A blog about food and cooking by Chris Norris
Wired for Food Wired magazine is full of weird stuff about technology, the internet, politics, our environment and the surreal nature of life. When I find the time to work my way through an issue, I look at the world a little differently. Here’s some […]
Salt, Part 5: The Salts of Our Lives Salt gets to our table in different ways and forms. If you do much cooking, or pay attention to such things, you’ll have noticed that there are different forms of salt used in the kitchen, each with […]
Salt, Part 4: Getting Inside the Salt Salt is an ionic compound, which means that the atomic elements in salt gain or lose electrons rather than sharing electrons. The chemical notation for salt is NaCl, which indicates that a molecule of salt consists of one […]
Salt, Part 3: Between Salt and a Hard Place Halite, the pure mineral form of salt, is the only rock that we routinely consume as part of our normal diet. Unlike most foods we eat, salt doesn’t burn and doesn’t catch fire. For all practical […]
Pigs & Ketchup 10/2/2007 Couldn’t resist mentioning a couple of blurbs from today’s Wall Street Journal: First, in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing next summer, the Chinese government is establishing a special program to raise pigs specifically for Olympic athletes. While I don’t […]
Molecular Gastronomy The latest issue of Wired arrived and what do you know, another food scientist is hard at work! Hervé This (yep, that’s his name) is generating formulas that describe the structure of food in terms of basic proteins, carbohydrates, etc. The idea is […]
One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor! While in Cabo I had the chance to catch up on my tequilas again. Tequila is made by distilling a syrup of blue agave (a big spiky plant that looks like an overgrown aloe plant) and is only […]
Salt, Part 2: Saltiness Is To Godliness Salt was extraordinarily important in biblical times, and great power and wealth accrued to those who controlled the supply of salt. Wars were fought over salt and battles could be won or lost based on the ability of […]
Olives in Glass Houses It happened to me again! I started wondering why it is that black ripe olives are virtually always sold in cans, while green olives are virtually always sold in clear glass jars?! Of course, I had to do some research! It […]
Salt, Part 1: What’s Up With Salt? Click here for the whole series! My oldest son brought home his high school chemistry textbook after orientation classes a few weeks ago and inadvertently launched me on a new research project. While thumbing through the book, I […]