Tag Archives: cooking

June 29, 2012 · 9:03 am

Sharpening Your Knives

For our Foodie Friday Fun, let’s talk about knives.  It’s impossible (almost) to cook without one, and I find it nearly so with a dull one.  Dull knives are more likely to slip off whatever it is you’re cutting and onto (into?) your finger, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep their knives sharp as can be.

As a public service of sorts, here’s how to sharpen a knife:

How To Sharpen A Knife

Obviously, it’s not the same as a bit of honing using a steel.  That’s really the equivalent of an after work cocktail as opposed to two weeks off.  Which is exactly the point.

Each of us need to sharpen ourselves from time to time.  I don’t know about you, but “quitting time” is a foreign concept in an “always on” world, and it’s pretty hard to do more than find the time to “steel” ourselves.  Like a dull knife, however, we often end up doing more harm than good when we don’t take the time to stay sharp.  There’s less pressure involved when the blade is sharp – we operate with a lighter touch.  That’s true in both the kitchen and in the office.

What better advice can one give on a Friday?

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June 15, 2012 · 8:43 am

Anchovies

Let’s discuss the little fish that’s often the subject of big disagreements for our Foodie Friday Fun. Of course I mean the anchovy.

Northern anchovies are important prey for mari...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They’ve been used in cooking for centuries despite the fact that many people wrinkle their noses are the very idea of the bony things. “Caesar salad but no anchovies” is a familiar refrain to servers everywhere.  Yet every culture employs them as a part of their native cuisine so they must be doing something right!

I’m bringing them up today because there’s a business thought I have as I think about them and it’s tied to a cooking secret:  you’ve probably eaten more anchovies than you realize.  They aren’t always visible as they might be atop a pizza or on a salad.  They’re like duck fat – an ingredient in many dishes that makes everything else more delicious.  Many pasta sauces – puttanesca, Norma, and others – as well as Worcestershire sauce contain anchovies.  They’re not really noticeable as a salty fish taste as we expect – they’re a subtle note we’d notice is missing if they weren’t used.

The business point is this:  in every business there are anchovies – quiet, semi-hidden elements that mustn’t be left out or the overall effort suffers.  The problem is that we often ignore them or choose to omit them as we become conscious of their existence.  They might be best practices or they might even be people.  You might not like tight financial controls, for example, but you’ll notice when they’re missing.

Personally, I’m a fan of anchovies of all sorts.  They help make me better both in and out of the kitchen.  How about you?

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May 25, 2012 · 9:54 am

Wooden Spoons And Your Business

For our Foodie Friday Fun today I want to share an article about wooden spoons from Fine Cooking magazine.

English: wooden spoon collection in a stonewar...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Really edgy, I know, but since we discussed a simple kitchen implement that can kill you yesterday I thought today we’d lighten up.  The article reviews why a lot of chefs prefer wooden spoons in their kitchens and it got me thinking about business at the same time.

These are the main reasons chefs like them:

  • It’s strong – it can stir thick things without breaking
  • It’s soft – it’s not going to scratch the finish of your cookware;
  • It’s insulated
  • It has a high heat tolerance
  • It’s wood –  it looks nice, and also that it feels nice in the hand

I’d add it’s a natural material although obviously it’s pretty old – probably among the first materials used to make cooking tools.  Which is the business point.

There’s a tendency to throw away older tools and technologies just because they’re old (let’s include tossing some older people in that thinking too).  Often overlooked is that these older solutions might have some significant advantages over newer inventions.  Plastic spoons break or melt even though they’re easier to clean and might release chemicals into your food.  Metal spoons can scratch your pans and need a lot of insulation – leave one in a pot sometime and then pick it up – ouch.

Many businesses get caught up in the rush to the latest shiny object – social media, mobile apps – without thinking about their business goals or the ability of the new thing to do the job without causing other problems.  They toss away the perfectly good wooden spoons they’ve been using only to find that their cooking – branding, marketing – suffers.

We’ve got a lot of wooden spoons along here in the kitchen along with metal, plastic, and silicone.  We also have a dozen different types of knife and various sizes and shapes of pots and pans.  Some are pretty old and some we’ve bought in the last year.  We try to use the one that’s best suited for the task.  That’s how I approach business too – figure out the business objective and work with the tools best suited to accomplish that goal.

Make sense?

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