"kat kinsman" news and stories

While you're waiting for Michael Thomas Hastings' "Top Chef Masters" recap, snack on this mini interview with former contender John Besh. The New Orleans chef and author stopped by Slashfood HQ earlier this week to chat about his Top Chef Masters predictions, being judged by bloggers and why he won't be strapping an arm behind his back again anytime soon.

Pre-order My New Orleans: The Cookbook and visit ChefJohnBesh.com.

Photo: Random House

'Julia's Kitchen Wisdom - Essential Techniques and Recipes From a Lifetime of Cooking'
by Julia Child
Knopf -- 2009 (original pub. date 2000)
Buy it on Amazon

In the thick of the media blitz surrounding the release of the Julia Child/Julie Powell biographic mash-up movie, it would be easy to mistake this volume -- ours came bestickered with "Now a Major Motion Picture" -- for a quickie cash-in. It's anything but.

Rather, this is a previously published compendium of Julia Child's kitchen notes from her years of writing cookbooks and filming "The French Chef" and we're warning you now -- your copy will get messy. Julia wouldn't mind.

Takeaway tips: In Child's words, "It doesn't pretend to take the place of a big, detailed, all-purpose cookbook like 'Way to Cook' or 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes I and II'. It is, rather, a mini aide-mémoire for general home cookery, and is aimed at those who are tolerably familiar with culinary language; whose kitchens are normally well equipped with such staples as jelly-roll pans, a food processor, a decent rolling pins; and who know their way around the stove reasonably well."

"Kitchen Wisdom" is packed with time and temperature charts, foolproof, building block recipes for mother sauces, breads, desserts and soups, as well as her rigorously tested methods for everything from soaking beans and boiling eggs to the ins and outs of flour dredging and sourcing omelet pans. If it's got a soupçon of French technique, it's in the book.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Cow head in banana leaves at Hill Country. Photo: Kat Kinsman

There comes a time in every girl's life -- when she's ripping open the long-braised skull of a short-lived calf in order to better wobble out its beer-marinated brain -- that she smiles contentedly and realizes she loves her life an awful lot. Then she goes for the eyes.

Well OK, not every girl's life -- but at least those of a troika of squeam-free dames including Hill Country's executive chef and cookbook author Elizabeth Karmel, Homesick Texan writer Lisa Fain and lucky, lucky me. And it all happened because of Twitter.

See a step-by-step barbacoa making slideshow and read a description after the jump. Warning -- it's not for vegetarians or the faint of stomach.

Pickles. Photo: Kat Kinsman

There's a canning revolution going on and Kim O'Donnel -- former food writer for the James Beard Award-winning Washington Post -- has brought it to a boil.

Upon tremendous response to her re-Tweet of an Ethicurean post about a canning party in San Francisco and subsequent suggestion that Seattle and other cities follow suit, O'Donnel asked interested home canners to contact her. Thus Cans Across America was born. On the weekend of August 29-30, cities across the nation will host classes, can-a-thons, canning meet-ups and raise awareness of this retro-haute preservation method.

More about the nation's can-do attitude after the jump.

Ted Lee and Matt Lee Photo: The Lee Bros.

So you think you're out playing hooky from work on the promise of a lovely Southern lunch stewed up by your favorite cookbook authors and then all of a sudden, in strides Bobby Flay.

Yup -- "Throwdown."

Matt Lee and Ted Lee and the rest of the assembled had been lured to a barge on the Hudson River -- Matt's preferred canoeing channel -- on the premise that the brothers would be filming a segment for a Food Network special called "Lowcountry Lowdown." They'd filmed the first half in Charleston, S.C., and reportedly, the duel would have gone down on their home turf, had Chef Flay not fallen prey to the vagaries of air travel.

Read more about throwing down with the Country Captain after the jump.