Cooking For Engineers®

Recently, I received a wireless thermometer from Thermoworks to try out. Their newest product is called Smoke and is specifically designed to help people barbecue and smoke food at home. Smoke has two parts - a base unit (which takes two of Thermoworks standardized Pro-Series probes) and a wireless receiver unit - which lets the user track the air temperature and the food temperature without going outside to the smoker.
Thermoworks is selling the Smoke at $99 and this would definitely welcome tool for anyone who likes to slow cook food outside.

These days when I reach for a spatula to turn food in a pan, I've been finding myself grabbing the GastroMax Slotted Turner more often than not. Tina bought this spatula for me after months (or maybe years) of listening to me complain about our various spatulas. After buying the GastroMax Turner, my complaining has stopped.

It's been a while since I've written an article on Cooking For Engineers. There are lots of reasons for this including lack of time (or perhaps poor time management) and raising Emma (who is now nearly 3 years old), but I haven't stopped cooking and trying stuff in the kitchen. Many readers have encouraged me to return to writing and not worry so much about preparing an exhaustive article. A few have also suggested that to get back into writing, I could just write about stuff that I use or cook regularly. With that in mind, I've decided to start writing shorter equipment reviews to get back into the rhythm of writing. Then I was faced with the daunting task of picking what to write about first. After some more paralysis, I decided to write about a tool that I don't use that much anymore, but I'm happy to have on hand when I need it: OXO Good Grips Food Mill.

The baguette is at once the simplest of breads and the most difficult to perfect. It is the most demanding test of a bread baker's skill. In recent years the secrets of professional bakers have been drifting out to the general population of amateur bakers. Techniques can be gleaned from variety of sources. Bread baking cookbooks today do more then provide recipes; they explore and explain the process. Bread baking courses for amateurs are becoming more popular at professional cooking schools and even being offered by some bakeries. Articles appear in magazine and newspapers with a different take on some aspect of the process. This article will attempt to distill this wealth of information to present the techniques required to produce a professional looking and tasting baguette.