake of Disaster” by Marcus Yam. Because it had no hyperlink, we excerpted much of it below. The gist: neighbors are one of the best resources you can have, both for tangible help, moral support and for unexpected collaborations in problem solving. Amidst the horrifc devastation of Sandy, this has been the ongoing theme.
Then on Sunday night, CBS’ 60 minutes covered the amazing community of Belle Harbor, Queens, where over 100 houses were burnt to the ground by fires during Sandy. (Video link here.) It is a stunning 13 minutes about what the word community really means. read more…
…NASA’s GOES-13 satellite captured this visible image of the Northern Hemisphere on Sunday, October 28 at 1302 UTC—that’s 9:02 a.m, approximately ten hours before NYC’s MTA shut all transport service down throughout the tri-state area and less than a day before Tropical Storm Sandy gathered full force in the Atlantic Ocean and hit land somewhere in New Jersey.
All net revenue from sales of this edition will benefit the American Red Cross’s efforts to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy. read more…
We’ve long been fans of Canal House Cooking, the groundbreaking cookbook series created and published by Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton. We are totally smitten with their latest effort: Canal House Cooks Every Day, a bright red, 385-page tome documenting a year of cooking from Canal House, based on their popular daily lunch blog. The book offers many levels of pleasure: great REAL do-able recipes by two women who cook for themselves daily, evocative photographs and illustrations AND a no-nonsense, simplepleasure-centric philosophy of cooking. Perfect. Check out a preview here.
We’ll be giving away a copy to the lucky winner of a random drawing (see details below). read more…
Just about everyone we know is beside themselves with anxiety about this election (we find ourselves checking Nate Silver’s 538 polling blog compulsively for comfort). On the eve of the election, we offer our ‘improvised life’ survival guide: cocktails and easy-to-whip-up treats to help assauge anxiety no matter which candidate you favor.
The first order of business are alcoholic beverages. Wine-Spirits-Food writer Josh Eisen suggested a cocktail based based on the most American of spirits: bourbon and/or rye whiskies (Rye is especially fitting because, eons ago, early Ohio’ns — that BIG swing state — unable to grow wheat, grew rye instead…and of course, made whisky from it.) Josh found a simple formula for a Manhattan in Jim Meehan’s The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the Celebrated Speakeasy: read more…
Last Friday, after 5 days of living without power, ‘the improvised life’s assistant Dese’Rae L. Stage sent us this email:
I don’t think I even realized it until yesterday, when I had to jump through 10 hoops just to get ice and dinner. I was like, “god, I’m exhausted,” and it took me a second to realize why that might be. It’s amazing how adaptable we are, but there sure are limits to that.
Even having NOT been hit hard in Harlem, we feel disoriented, tired, FEEL the wound of this city, and the people who have lost so much whose reality we can’t even imagine.
Author Judy Upjohn alerted us to this recent New York Magazine cover which conveys the scope of the hurricane and also leaves out SO many people that we would discover had been slammed. read more…
, Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s inspiring, user-friendly cookbook. It’s a beaut, a cookbook definitely to have and definitely to give.
.
($26!) for the holidays. Pamela unrolls a long swath of paper to act as a tablecloth, then draws each persons place setting, with their name, right on it (taking care of seating arrangements in one fell swoop). At the end of the meal, she hands out pens so that guests can write on each others “plate”, like a high school year book — at Christmas, they write the imaginary gift they would give.
, the groundbreaking cookbook series created and published by Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton. We are totally smitten with their latest effort: 
: 
