Having a “Temper” Tantrum?

By Katie Barreira
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

Tempering chocolate can be one of the more intimidating, exacting and maddening culinary tasks. But it doesn’t have to be.

Why temper?
If you’re going to melt chocolate for coating, candy making, or dipping you’ll have much snappier results if you take the time to temper.

When heated above 90 degrees the fat in chocolate (cocoa butter) separates and forms streaky grey crystals when cool if not first recombined.

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SPAMMED – the Food Kind!

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

If you grew up in Hawaii and you claim Spam has never touched your lips, you are: 1) a hermit 2) a protected child of food snobs or 3) telling a lie.

As everyone knows, Hawaii boasts the highest per capita consumption of Spam in the U.S. Spam meals and snacks are sold at local drive-ins, McDonald’s and even the 7-Eleven.

So tonight, when I attend the annual ancestral potluck of the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, an august gathering of food influencers, guess what I’m taking to represent my heritage? Spam musubi!

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Miso Salmon—an Easy Weekday Meal

By David Hu
A new video for Video Friday

I love Japanese food. It can be delicate or hearty, intricate or plain, sophisticated or everyday. Often people think Japanese food is hard to make. In fact, many popular Japanese dishes are fairly easy for the home cook. Teriyaki, tonkatsu and tempura all come to mind.

But for one of the easiest Japanese dishes, try miso-glazed salmon. This is a great weekday meal: only six ingredients, prep time of about 5 minutes, very little clean up, and healthy, to boot!

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Movie Day – into Night

By Lori Powell
For One or Two Bites, a blog for singles and couples

I’ve gotten into the craze of Downton Abbey to the point that I had to revisit Seasons 1 and 2 before seeing the first episode of Season 3 (aired on PBS this past Sunday night).

Sitting through one series is quite enough, but two is a bit crazy. Well, not that crazy, since it wasn’t like I had to keep my eyes glued to the television since I had already seen it.

So I made it my background noise while I was doing a bit of reorganization at home. It just makes it all the sweeter if you can put reorganization and fun in the same sentence. All the while, I was accomplishing at least one task on my New Year’s resolutions, which was to move more and to de-clutter. Wait, that’s two down….love it when multitasking works out!

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Nutty for Nut Milk

By Katie Barreira
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

Happy 2013! As I think back over the past year of eating, there are a few culinary encounters that stand out because they revolutionized the way I eat.

As a foodie and a food professional, I’m always getting hyped-up about some hip trend (home brewing, from beer to kombucha) or novel restaurant item (toast oil), but few of these marvels actually stick, become part of my routine eating habits and working themselves into my everyday way of being.

Here’s one that did.

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