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Gear it up!

The term "gearing up for the holidays" is rampant and for me that means buying lots of wacky cooking implements for my family and friends like this cage that fits into the cavity of a turkey or chicken that you can put the stuffing in and just pull it out with no mess!

Or the modified and far more ingenious "beer can chicken cooker". Everyone is getting one of these. Ok, you take the stuff out of the bird and fit it over this hollow tube around which there is a sort of dish. It's a variation on just plopping your chicken on an open can of beer and cooking it in the oven. You can put wine, or herbed broth or some rich ale or spices in the tube and the flavors infuse in the chicken. And, AND, you can put potatoes and carrots around the tube so that the drippings from the chicken cook and flavor them too!

But wait, there's more!

There's a version for the oven and a great one for the BBQ. My latest beau (and now I'm throwing a nod to fellow Herald columnist Emily Wiggin who refers to her new husband as Jon Columnfodder because, well, no one is safe from the published and very pulic descriptions of our lives that come out weekly), anyway Eric, let's see, Eric Source O'Topics (until I can think of a better one)is so into BBQing that the first thing he snowplowed last Friday was a path to his grill. I got him a grill version of the vertical chicken roaster. He'll be thrilled (and since I don't think he reads this, he'll be surprised as well). As my daughter, Avalon Themeidea, stated, "He's good for you, Mom. You like to cook inside but you don't like cooking outside." Ah, if relationships were only that easy.

Anyway, if you haven't gotten a gift for the cook on your list yet, this one is great.

Posted by rforrest at 10:18 PM | Comments (1)

'Tis the Season

For those of you who may have read my Wine Me Dine Me column of Nov. 30 http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/11302005/rachel/75655.htm

all about cool cookbooks to buy for food loving friends this year, I do have a few to add.

One is Silver Spoon from Phaidon Press which you won't be able to find for another week or so while they are printing more. It's sort of like the Joy of Cooking for Italian food and it's been selling like hot cakes. Or calzones. I called the publicist and she assured me you will be able to get it by Christmas.

Also good is The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami. Now, Umami is a taste sense just like bitter, sour, sweet, etc. You know like the fifth Beatle. 25 chefs got together some recipes to point out this concept that the Japanese have known about for eons. It's a sort of very rich flavor.

So try to get those for your foodie friends so they can make you some good meals.

Posted by rforrest at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)