The year’s almost up, and I have more to tell you.
*Butter is good. Brown butter is better. Burnt butter is bad. Burnt caramel (ice cream) is good. Salted caramel is good. Salted butter is bad, except when it’s good. Salted pasta water is good. Salt water taffy has never been good, and will therefore always be bad.
*You don’t need an avocado peeler, strawberry huller, corn cob scraper, corn silk remover, peach defuzzer, pineapple slicer, or herb mill. You do, however, need a fondue fork, if you’ve got dried wax in your menorah.
*The only reason not to make chicken stock after you’ve eaten a roast chicken is because you’re lazy, you’ll have to stay up late, and you’ll spill it when transferring it to smaller containers. Do it anyway, for your future self, who is a better person than you will ever be.
*An egg is a miracle. If you’re not a vegan, or allergic, or a chicken, learn to cook a proper egg.
*Call me if you run out of sundried tomatoes. In a moment of weakness, I bought a jar at Costco that’s bigger than Minnesota.
*For a cool $7, you can buy a rubber mallet at the hardware store. Use it to tap your knife into hard squash (butternut, kabocha, carnival). This tip will save your knife, and possibly your digits. (Thanks, Elise.)
*If ricotta and honey had a baby, I would adopt it.
*Life is too short for bad tea, bad cheese, and bad bagels. Bad cake is okay, though.
*In a pinch, you can save a boring bowl of soup by blanketing it with Gruyère and blasting it with a kitchen torch. When you’re done, use the torch to make crème brûlée, preferably for me.
*Stale panko smells like a warehouse in a sketchy part of town. Throw it out.
*Cookies on a plate are dull. Cookies in a jar are better. Cookies in a bucket are adorable. You should not tie cookies up with ribbon, however, because if you’re that dexterous, you should apply your considerable talents to something more meaningful, like knitting a sweater for the poor, or unknotting the tangled necklaces in my jewelry box.
Happy New Year to you and those in your life. Let's hang out even more in 2012.
