Last Sunday's New York Times featured a pretty compelling piece about yuba, the edible skin that forms when soymilk is made. Daniel Patterson, chef and owner of Coi in San Francisco, writes: "The flavor was mildly sweet and nutty, and the texture was a revelation: simultaneously tender and chewy, unlike anything I had ever experienced." Apparently yuba isn't too hard to find if you live in an area with well stocked Asian markets. It can be prepared simply be boiling and then serving with a soy-based sauce, as Patterson describes, or in another recipe, dressed with milk, olive oil and pepper. The NYT piece has a few other yuba recipes as well. More yuba background is available here.

Sarah mentioned that studies have recently been done that show chocolate is good for your skin. One beauty company, Borba, took that seriously. They have just introduced a line of chocolate bars that will supposedly clear your skin. The bars are made out of Swiss dark chocolate and are infused with a parented "skin clarifying boost ."

Borba also has a few other edible beauty supplements, like age-defying Acai gummies and jelly beans, both of which are organic candies flavored with Acai, green tea and vitamin C, intended to improve the look and feel of the skin. The company also sells a number of variously flavored waters with different skin rejuvaniting purposes.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I'm not sure that chocolate and gummi candies are going to give me perfect skin. And it is worth noting that products that market themselves as nutritional supplements to not have to have their claims proven by the FDA, so any results are most likely anecdotal. But as long as they taste good, I guess it's worth a shot, right? 

The first time I heard of Chicken Under a Brick was on America's test kitchen, when they made a succulent looking chicken with crispy skin. So, I decided to scour the internet to find a clear and well-organized recipe. The one from Fine Cooking was a winner, and has a pictoral step by step guide to the process. Basically, the aim of brick chicken is to get the skin very crispy, while also obtaining tender and evenly cooked meat. What this amounts to is to butterfly the chicken and partially debone it, so that it will lay flat in the pan. Then, you cook the chicken skin side down under a brick, which will crisp the skin. Afterwards, you finish it in a hot 450 degree oven. The result is simply fabulous, and mine was a big success even on my first try.

[Photo James Yu]