"plastic wrap" news and stories

If you bake bread a lot, you waste a lot of plastic while the dough is rising. Here's a suggestion on wasting less.

How many times have you gone home with a bag of delicious cheeses only to discover a week later that they've all gone bad?

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding how we should store cheese. While some people argue that plastic wrap (Saran, Reynolds, etc) suffocates cheese and distorts its flavor, others believe it keeps cheese fresh by containing its moisture. Cheese mongers highly discourage plastic wrap and promote wax paper, and sometimes aluminum foil. Similarly, in the 'NY Times,' Florence Fabricant wrote an article encouraging people to purchase cheese paper "with a sheer wax coating on the outer layer and a breathable film inside," from a company called Formaticum.

All of these methods (plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, and cheese paper) are excellent ways to store cheese. However, universally applying one of these tactics to all types of cheeses would be a haphazard plan of action. So, how do you know which type of wrap is right for which type of cheese? The good news is that you can determine the most appropriate wrapping and storing techniques based on just two characteristics of the cheese, mainly its texture and moisture. Here's our quick and dirty guide to the best storage materials for different types of cheeses.

I grew up eating poached eggs. I liked it best when my dad would prepare them, as he always served them over a piece of toast that he had buttered and then cut into squares. That way it would be easy to get a bit of yolk-soaked toast with every bite (occasionally when I go home to Portland, I am still able to convince him to make me breakfast like this). Because of this early exposure to poached eggs, I never thought them to be foreign or complicated and when I was old enough to operate the stove, a pan of water and a slotted spoon, I started whipping them up myself. It wasn't until I read Julie and Julia did I realize that not everyone sees poached eggs as the deadly easy meal that I've always known them to be.

However, now that I know that some folks are challenged by the poaching of the eggs, I thought I'd try to help by pointing you all in the direction of some helpful information. Rob at B3TA tried four different methods for poaching eggs and, after much trial and error, comes to stunning realization about the utility of a pot of boiling water, an egg and some plastic wrap. Go check it out for yourself!

[via Serious Eats]

Source