My mother is a baker. I am a cook. She realized this a few weeks after I botched my very first batch of cookies and set the oven on fire. It took me a bit more soul-searching and the acquisition of a paring knife. The theory goes that cooks and bakers possess fundamentally different approaches to the preparation of food....
Culture
The art and science of cooking
When junior Aaron Sandford cooks dinner, he tries to think like a scientist. “I like to understand the science of why brining a chicken in salt water before you cook it makes it more tender,” he said. “I like knowing what makes a dish good and then combining those concepts with other dishes.” Sandford is an artist whose tools are...
Henry Payne: celebrating caricature
Political cartoonist Henry Payne stooped in front of the whiteboard and, with a few quick strokes of his marker, brought a cartoon figure to life. “As good looking as he is, he’s got big ears,” he said, as elephant-like ears appeared on the board. Dark, thick eyebrows soon followed with large lips, a prominent nose, and a mole. “And he...
Still got the magic
Maybe it was when I began smelling manure instead of candied apples. Or when the filth of the tilt-a-whirl distracted me from the fun of both tilting and whirling. Or when I realized that a pretzel had 600 calories. (Really? A pretzel?) Gradually, the fair has lost the allure it had when I was a grade schooler. Now, when I...
