A Press Democrat Blog

Proximal Kitchen

Cooking locally, with really sharp knives

Fox News: Grass-Fed Worse For Environment (Part 2)

Thursday, at 8:54 by

Does grass-fed beef really have a larger carbon footprint than its corn-fed cousin? That’s the controversial claim made by John Stossel, posted on Townhall.com and televised on Fox Business Network, that I talked about in my post from earlier this week. With a little digging, it turned out that the so-called “research” on which the story was based (posted here by its WSU co-author) turned out not to be science at all, but rather a wanly disguised shill job by… Read More »

The Accidental Vegetarian: Cooking Green

Friday, at 7:00 by

Green Salad: Arugula, Green Zebra Tomato, Green PeppercornI’ve been thinking about cooking green. And no, I’m not pandering to my more aggressively environmentalist brethren, I’m talking about the color green, the shades of which the human eye is more sensitive to than any other part of the visible spectrum: The haughty, peacock green of my grandmother’s emerald broach; the brooding, mossy green of the Russian River pooling under Wohler Bridge…… Read More »

So what IS pistou, anyway?

Friday, at 10:30 by

ingredients for fresh pistouPistou is seriously good stuff. Made in minutes, from very few (and entirely raw) ingredients, it turns a vegetable soup transcendent, transforms pasta from simple to sublime, and, perhaps less conventionally but no less successfully, it works wonders with certain seafood. The problem is, unlike in the case of its far more famous (and near-mystical-when-done-properly) cousin, pesto, there seems to be no clear agreement on what actually constitutes a true pistou.… Read More »

Get Some Beer Snack Religion

Wednesday, at 8:40 by

Every once in a while, I’m lucky enough to find a combination of flavors that just works, a minor chord born of a Beatles-like marriage of flats and sharps. Many of the classics never tire, and I use and re-use them without apology – and then there are beer snacks, the holy grail of sports fans and wannabe man-cooks everywhere, the perfect balance of heat, salt, and icy bitter froth, a marriage to read about in the self-therapy section of an airport book nook.

… Read More »