Cook Food: A Manualfesto for Easy, Healthy, Local Eating - Softcover

Jervis, Lisa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604860731 ISBN 13: 9781604860733

Verlag: PM Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

More than just a rousing food manifesto and a nifty set of tools, Cook Food makes preparing tasty, wholesome meals simple and accessible for those hungry for both change and scrumptious fare. If you’re used to getting your meals from a package—or the delivery guy—or if you think you don’t know how to cook, this is the book for you.

If you want to eat healthier but aren’t sure where to start, or if you’ve been reading about food politics but don’t know how to bring sustainable eating practices into your everyday life, Cook Food will give you the scoop on how, while keeping your taste buds satisfied. With a conversational, do-it-yourself vibe, a practical approach to everyday cooking on a budget, and a whole bunch of animal-free recipes, Cook Food will have you cooking up a storm, tasting the difference, thinking globally, and eating locally.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lisa Jervis is the founding editor and publisher of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, the founding board president of Women in Media and News, and a member of the advisory board for outLoud Radio. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and books, including Ms, the San Francisco Chronicle, Utne, Mother Jones, Body Outlaws (Seal Press), and The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Penguin). She is the coeditor of Young Wives’ Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership (Seal Press) and Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. She’s currently working on a book about the intellectual legacy of gender essentialism and its effect on contemporary feminism.

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Cook Food

A Manualfesto for Easy, Healthy, Local Eating

By Lisa Jervis

PM Press

Copyright © 2009 Lisa Jervis
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60486-073-3

Contents

what's this book all about?, 
what you need in your cabinets, 
and on your pot rack, 
what you need in your pantry,, 
refrigerator, and spice rack, 
tips and techniques, 
recipes, 
nonrecipe recipes, 
further resources, 

CHAPTER 1

what you need in your cabinets and on your pot rack

I LOVE KITCHEN EQUIPMENT TO AN EMBARRASSING degree, whether we're talkin' pots and pans, gadgets, or countertop appliances. But I'm also all about thriftiness, and I realize that not everyone can or wants to spend hir hard-earned paycheck on 10-piece cookware sets or graters meant for one ingredient only. So I'm putting them into categories by necessity — and keep in mind that thrift shops can be kitchenware treasure troves. There are only two areas where quality is really important. The first is with pots and pans. Look for heavy bottoms, no warping (if you're buying used), no nonstick surface (it's been discovered that nonstick surfaces can off-gas toxic fumes into your food at high temperatures), and materials other than plain aluminum, which can too-easily leach harmful metal into your food (however, aluminum that has gone through a process called anodization is stable and great to cook with, so anodized aluminum cookware gets a thumbs-up from me). The second is knives. Skip the thrift store, ask for advice at the kitchenware store, and test the feel of different knives in your hand. For everything else, what you can find at Goodwill or on sale at whatever housewares store suits you is going to be just fine. If any of these items are unfamiliar or confusing to you, a Google image search should clarify things better than any description I could give. Also, you should know that this is a quirky list that suits how I cook. I use my microplane zester weekly but haven't touched my box grater in more than a year, so I consider the latter much less important. You'll doubtless need to make your own adjustments.

You can't really cook anything without these things:

[] One good chef's knife (this can mean spending at least $60, but if you can swing it, you'll be glad you did)

[] At least two good cutting boards (plastic, wood, or bamboo, your choice); you need two because no matter how good you are at scrubbing, the smell of garlic and onions will never quite come out — and you want to have one board that never touches them, so when you make fruit salad, you can make sure it has no garlic flavor

[] A saucepan, a stockpot, or a sauté pan

[] A baking sheet or low-sided roasting pan (see page 76 for more about this)

[] A wooden spoon

[] A heat-proof spatula

[] A big mixing bowl

[] A set of measuring cups and spoons

[] A can opener

[] A kitchen timer if your oven doesn't have one (though if you have a cell phone, you're probably carrying a timer in your pocket, so you can use that)

[] A colander

Either you'll find it pretty frustrating, you'll be limited in what you can cook, or your food won't turn out as well if you don't also have:

[] A saucepan, a stockpot, and a sauté pan

[] A skillet or a griddle pan

[] A paring knife or other knife smaller than a chef's knife

[] A couple more wooden spoons

[] At least one rubber spatula

[] A ladle

[] A microplane for zesting citrus

[] A high-sided baking pan (such as a 9×9×4 pan used for the brownies on page 109)

[] A few more mixing bowls of different sizes

These are also good to have around if you think you'll use them, and they're generally pretty reasonably priced (except the griddle pan, but if you're like me you'll use it all the time):

[] A skillet and a griddle pan (mine is square and has a rim that's barely raised; I don't think I would use it as much if it were shaped differently or had higher sides)

[] A steamer basket (you can always steam things in a shallow pool of water right in the pan, but these are under $10 new and practically given away in thrift stores)

[] A box grater

[] A citrus reamer

[] A porcelain ginger grater (unless you hate ginger, duh)

[] A stick blender (great for soups, smoothies, and whatnot, and so easy to clean)

[] Spring-loaded tongs

[] A pastry brush (for brushing the tops of things with oil)

[] An oven thermometer (unless you don't plan to bake or roast; see the discussion of roasting, page 76)

If you plan to bake, you also need:

[] Parchment paper (I also like silicone baking mats, but they're pricey and only worth it if you're going to use them all the time)

[] A cooling rack or two

[] Two or three more cookie sheets

[] Muffin tins and/or a loaf pan or two

[] A hand mixer

[] A kitchen scale (worth the money if you're going to bake a lot, since most good baking recipes give quantities of flour and other dry ingredients in weight rather than volume, since it's more accurate; if you're only going to bake a little, skip it)

These are pricey, but seriously worth it:

[] A rice cooker with a permanently attached hinged lid that clicks closed (you can get a cheaper one with a lift-off lid, but it won't cook your grains evenly without burning them or keep them warm without drying them out); I use mine at least once a day. You can make any kind of grain in them, not just rice, and if you also get one with a porridge setting, you can make oatmeal and experiment with oatmeal-like breakfasts using other grains (see "Nonrecipe Recipes," page 113). There are two major benefits of rice cookers over sticking a saucepan on a burner: The first is that you don't have to watch it, adjust the heat, or worry about when it's done; the appliance does all that for you, clicking over automatically from "cooking" to "keep warm." The second is the "keep warm" setting itself — you can make breakfast the night before, or make part of your dinner in the morning before you go to work — or you can just have a steady supply of hot grains on hand. Rice cookers come in sizes ranging from four cups (ideal if you cook mostly for yourself only) to 12 (great if you feed six or more people at once on a regular basis). You'll probably need to spend between $100 and $125 for a new good one (the crappy lift-off lid ones can be as cheap as $30), but friends (and Craigslist) can be a great source of deals on stuff like this.

[] A food processor; the only recipes in this book that use one are the sauces, so it may seem odd that I'm recommending one. But I am, 'cause I really believe in how useful they are. It's an investment of about a hundred bucks, and once you have it, you'll find yourself using it for all sorts of things you never thought about before.

I don't recommend:

[] A garlic press (it's almost as easy and way better to chop, plus those suckers are hell to clean)

[] A wok, unless your burners get really hot and you're serious about Chinese cooking

[] A microwave oven (they cost a lot, take up space, and don't do anything that you can't do another way)

[] A blender other than a stick blender (food processors are more versatile, plus they're generally more effective for any task your stick blender can't handle)

CHAPTER 2

what you need in your pantry, refrigerator, and spice...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PM Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1604860731
• ISBN 13: 9781604860733
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 136
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland