"flambe" news and stories

I'm always a fan of booze-based kitchen pyrotechnics, and a sucker for a good technique demo. The twain are meeting in this video from Gourmet.com's The Test Kitchen video series. In this particular installment, Gourmet's test kitchen director Ruth Cousineau talks her way through a flambé of sirloin pan juices, olive oil, and a goodly lashing of whiskey, outlining her strategies for forestalling danger along the way. Fire pretty. Video handy. Me hungry.

Other useful video tutorials include methods for measuring honey and flour correctly, coring apples, cleaning herbs, and general behind the toque tips and techniques from their staff's seasoned kitchen pros.

[via: Gourmet.com's Test Kitchen]

If ever you plan to grab dinner at Sporting Clube de Londres in West London, make sure you wear a welding mask.

At least, if you order the chorizo appetizer.

Rui Daniel Faria Velosa, the owner of the Portuguese restaurant, was fined April on April 12 for an incident that occurred back in May 2005. A server brought the appetizer in the ceramic dish to the table. The food was already flaming, but the server returned with more rum to top off the dish. The rum spilled all over the woman, leaving her with burns on her face and hands. She spent two weeks in the hospital and still suffers from flashbacks, panic attacks, and anxiety.

If that happened to me, I'd probably eat raw food for the rest of my life.

We may have covered most of the "best of 2005" lists, with topics from MMMM to NNNNN, but funny food videos is one we missed. Fortunately, Saute Wednesday didn't miss this important topic in their slightly belated Best of 2005 List. They picked out a Flambe Disaster! clip, which really shows the value of having a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, in addition to being funny. Incidentally, the apartment kitchen in which it takes place looks shockingly like my college apartment. I kept my extinguisher under the sink, guys!

The best clip of the year was definitely from an episode of Saturday Night Live, where they paid tribute to Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes in the most highly esteemed of media: a rap song.

But first, my hunger pangs are sticking like duct tape
Let's hit up magnolia and mack on some cupcakes
No doubt, that bakery's got all the bomb frosting.
I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling
2 no 6 no 12, bakers dozen!
I told you that I'm crazy for these cupcakes, cousin!

Update: The YouTube video (above) was removed, but you can hear the song here.

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