One of the most embarrassing moments of my life involves baking muffins for a visitor in my apartment back in April of 2007. These "muffins" I was making actually had to be good, not the barely eatable non-sense I usually made. Having no other game plan I threw something together, prayed, and dished out my questionable muffins to my guest. What a bad host I am!
That day, I thought really hard... so what exactly are baked goods? We say "pie crust, muffin, cupcake, coffee cake, puff pastry, and croissant", but do we know what they actually mean?
Michael Ohene is an electrical engineer by profession with a mathematical interest in simplification through pattern discovery. Baking analysis is only one aspect of his fascination with modeling and classification.

I have to tell all of you about this contest that Amano Chocolate has going on. Amano makes the best single origin chocolates that I have ever tasted - each dark chocolate bar is distinct in flavor and highlights the flavors (fruitiness, richness, earthiness) that comes naturally to the cocoa produced in that region. Now, they running a contest to see who will win a year's supply of their excellent (and expensive) chocolate.

Guess The Origin Contest at Amano Chocolate

Snubbr.com, a new website that helps recommend gifts to people, is sponsoring a cookbook giveaway for readers of Cooking For Engineers! On May 28, 2010, Snubbr will pick a winner, and I'll announce it here.

Our dinner at Coi in March 2009 was the best fine dining experience we have ever had. The design of the dishes were incredible - both visually appealing as well as stunningly well-balanced flavor and textures. When ever have a multicourse meal, there are dishes that we don't like - but at Coi, all fifteen dishes we had were excellent. Service was also excellent, but the food was just phenomenal.

For over a year now, I've been photographing every major meal (usually lunch and dinner) that I've eaten - both in restaurants and at home - and posted them on my personal blog, Orthogonal Thought. Recently, I decided it would be interesting if there was a way to pull up all the pictures of a particular type of food (let's say "pizza") and see all the pizza pictures. Also, the blog's search tool worked okay, but it would be really nice to search by a restaurant name and immediately see which dishes were ordered and be one click away from the original post (and review).

So, I present this new tool at http://www.cookingforengineers.com/what_i_ate to quickly search through pictures of What I Ate.

As a fairly picky, detail-oriented person, it's not often that I find a product that I like. It's even more difficult for me to be pleased once I've experienced a wide range of products that perform the same task but are of widely varying performance, quality, and feel. This is especially true of knives - so it came as a surprise that I would find myself wholeheartedly recommending a knife set from Saber Knives.

Invited to a Hatch chile themed food blogger potluck in Austin, I decided to make chocolate truffles infused with Hatch chiles. The exercise didn't go exactly as planned (probably due to procrastination and waiting until the last possible day to make them without any trials beforehand), but it was still fun and I think the truffles turned out pretty well. Here's what I did.



Hatch Chile Infused Chocolate Truffles (yields about 32 to 36 truffles)

Tina and I have different preferences when it comes to knives. I have chef's knives that are well-suited to my hands and my cutting style, while she has her favorites. The problem is, my knife block has only two slots that will fit a 2-in. wide blade (and I want both of those slots). Tina uses a couple Japanese vegetable knives (also with 2-in. wide blades) so our options are limited - buy another knife block (only to use the two larger slots), get a cabinet mounted vertical knife rack (which is too large so sit on the counter and we can't wall mount it in our current place), get a custom knife block (expensive), or try the Kapoosh Knife Block which lets you put in knives however you want in whatever size and shape you've got.

I had been meaning to write up a review for Food, Inc. ever since I got to watch it last week. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy with work and haven't had much of a chance to write. It's still hard for me to find much time, so I'll keep this review relatively short. For the really short version, read this next line: Food, Inc. is in imperfect documentary, but does an excellent job portraying the picture of how Americans get their food that the film sets out to portray.

If you're like me, you love trivia. I enjoy all sorts of trivia in areas that I find interesting - science, computers, math, geography, world culture, television, film, and, of course, food. Mike Bellino, an electrical engineer who now focuses on microfarming, published a book last year that helps to fulfill my need for food trivia. It's called Fun Food Facts and it really is a fun read.


Fun Food Facts is available in the following formats:
Paperback

Here in Austin, I'm finding myself craving fresh squeezed juices and homemade lemonade whenever I do yard work (which is every week). (I think the heat has something to do with it.) I went out looking for a good citrus juicer, but instead ended up with this disappointing Metrokane Mighty OJ.

I love spicy buffalo chicken wings. I also love chili. And yes, I love to cook too. So when the company I work for (Boeing) presented a chili cook-off contest a while back, I took the challenge to heart (and the drawing board!). There are a few versions of buffalo chicken chili circulating the web, but I came up with a variation that I think adds much more texture, intense flavor, and plenty of heat while minimizing the labor and time. And best of all, this chili recipe is quite healthy. (Oh, and I won the cook-off with this chili.)

Tony Olson has a passion for cooking and playing around with cooking gadgetry. He is currently experimenting with rice-cookers and the plethora of tasty dishes that can be created in these one pot wonders.

When an English language translation of Herve This's Kitchen Mysteries was published in late 2007, I was pretty excited to read what he had to say. This (I think it's pronounced "tees") is famous as one of the founders of molecular gastronomy and for publishing a book by the same name in 2002. In his new book, he dives into some of the science of the kitchen and how it affects the way we cook. I was hoping for a book similar to those written by Harold McGee and Robert Wolke, but, unfortunately, that wasn't what I got.


Kitchen Mysteries is available in the following formats:
Hardcover

This year's Fancy Food Show was excellent. I tasted a lot of new products, visited with some familiar companies, and learned a bit more about the food, food makers, and the food industry. I spent two days roaming the halls and only saw a fraction of what was on display, but here's what caught my eye during those couple of days.

A friend recently told me about a new website called Foodoro that is an online marketplace for independent food producers. She mentioned that Foodoro is selling products from some well-known food companies in the Bay Area so I decided to check them out. I also had a chance to talk with one of the founders, Jay, to learn a little bit more about them.

Having worked at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara for a number of years, I knew of the existence of Parcel 104 (located in the Marriott just one block from the Intel offices), but never suspected what a great dining experience was to be found there. Years passed and I started hearing positive reviews of Parcel 104, but never found myself dining there. In January 2009, as Tina and I began our preparations for our move out of the Bay Area, I made it a point to go and dine at this restaurant that focuses on fresh, seasonal produce with an emphasis on Bay Area farmers and ranchers.


Parcel 104 (website; reservations)
2700 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408)970-6104

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen when I'm preparing a recipe for Cooking For Engineers. Sometimes, after a while, my feet, knees, hip, or lower back can start to hurt. I don't like wearing shoes inside the house, so my feet really aren't getting the support that they are supposed to have especially if I'm on them for a few hours. Enter the GelPro Mat - a soft but supportive floor mat that absorbs shock and spreads out the weight across the whole foot. I've been using the Mat in my kitchen for the last six months, and I can definitely say that it works!

Dulce de leche is a traditional South American candy that is very similar to caramel. Like caramel, it can also be prepared as a sauce simply by cooking it a little less. The "classic" recipe for dulce de leche is to boil a can of sweetened condensed milk for hours until the contents form a dark brown, thick fluid. I think this takes too long, so let me share with you the fastest way I know how to make dulce de leche.


Dulce de leche (makes about 1 cup or 200-250 mL)

Food science books are all the rage these days and naturally of particular interest to readers of Cooking For Engineers. The top dog in the library is still Harold McGee's incredible work, On Food and Cooking. Last month another food science book, The Science of Good Food, was published. This new book might be more accessible to the casual curious cook due to its easy language and beautiful layout.

On a recent trip to Napa, California to Camalie Vineyards, a family vineyard and winery owned by my friend Mark, Tina and I celebrated this year's Cabernet harvest and crush. When we were ready to leave, Mark suggested we try a new restaurant that his friend just opened - Elements. It sounded like a great idea, so off we went.