How to get the most out of your pump sprayer.

How to make a Better Lemon Wedge.

How to make candied citrus zest.

How to get more juice out of a lemon.

Actually there are two questions when it comes to wine breathing: the first is "whether" and the second is "how".

One of the most luxurious and impressive meats you can prepare, share and enjoy is fresh magret, the breast of a fattened duck.  The texture is like velvet, the flavor is like heaven, and the preparation is like child's play!

I have salad envy; specifically French salad envy.  You can go into any little bistro in Paris and get a salad that is simple, beautiful, light and delicate.  And try as I might, I couldn't reproduce that at home.  Now of course the greens are an issue, but you should be able to get good greens from a good green grocer, a farmer's market or your own garden.  The elusive element has always been the dressing.  Even with the best olive oil and vinegar, mine never tasted the same.

Preserved lemons, salt-cured lemon rinds, are a key ingredient in many Moroccan dishes, but they also provide a wonderful hit of flavor in many other dishes as well.  We sometimes take a few preserved lemon quarters, some confited garlic (future Cool Tip) and some chipotle in adobo, pulverize them together in a food processor, and use that as a wet rub on a pork loin roast that we finish on the grill.

Preserved lemons are available in speciality food stores, but with a little planning (they take a while to get to cure) you can easily make them yourself.  Here's how...

Salmon skin can be a bother, but it can also be a bonus!  Here are a few tricks:

What do you do with any potatoes you have to give them the best chance of lasting until you're off your diet?  Here's a tip from Cooks Illustrated that should help:

The first question you may ask, before you get to the "how", is "why chiffonade?"

The answer:  …Beauty, Flavor, Style …

Every meat person knows that the elusive and ultimate expression of the art of cooking meat is a beautiful seared crust.  Here are a few tips on how to achieve it:

It was one of those "15 minutes of fame" things that I didn't even know was happening.  A work colleague sent me an email, asking if this was me in the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated.  What?  Really?  My issue hadn't arrived yet, so I had to try to find it at a newstand...and sure enough, in the January & February 2005 issue...

The trick to finding that elusive balance between too hard and mushy ... how to make perfect wild rice.

Ravioli can be a little packet of wonderfulness.  You can fill it with wild mushrooms, like the recipe on the right, a savory pumpkin mix, or just about anything you can think of.  The possibilities are endless.  But making the pasta yourself, while absolutely feasible, is not something many of us (me included) want to tackle.  Well, you can tickle your tastebuds and impress your friends, all with very little work.

Beans, although full of nuitrition, can have some unwelcome side effects.  But they don't have to.

Hiccups are one of those things that aren’t really serious, but they are really annoying, to yourself, and to those around you...and sometimes embarrassing!

Has this ever happened to you?  You're cracking (and maybe separating) several eggs for a dish; everything is going swimmingly, and then you crack the last egg, and... Ooops!  You have a mishap!  You get shells in your bowl that you can't fish out, or (if you're separating eggs) you get some yolk in your whites, and you have to throw the whole mess out and start over.  I hate it when that happens. 

Archimedes, one of the leading mathematicians in ancient Greece, discovered the way to measure the volume of irregular objects through the principle of displacement: if you put an object into liquid, the amount of liquid displaced, is equal to the volume of the object.  (And you thought you would learn only about cooking in these Newsletters...)  It is said that he discovered this when he was in the bath and noticed how the water overflowed the tub when he got in.  He was so excited that he jumped out of the tub shouting ”Eureka” and running through the streets of Syracuse stark naked.

If you read the Guilt-Free Panna Cotta recipe in Monday's Newsletter, you may have noticed an ingredient called "Faux Fromage Frais", which translates to Fake Fresh Cheese.  Here's the back story and some great uses for this very handy, non-fat ingredient, that we use almost daily.