People have a lot of anxiety about being able to cook octopus until it's sufficiently tender, but this anxiety is misplaced. ...
In New York City, the perfectly ripe supermarket avocado is a veritable myth, complete with an unlikely origin story (California droughts), many a villain with which to contend (Australian real estate moguls, the threat of tariffs), and a personalized iPhone emoji.
But unlike any sort of storybook character or chimerical creature, the perfectly ripe avocado can actually be conjured at home, with enough foresight.
There's nothing worse than bland turkey on Thanksgiving. The antidote to blandness? Salt, of course.
It seems obvious, but whether you go the route of fancy compound butters and herbs and citrus and spices—which are all lovely ways to make your turkey, well, yours—the only molecules small enough to actually penetrate the meat of the bird is salt. As The Food Lab's J. Kenji López-Alt says, "Most ... flavorful molecules are organic compounds that are relatively large in size—on a molecular scale, that is—while salt molecules are quite small. So, while salt can easily pass across the semipermeable membranes that make up the cells in animal tissue, larger molecules cannot."
My motto when shopping for home goods is, “If it doesn’t go in the dishwasher (or washing machine), it doesn’t go in my house!” Washing dishes is one of my least favorite chores, so I do my absolute best to keep hand wash-only items out of my cabinets.
But despite my efforts, there are still a number of kitchen essentials I end up hand-washing, typically because I didn’t read the fine print when I bought them. (Seriously, who knew box graters shouldn’t go in the dishwasher?)
But what if none of this is true, either? One day earlier this summer I wanted crispy chickpeas and I didn’t want to crank up the oven for 35 to 40 minutes to make it happen. Instead, I heated a few tablespoons of oil (a tablespoon more, if that, than I find roasting them requires) in a small frying pan and it took all of 10 minutes to get them perfect — crispy with shattery edges, but still soft inside. I drained them briefly on a paper towel, coated them with salt, pepper, and lemon zest, and then I added a little more oil to the pan and fried some thinly sliced zucchini until it were browned in spots. On a plate, I stirred together some plain yogurt, finely grated garlic, lemon juice, and salt. I layered the zucchini on top, and half the chickpeas on top of that. I finished the whole thing with red pepper flakes, fresh herbs, and more lemon juice. And I don’t know that I have made a more perfect plate of food since.*
Mason jars were invented in the 1850s to preserve food, by a man named John L.—you guessed it—Mason. Some 150 years later, they have the world right where they want it.
Thank sites like Pinterest and Etsy for the proliferation of these glass containers, and their accompanying fitted lids, as planters, storage containers, and cocktail glasses. The world is powerless against the allure of tiny, self-contained kits and wide-rimmed vessels. (Just ask our recent beer pong championship.)
