Notes From Under the Stove

mmmmmmmmmmm……bacon

Michael Taeuber — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:12:02 +0000

Check out bacolicio.us for a little extra of some salty pork goodness. Here is my blog baconized. You can stare at it all day and not gain a pound, just don’t salivate on your keyboard!

Michael Taeuber — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:18:27 +0000

Beans, Beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more the excess gas dissolves into your brains and makes you just a little bit o crazy. I think Captain Beany here, shown at the Grand Opening of The Baked Bean of Excellence, might have had a few cans too many. I know our friend across the pond love em for breakfast, I’d hate to be stuck in his office after 3pm. http://www.bakedbeanmuseumofexcellence.org.uk/

Purple Tomatoes

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:50:09 +0000

A new tomato has appeared… and it’s purple! This new, genetically modified purple tomato contains nutrients that have been proven to help prevent cancer in mice. Anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found commonly in dark berries such as blackberries, have shown to lower the risk of cancer, heart disease and other diseases. Purple tomatoes are red tomatoes that have been genetically modified with these Anthocyanins, which is what gives the purple tomato, it’s violet color.

The purple tomatoes, genetically modified with the Anthocyanins, have only been tested on mice thus far… but tests have shown great potential. The next steps include tests with humans, and then getting people to eat enough of the tomatoes to see a difference.
LINK

The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin

Michael Taeuber — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:10:13 +0000

Buy the Book!

“The day is a nice day every day.”

Bread Making Lesson

Michael Taeuber — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:04:24 +0000

Cooking and Evolution

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:30:50 +0000

“For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make ‘the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,’ says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, although definitive claims of causation are premature. In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, thereby freeing up calories for our brains. Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and allocate around 20% of their total energy to the brain, compared to approximately 13% for non-human primates and 2-8% for other vertebrates. While other theories for the brain’s cognitive spurt have not been ruled out, the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, ‘so strange compared to other animals.’”

LINK

US Beef Having Problems Overseas

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:25:54 +0000

Gordon Ramsay Beats Death

Michael Taeuber — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:37:58 +0000

The TV chef, 41, slipped as he clambered down a 280ft drop while filming Channel 4’s The F Word off Iceland.

He landed in a creek but was weighed down by his heavy boots and could not get to the surface.

Gordon said last night: “I thought I was a goner.

“They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh f***’. My boots and my waterproofs were dragging me down.

“I’m an extremely good swimmer, but I couldn’t get to the surface. I was panicking and my lungs were filling with water.

“When I got to the top after getting my boots off I was dazed and my head was totally numb.”

LINK

And he’s having trouble with his staff as well.

His most famous protege and former close friend Marcus Wareing described him as a “sad bastard” whose influence had left him feeling, “trapped and constrained”.

It was a surprising outburst given the men’s successful 25-year working relationship, and the 15 Michelin stars they have won between them.

Ramsay, 41, was even the best man at Wareing’s wedding.

Wareing’s comments follow a bitter legal battle over his position running Ramsay’s two-star restaurant Petrus at the Berkeley Hotel in West London.

He has spent nine years heading up the kitchen, but in May the hotel announced it wanted to work directly with him, rather than deal with Ramsay’s company. The move has been challenged by Ramsay’s lawyers.

Wareing now claims he would rather “kill myself” than work with his mentor again.

Use Vaccuum Sealer to Make Better Cookies

Michael Taeuber — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:42:48 +0000

This innovative chef uses a vacuum sealer to redistribute the moisture in a cookie dough similar to how they are used by chefs to make pasta dough. Read what he says and keep this technique in mind, it may come in handy.

LINK

Timeline of restaurants, chefs, & foodservice

Michael Taeuber — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:59:23 +0000

Way cool site with loads of information. I spent about ab hour already!

LINK