The New Easy-Bake Oven: Bye-Bye Bulbs

It's a brave new world for the Easy-Bake oven: no more light bulbs.

The Fed is working toward elimination of the good old incandescent light bulb. This presents toymaker Hasbro, the device's current manufacturer, with something of a sticky-wicket since the heat source in the iconic kid's cooker has always been a 100-watt incandescent bulb. (If you've still got one of these bulbs around, light it up and hold your hand near it; you'll see why.) The new and improved CFL bulb produces almost no heat, thereby rendering it useless for baking cakes and brownies. What to do, what to do?

Do over, that's what. It's not like the toy oven hasn't undergone a few changes over the decades. Eleven of them, I believe. But this one is fundamental rather than merely cosmetic. With the juice gone from its traditional source of heat, the new Easy-Bake Oven will feature an actual heating element – sort of like the oven the grownups use.

The brainchild of an inventor named Ronald Howes, Kenner Products introduced the Easy-Bake Oven back in 1963. They were also responsible for the Give-a-Show Projector and the Spirograph, you may recall. But the little plastic oven marketed to pre-teen girls was by far the company's crowning achievement. It was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006, having sold more than 50 million units.

The original design was pretty simple; you had these tiny little round pans into which you poured pre-measured mixes from little packets that either came with the oven or could be purchased at most toy stores. Add a little water to the mix, turn on the oven, slide the pan into a slot, and, after being cooked by the heat generated by the aforementioned light bulbs, little mini cakes and brownies emerged from a slot on the other side.

I never actually owned an Easy-Bake Oven. My experience with the toy came as a result of having a girl cousin. Even though I was a boy and it was the '60s and I was supposed to have G.I. Joes (which I did), my progressive mother encouraged my interest in cooking. By the time my cousin got her first Easy-Bake Oven, I had already graduated to using the real oven in Mom's kitchen. But the Easy-Bake was still a fun toy.

Like most Easy-Bakers, we experimented with various mixtures and concoctions. And like the parents of most Easy-Bakers, my aunt and uncle got tired of shelling out hefty bucks for the little mix packets, so there was also a lot of experimentation going on with “real” cake and brownie mixes. Most of them turned out pretty well and we had fun, regardless. My wife, who did own an Easy-Bake Oven, recalls her dad being quite a trooper as he dutifully consumed every brownie, cake, and cookie she produced.

The newest iteration of the classic toy is called the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven and it's a far cry from the '60s version. That one was designed to look like a plain old oven – complete with a non-functional stovetop. It had a carrying handle and it came in typical '60s colors – yellow and green. The new Ultimate oven is purple and looks kind of like a really curvy microwave – sort of, I guess. Or as the curator of the facility which houses the National Toy Hall of Fame describes it: “It looks sort of like an Art Deco toaster with wings – a purple one.

The menu has changed, too. No longer limited to tiny little cakes and brownies, the Ultimate Oven can produce cookies, cupcakes, whoopie pies, a “checkerboard” cake, pretzel “dippers”, cinnamon twists, and even pizza. All in bigger portions than the original, to boot, thanks to larger, rectangular pans.

The involuntary redesign is actually a good thing. The new heating element provides more even heat. (Hot spots used to be a real problem. Ruined a lot of little cakes as a result.) It can also generate interior temperatures up to about 375°, so, yes, parental supervision is definitely required. (Don't worry; the exterior remains fairly cool.)

Oh, and one more major upgrade: the price. Be prepared to pony up fifty bucks – well, $49.99, anyway – for a toy for which my aunt and uncle paid $15.95 back in '63. (500,000 units were sold at that price in that year, by the way.)

Lest you consider the Easy-Bake Oven to be nothing more than a frivolous passing fancy of childhood, consider this: Bobby Flay had one. So did Rick Bayless. I guess that's why they contributed recipes to David Hoffman's “The Easy-Bake Oven Gourmet,” a 128-page cookbook published in 2003 by Running Press.

The Easy-Bake Oven was – and still is – a great introduction for kids to the world of cooking and anything that gets kids in the kitchen is okay by me. Buona fortuna, Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven.

How To Properly Hand Wash Dishes

Ridiculous title, huh? “How To Wash Dishes.” Everybody knows how to wash dishes, right? I'm not talking about using a dishwasher. I'm referring to washing dishes by hand. Well......maybe not so much.

I once wrote an article on kitchen cleanliness in which I touched briefly on the subject of dishwashing. Recent experiences in some home kitchens have prompted me to revisit the topic in a little more depth. It seems a lot of people didn't learn to wash dishes the way I did.

I learned the art of dishwashing in the days before automatic dishwashers became as common as toasters. I learned at the hands of experts; my grandmother and my mother. I don't know that my grandmother ever even saw an automatic dishwasher, and I know for certain she never used one. My mother had such disdain for the devices that she used hers as a storage bin for her Tupperware. Both women were lifelong hand dishwashers. Add to that the fact that my first restaurant job was working as a dishwasher and I think I present with some valid credentials on the subject.

But that's still not enough. In order to avoid this being a “my mother taught me better than your mother taught you” piece, I went further and did some research on proper hand dishwashing.

Believe it or not, there are specific procedures to follow. It's not just a matter of running some water in the sink, dumping in a little soap, and throwing in the dirty dishes. But after observing some of the aforementioned kitchens it is obvious to me that these basic techniques are being ignored, if they were ever taught in the first place. Call me obsessive/compulsive if you will, but, based on the horrendous hygiene I have observed in some home kitchens, I have been known to sneak to the sink and stealthily rewash dishes before I use them. Here's why.

I know so many people who have an aversion to the most essential element of hygienic dishwashing: hot water. Beyond my grandmother and my mother, the experts with letters after their names will also tell you that dishes should be washed in water as hot as you can tolerate. Now this opens up a whole can of subjective worms as way too many people apparently can't tolerate water heated above 99°. That's body temperature, folks! If you can't tolerate putting your hands in ninety-nine degree water, you shouldn't be able to tolerate touching yourself! Many of these same folks will come out of a shower with their bodies a nice shade of candy-apple red because they like their showers hot. And yet they wash their dishes in lukewarm water. Go figure. Worse still, I know people who do dishes in room temperature water, water that is actually cold. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If you insist on using cold or lukewarm water for dishwashing, just set up little cabanas beside the sink for the e-coli, the salmonella, and the other varieties of bacteria you're inviting to go swimming in your sink. That's all you're really accomplishing. You're not getting anything clean.

Bacteria don't drown. Water won't kill 'em. Heat kills bacteria. To really sanitize your dishes, you need to heat them to above 140°. That's what dishwashers do. Obviously, sticking your unprotected hands in 140° water will likely send you to the emergency room.

But dishes washed by hand can still be sanitized. It just takes a little effort. You need hot water, a good dish soap – preferably an antibacterial formula, a little bleach, and proper technique.

For handwashing dishes, the FDA recommends a minimum water temperature of 110°. To make sure I'm practicing what I'm preaching, I stuck a thermometer in my dishwater. It registered 112.8°. I heat my rinse water a little hotter than my wash water – about 115°. Yeah, that's a little hot, but with rinse water, you can just snatch and grab. You don't have to keep your hands submerged in it like you do the wash water.

In restaurant kitchens, there are three sinks; a wash sink, a rinse sink, and a sanitizing sink. With only two sinks in my home kitchen, I combine the rinsing and the sanitizing in one. In restaurants, there is a specific chlorine level the health inspectors look for. (50 – 100 PPM, if you're curious.) At home, about a tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water will suffice.

But again, it's gotta be hot water. If your skin is too sensitive or if you're worried about “dishpan hands,” go get some rubber gloves. Don't risk your family's health.

Hot water also gets your dishes cleaner. Grease doesn't break down in lukewarm water. If you stick a dirty, greasy plate in a sink full of 90° water, you'll come out with a plate that looks clean – but it'll still be greasy. And if you've ever wondered why your glasses and silverware look so spotty and filmy, check your water temperature. You know that “sheeting action” one of the dishwasher detergents advertises? You get the same effect when you use hot water. Dishes washed in hot water dry faster and cleaner than those washed in warm or cold water.

Now let's talk about technique. First things first, scrape your plates. Dishes don't get clean when they're in the water competing with floating chunks of meat and potatoes.

Next, rinse your dishes. The first plateful of spaghetti sauce that you toss unrinsed into your dishwater is going to turn your water red and greasy for every subsequent dish you put in.

Now stack 'em. Stacking doesn't have anything to do with the actual cleanliness of your dishes, but organized stacking makes the dishwashing process cleaner and easier. Glasses, cups, and silverware stack first, plates and serving dishes next, and pots and pans last.

This is also the order in which you should wash your dishes. I know so many people who just throw everything in the sink at the same time. But think about it for a minute: what dishes do you really want to be the cleanest? The ones that actually come in contact with your mouth, right? The glasses, the cups, and the silverware. So it makes sense that you should wash them first when the water is the hottest and the cleanest. If you wash the glasses after – say – the greasy frying pan, what can you expect to happen to your glasses? Thank you, but I'll take my beverages without the floating layer of grease. And those aren't “water spots” on your knives, forks, and spoons. They're spots of whatever you had for lunch yesterday if you just threw them in along with the dirty dishes.

Plates should be next. Serving dishes and utensils follow the plates and then come the pots and pans.

If you've got really dirty pots and pans with lots of baked-on stuff stuck to them, soaking is probably in order. Start with hot water, please, and a little soap. I know the water will eventually cool, but starting with hot water will give you a leg up on a good, effective soak better than just soaking in cold water from the start. Allow at least ten minutes soaking time. Some people advocate overnight soaking. In fact, I just watched a TV commercial for an overnight soaking soap product. Don't waste your time and money. Anything that hasn't soaked off after, let's say half an hour, to be generous, in regular soap and water probably isn't going to. That's when scrubbing pads come into play.

Somewhere along the line, you may have to change your water. The glasses and silverware probably didn't do too much damage to the dishwater. But after a dozen or so plates and serving dishes, are you really getting anything clean? Think about it; what color is clean, fresh water? Clear, of course. It has no color. So by the time your dishwater develops a distinct reddish, brownish, greenish, or grayish color, is it still truly clean and fresh? And should you reasonably expect to get your dishes clean in such water? Time for a change.

Speaking of changing things, how about those dishcloths, sponges, and towels? Personally, I have no use for sponges. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a hospital's surgical suite and 10 being a toxic waste dump, kitchen sponges rank number 11. You can't have them in commercial kitchens; you shouldn't have them in home kitchens. Unless you're preparing a science project on bacteriology. “Oh, but you can sanitize them in the microwave!” Yeah, until the first time you put them back in the water and the listeria and staphylococci invite all their friends aboard. Ditch the sponge. If you have some sort of unnatural addiction to sponges, at least try to find an antibacterial one designed to limit microbial growth.

Dishcloths are a better option, provided you take proper care of them. This means changing them out frequently and also keeping them in proper condition. A recent scientific study revealed that dishcloths containing the lowest microbial count came from households that replaced used dishcloths every day. Dishcloths containing high microbial counts were those used five or more consecutive days and never completely dried out during that time. The study determined that when dishcloths were dried out after use, bacterial growth was halted. So those of you who wad up your wet dishcloths and leave them lying in or around the sink take note.

I don't change my dishcloth every day. Nor do I use the same cloth for a week. And I follow the FDA food code recommendation regarding use of a sanitizer bucket for my dishcloths. But I don't leave them soaking in the bucket because research also shows that after a couple of hours, organic material present in the cloths neutralizes the sanitizer and bacterial growth can occur. I soak them after use, take them out and dry them, and replace them every other day. Unless, of course, they are filthy, in which case I replace them right away. Duh!

Dish towels are another issue. Again, if restaurant inspectors catch you drying dishes with a towel, there go a couple of points off your rating. Air drying is best. And for goodness' sake, clean your drying rack once in awhile! Putting clean dishes in a dirty drying rack is an exercise in futility. If, however, you are like most people – me included – and you sometimes use a dish towel, make sure it's a clean dish towel. Not the one with which you wiped the chicken blood off the counter. Not the one with which you mopped your sweaty forehead, wiped your greasy hands, or got that little spill up off the floor. Dish towel equals dish use. Nothing else. When the towel gets damp, get a dry one. In the first place, you're not really drying anything with a wet towel, now are you? And in the second place, here come those pesky germs again. Dish towels should be replaced in the same manner as dishcloths.

I mentioned cleaning your drying rack. How about your sinks? How often do you actually clean and sanitize your sinks and drains? Do you know that most household's toilets are cleaner than their kitchen sinks? That's because you think about cleaning the toilet, but you seldom think about cleaning the sink. And yet, where do you wash the dishes from which you eat? I sanitize my sinks and drains every day. All it takes is a couple of minutes with some hot water and bleach.

One of the most spectacularly, despicably unhygienic things I've ever seen in a home kitchen involved filling up a sink with tepid water and a little soap and then throwing dirty dishes into the sink throughout the day. At some point along the way, said dishes were treated to a brief encounter with a dirty cloth that had been wadded up on the counter. Then they were rinsed under cold running water before being dried and put away. I have to ask; why bother? For as much cleaning value as you're getting out of that sinkful of disgusting cold, gray water with grease and particulate matter floating in it and that nasty rag, you might as well just put the dishes away dirty.

Lukewarmers aren't quite as bad – but they're close. I'm sorry. I hate it for you that you can't stand hot water, but neither can the grease and the germs. If you're filling your sink with water that is cooler than body temperature, you're just throwing a greasy pool party for bacteria. Period. Turn up the water heater and get some gloves.

And remember the steps the experts recommend – the ones my mama taught me: scrape your dishes, rinse your dishes, stack your dishes, and don't do the pots and pans first and then try to get the glasses clean. It just won't happen.

See you in the kitchen. I'll wash, you dry.

How to Hold Pasta For Later Service

So you've got people coming over for a spaghetti dinner, but you don't want to spend the evening in the kitchen standing over a steaming pot. Or you've got a lot of people coming over and you don't know how you'll ever cook that much spaghetti and have it all ready at the same time. Or maybe your spouse is late for dinner – again – and you're afraid the pasta will be ruined.

Having already written much on the proper way to cook pasta, let me share a little restaurant chef secret solution for these scenarios: double cooking.

Have you ever wondered how restaurants get your pasta dish out to the table so quickly? If you've ever cooked pasta at home you know that it takes anywhere from eight to ten minutes to properly cook pasta, right? (I'm speaking, of course, about regular pasta secco or dried pasta as opposed to pasta fresca or fresh pasta, which only takes a couple of minutes to cook.) So how do restaurants keep shoveling it out so quickly? A lot depends on the restaurant.

Most little mom and pop places cook pasta à la minute. I know that's French, but it's the accepted term in the culinary world for food that is cooked to order rather than being prepared in advance and held for later service. Some upscale specialty places cook pasta to order, too. But the majority of high-volume kitchens – those that get your plate out in about five minutes – rely on a technique called “double-cooking” when serving most pasta dishes. Caterers use the method as well because cooked pasta turns to unpalatable mush pretty quickly after more than a few minutes in a chafer or on a steam table. But it's not a procedure exclusive to the pros. Home cooks can do it, too.

Although I firmly believe it is always much better to cook pasta fresh and serve it right from the pot to the plate, sometimes – as in the aforementioned situations – that's not an option. So here's how you double-cook pasta:

First, it is imperative to start with good pasta. All pastas are emphatically not the same and you'll get much poorer performance out of that ten-pounds-for-a-dollar supermarket crap than you will out of a quality product like De Cecco or Barilla.

That said, prep and cook your pasta as you usually would, i.e. four to six quarts of water per pound of pasta, adding two or three tablespoons of salt to the water. Do not – let me italicize that – do not ever under any circumstances ever no matter what your friend or your auntie told you ever add oil to the pasta water! Keep the oil on hand for later in the process, but keep it out of the cooking water.

After you add the pasta to the salted water, give it a stir and stir it again about every three minutes. This, along with the right cooking vessel and the proper amount of water, will keep your pasta from sticking far more effectively than will dumping oil on the surface of the water.

Cook your pasta until it is just short of perfectly al dente. This is a cook's judgment call and involves actually tasting the pasta, but in general it means shaving a minute or two off the full cooking time.

Next up, immediately drain and chill the pasta. I mean immediately and chill. Don't let it sit in a colander and cool on the countertop or something. And don't just run it under cold tap water. In a restaurant you'd use a blast chiller or a walk-in cooler to get the pasta down to about 38° as quickly as possible. (Leave a pile of cooked pasta sitting out in a room temperature environment and in no time you'll have the healthiest little bacteria farm you've ever seen.) Most home kitchens – even mine – lack such equipment. But we do have ice and we do have refrigerators. So shock your slightly undercooked pasta in an ice bath and then drain it thoroughly. Normally you wouldn't drain pasta completely dry, but in this application, you do. Now you can break out the olive oil and give the drained pasta a little drizzle and shake. Don't drown it; a little goes a very long way. Actually, if you've cooked your pasta properly, you really shouldn't need the oil at all. Finally, stick it in an airtight container, and stash it in the fridge. If you've got a Food Saver or some other form of vacuum-sealing device, so much the better. That'll make things even easier later on.

You can actually hold cooked pasta this way for about 48 hours. I don't know that I would, but you can.

Okay, it's later. Your guests have arrived or your spouse has finally gotten home. You can do one of two things; if you cook like a typical American, you can heat up some sauce and, while it's heating, you can boil up another pot of water and put your already-prepared pasta in it for one or two minutes.* Then you can drain the pasta, dump the drained pasta on a plate and dump the heated sauce on top of the pasta and call it dinner. I wouldn't, but you can.

Or, if you cook like an Italian, you can heat up your sauce and let your chilled pasta cook in the same pan for a couple of minutes, tossing the pasta with the sauce as they cook together to completely and perfectly blend the flavors and textures. Your choice. I think you know what mine is.

So there you go. Cook like a restaurant chef and amaze your friends and family. Or at least make things a little easier on yourself next time you're in a tight spot.

Buona cucina e buona mangiare!

*(In my original post I wrote "Here's where the vacuum-sealed pouch is really convenient." At least one reader took that to mean I was advocating boiling the pasta in the bag. And you can actually do that provided you have a heat safe bag. FDA approved heat safe bags are available online and in some restaurant supply stores. But in general, plain plastic bags do not do well in boiling water. In the first place, they're usually not strong enough to withstand the heat and in the second place, there's a lot of concern about chemicals in plastic leaching into food. So unless you're using approved heat safe plastic, it's probably better to just open the vac sealed bag and dump the pasta in the boiling water, which is actually what I meant to say when I wrote what I wrote. Sorry for any misunderstandings. --RJ --)

Pizza On the MOON? Get the Airlock, It's Domino's

Space.....the final frontier. These are the voyages of the pizza delivery guy.

At least that's the scenario set forth by the Japanese division of Domino's Pizza. In the first place, I didn't even know there was a Japanese division of Domino's Pizza, but then again I haven't been paying much attention to the franchise since it decided to turn itself into an imitation of Papa John's. (Yeah, according to Domino's research, apparently I'm the one guy who liked things the way they were.)

But I digress. As the story – reported in The (London) Daily Telegraph – goes, “plans” have been made to erect a pizza parlor on the moon.

In what is an obviously transparent attempt to one-up Pizza Hut, who successfully “delivered” a pizza to the ISS back in 2001, Domino's – or at least the Japanese division thereof – says they've been kicking the idea around for about a year, but have not yet set a date for construction to begin.

And lest you think this is merely a publicity stunt – and who would be cynical enough to think that? – an actual construction firm has begun drawing up actual construction plans for what it says will be a two-story, steel-floored, dome shaped pizzeria luna, 84 feet wide, that will include a “fun room” and living quarters for the restaurant's staff.

But Japanese customers are going to have to buy a lot of squid pizza – a real favorite over there – in order to finance the proposal which is projected to cost about 21.8 billion dollars (or 1.67 trillion yen, if you prefer.) Fifteen rockets will be required to lift the 70 tons of building materials and pizza-making equipment to the lunar surface. To keep costs down, the plan calls for using local mineral deposits to make the necessary concrete and such. A building site has not yet been disclosed, but I'd shoot for the Mare Frigoris, located at 56.0° N, 1.4° E. This is the “Sea of Cold,” because I think it's gonna be a cold day in hell before any of this lunacy comes to pass.

According to a Domino's spokesman, “In the future, we anticipate there will be many people living on the moon, astronauts who are working there and, in the future, citizens of the moon.” And, in case you were wondering, they do plan to deliver. There are, after all, several perfectly good lunar rovers up there, abandoned by Apollo astronauts. I'm sure NASA wouldn't mind if Domino's stuck little light-up signs on top of them and used them for delivery vehicles. See, recycling and repurposing. More cost savings. I'll betcha they didn't think of that one. That's okay. I'll take payment for my contribution to the project in thin-crust pizza, please. I'll even toss in a slogan; “Get the airlock, it's Domino's.”

Unfortunately – because I didn't think of it first – I believe the Huffington Post's Laura Hibbard got in the best musical lick of the day with her, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore. Or it could be astronauts eating Domino's pizza in space.” But I've still got to try. Here goes. “Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Let me order pizza for friends on Jupiter and Mars.”

Eh. I'll work on it. Somebody order me a pizza!

Easy, Delicious Roasted Potatoes

I love potatoes. I love them mashed, baked, or fried. Give 'em to me scalloped or au gratin. I love them enrobed in a rich cream sauce or just boiled up, cut up, and served swimming in butter. You can flavor them with herbs, garlic, cheese, or just about anything, or you can simply season them with salt and pepper. What a versatile vegetable! I have dozens of potato recipes in my collection.

Most people don't equate potatoes with Italian cooking. And while it is true that potatoes are not as pervasive in Italian cooking as they are in other European cuisines, they are, nonetheless, quite popular all the way from Sicily to the Alps. A favorite Italian contorno di patate is the simple roasted potato.

Did I mention that I love potatoes? This, of course, includes the simple roasted potato. As a cook, one of the reasons I love this dish so much is precisely because it is so simple. As a potato aficionado, I love this dish for its delicious flavors and interesting textural contrasts.

Now, before I delve into the nuts and bolts of the recipe – and there aren't many to delve into – let's talk briefly about potatoes.

Idahoan Luther Burbank developed the most ubiquitous variety of potato, and it bears his name; the Russet Burbank Potato. Most folks, myself included, just call them “russets.” Some call them “Idahoes,” some just refer to them functionally as baking or all-purpose potatoes, the latter being something of a misnomer because they really aren't good for all purposes. Russets are a high-starch, low-moisture potato. This makes them perfect for baking and mashing and other applications where a light, fluffy texture is desired. They also make great French fries. But they don't hold up as well in long-cooking dishes like soups and stews, where they tend to lose their shapes and fall apart. Used for roasting, they hold up well enough, but become rather dry on the inside and they don't brown particularly well on the outside.

The same is true of medium-starch varieties like the Yukon Gold, the Yellow Finn, or the Kennebec. Lower in starch, these varieties are also considered “all-purpose” potatoes, but suffer the same limitations as their starchier cousins when subjected to boiling, roasting, or similar long-cooking techniques.

Low-starch, high-moisture potatoes are best for dishes that call for boiling or roasting. They hold together well and, in the case of roasting, produce a nice, light crust on the outside while maintaining a solid, dense interior that retains all its rich and complex flavors. Red Bliss, new, white rose, and fingerling potatoes are among the varieties that fall into this category.

As to the recipe – well, I mentioned that I have dozens of potato recipes. Up until recently I had six just for basic roasted potatoes, including one written entirely in Italian. These recipes were all variations on the same theme and all were comprised of the same basic ingredients and techniques, including a parboiling step for the potatoes. Then I discovered a recipe perfected by the “Cook's Illustrated” folks at America's Test Kitchen that absolutely wowed me into discarding all the other recipes. The “wow” factor came in the elimination of the parboiling.

Now, there's nothing wrong with parboiling and if you still want to do it, go right ahead. When the finished product comes out of the oven, it will have the desired soft, dense, moist, flavorful interior. But the test kitchen wizards discovered that covering the potatoes with foil for a portion of their roasting time causes them to steam in their own moisture, producing the same delicious results but eliminating one time-consuming step.

So here's my new favorite roasted potato recipe, as found in the pages of “Cook's Illustrated” with a couple of variations on my part. It's so simple, you'll love it, too.

ROASTED POTATOES

(Patate Arrosto)

2 pounds Red Bliss or other low-starch potatoes, scrubbed, dried, halved, and cut into 3 /4-inch wedges. (Unless the potatoes are very small, in which case you should just halve them.)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Pinch of dried thyme, to taste

Place the oven rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 425°.

Add the olive oil to a medium to large bowl, add the potatoes and toss to coat. Generously season with salt, pepper, and thyme and toss again to blend.

Place the potatoes, cut sides down, in a single layer on a shallow roasting pan. Cover tightly with foil and bake for about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to roast until the sides touching the pan are golden brown, about 10 or 15 minutes more. Gently turn the potatoes so the other cut side is touching the pan and roast another 5 or 10 minutes, or until the cut sides are golden brown and the skin side is lightly wrinkled. (If you are using small halves instead of wedges, just turn them cut side up for the final 5 or 10 minutes.)

Transfer to a serving dish and serve hot or warm.

Serves 4

A nice variation from “Cook's” calls for making a paste from two minced garlic cloves and an eighth-teaspoon of salt, putting the paste in a bowl and tossing the finished potatoes in it before serving.

Another variation involves cooking up and crumbling some bacon, adding some of the bacon drippings to the roasting pan before layering in the potatoes, and then toppping the potatoes with the crumbled bacon, some crushed or finely-minced garlic, some finely shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano and a little parsley for the final 10 minutes of cooking. It makes for a nice dish with an interesting flavor profile, but it's a little more complicated. And the bacon, garlic, and cheese flavors may not “go” with everything.

Buon appetito!

70 Years of Cheerios

I just returned from the grocery store where I picked up a bright yellow box of Cheerios. And now that I think about it, it's something I've been doing all my life. I can't remember not eating Cheerios.

To say that the toasted oat cereal produced at General Mills' Buffalo, New York facility is an icon would be something of an understatement. According to a number of surveys, it is the top-selling brand of breakfast cereal in the United States and it is similarly popular in several other countries around the world. (The original Cheerios reigned supreme for decades, but has recently been overtaken by the “Honey Nut” version of the brand.) At the same time, the little golden “o”s have been around for so long that most folks just take them for granted. So let's take a few minutes to delve into some things you may or may not know about one of the world's most celebrated breakfast foods.

To begin at the beginning, we need to light up seventy birthday candles for Cheerios, born back in 1941. Originally, it was called “Cheerioats,” a name which only stuck around for about four years. (Unless you were my grandmother, who persisted in referring to the product as “Cheerioats” for about the next forty years.)

Lester Borchardt invented “Cheerioats,” working for months to perfect the “puffing” technique that ultimately resulted in the now familiar circular shape. (Factoid: Cheerios are made by heating up little balls of dough made from grains, water, and other ingredients, forming the spheres into “o”s and then shooting them out of a puffing gun at 100 mph. They are then toasted and packaged.)

Considering that in those days most folks thought of oats as horse food rather than people food, Cheerioats did remarkably well in it's first year. General Mills shipped out 1.8 million cases – at twelve boxes per case – in 1941 alone.

Shortly after the initial roll out, Cheerioats acquired a mascot. A cereal's got to have a mascot, right? “Trix” has the rabbit, “Lucky Charms” has the leprechaun, “Rice Krispies” has Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and “Cap'n Crunch” has … well, that one's pretty obvious. But few people remember a dark-haired little girl named “Cheeri O'Leary” who used to appear on boxes of “Cheerioats.” Her main job was to provide brief bios of popular movie stars and to pitch the cereal's first slogan; “The Breakfast Food You've Always Wanted.” Catchy, huh?

“Cheer Up With Cheerioats” soon followed and “Cheerioats – For Fighters On the Homefront” was a patriotic slogan introduced during the war years. According to some sources, the Quaker Oats people had a little dust up with General Mills over the “oats” part of the product name, so, in 1945, ad-man Fred T. Leighty, inspired by the “o” shape of the cereal, dropped a couple of letters and rechristened it as “Cheerios – The First Ready To Eat Oat Cereal.” (Ready to eat as opposed to Quaker's oatmeal product, which had to be cooked.)

That's also about the time “Joe Idea,” a red-haired boy in a striped shirt, began to appear on side panels of Cheerioats/Cheerios. But, alas, Joe didn't hang around long either.

The champion Cheerios mascot, the “Cheerios Kid,” was introduced in 1953 and he represented the product for most of the next thirty years. He was kind of a Popeye-like character, somewhat clumsy and inept until he “powered up” with Cheerios. Transforming into a trim and athletic-looking hero in his blue pants and white t-shirt, the “Kid” then saved the day for his gal pal “Sue.” The “Kid” emphasized the “power” of Cheerios in slogans that hyped “GO power” and the “pow-pow powerful feeling” imparted by the product. He hung out with some pretty heavy hitters over the years, including “Bullwinkle” in 1966 and 1967.

Other cartoon characters who briefly pitched for Cheerios include “Hoppity Hooper” – of whose 1960's TV program General Mills was a primary sponsor – and members of the “Peanuts” gang. There was even a '70s-vintage ad campaign that featured a yodeling stick figure. The “Kid” made a brief comeback in the '80s. And then it seems General Mills decided the cereal needed to grow up. The focus became “Nutrition. That’s the Cheerios Tradition” and “Oats, the Grain Highest in Protein” and cartoon character salesmen became obsolete.

So successful was the “healthy” sales angle that General Mills soon found itself in deep water – or perhaps milk – with the federal government.

Emerging nutritional science cited soluble fiber contained in whole grain food products, such as oats, as being a cholesterol buster. Cheerios began touting itself as “heart-healthy” and claiming that consumption of Cheerios could reduce cholesterol levels by four percent in six weeks. Labeling unequivocally stated that Cheerios was “clinically proven to lower cholesterol. A clinical study showed that eating two 1½ cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol."

The Food and Drug Administration took offense to what it saw as an attempt by General Mills to market an unapproved new drug and sent the company a letter to that effect in May, 2009. Nobody said Cheerios wasn't a good product. In fact, the head of the FDA's Center for Food Safety opined that Cheerios was “a product that can be part of a healthy diet.” The Fed just didn't like the marketing hyperbole that could be misconstrued as drug advertisement. Although Cheerios did subsequently lower the volume a little bit, they still maintain, “Original Cheerios® cereal and Honey Nut Cheerios cereal have soluble fiber from whole grain oats. This type of soluble fiber acts like a kind of 'sponge,' soaking up some of the cholesterol in the body so that the body can get rid of it naturally. Lowering cholesterol can lower the risk of clogged arteries and heart disease. Additionally, original Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios are naturally cholesterol free. It's nice when foods with good ingredients also taste good. This is just part of the wisdom in using whole grain oats.” (www.cheerios.com)

Honey Nut Cheerios, of course, refers to the wildly popular companion to the original cereal that was introduced in 1979. In fact, the Cheerios family has grown quite large since 1941. Besides the “Honey Nut” variety, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios joined the fold in 1988; MultiGrain Cheerios came about in 1992; Frosted Cheerios were added in 1995; Berry Burst Cheerios burst upon the scene in 2001 and Chocolate Cheerios appeared on shelves in 2010. Lest we forget someone, the family also includes Banana Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, Cheerios Crunch, Fruity Cheerios, and Yogurt Burst Cheerios. Additionally, “Cheerios and Xs” made a brief appearance in the early '90s and “Millenios,” featuring little “2”s, saw limited marketing in 1999 – 2000.

Cheerios represents something of an odd duck in the breakfast cereal flock. It's not a sugar-laden kiddie cereal. As referenced above, the primary marketing focus these days is directed toward health-conscious adults. But at the same time, Cheerios is a very “kid-friendly” cereal. Face it, everybody who has ever had kids – myself included – knows what it's like to pick up Cheerios scattered all over the house. The little toasted “o”s are the first finger food many babies and toddlers learn to eat.

The various varieties are just insanely good as ingredients in everything from trail mix to snack bars to muffins and cookies. Yes, you can even make marshmallow treats with Cheerios. Believe it or not, I have a holiday recipe that sculpts Cheerios into little Christmas trees.

And just in case you've ever wondered, it would take 3,155,524,416 Cheerios to encircle the Earth. If you'd like to verify that statistic, go ahead and start lining them up. I'll just dump a few hundred in a bowl and eat 'em, if it's all the same to you.

A Weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee

A few highlights from a recent wonderful weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Highlight number one: our accommodations at the fabulous Chattanooga Choo-Choo. We arrived in Chattanooga about mid-evening on a Friday and had no trouble at all finding our way to the Choo-Choo. (What did we all do before GPS?) Checking in at the front desk located in the historic and beautiful Terminal Station was almost worth the entire trip. The magnificent dome, preserved in its pristine 1908 condition, is a must-see whether you're staying at the hotel or not. But do stay, because the fun is just beginning.

A few Internet “reviewers” made some negative comments about the Choo-Choo, mostly focused on the age of the place and its lack of modern amenities. Ignore them. If you want new, Chattanooga overflows with shiny new places. If you want luxurious, the city's got more than a few of those, too. But if you want unique and historic, there's only one Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

There are a couple of options to consider when staying at the Choo-Choo. One is the railroad cars. Actual vintage rail cars have been converted to modern hotel rooms with each car being divided into two rooms. Okay, so the amenities are not those of a downtown Hilton, but, hey, we're talking about a converted piece of antique railroad history here. Its clean and comfortable and as well-appointed as space allows.

Other accommodations can be found in one of the three “regular” hotel buildings that dot the property. We had a nice king room in Building #1 and it was a perfectly adequate room. No, it didn't have a mini-bar or a microfridge, but it was clean and it had a comfortable bed, a good TV, appropriate side furnishings, a nice tub and shower – all the things a decent room should have. I particularly liked the fact that the heat and air were controlled by a thermostat set in the wall rather than by a loud, clunky unit stuck in or under a window. Parking was adequate and convenient and we were lucky in that Building #1 has an indoor pool. The other two buildings have outdoor pools.

After settling in, we strolled the grounds. Wow! Try to picture an old-time train station platform with a beautiful garden running through it. There are tracks on two sides of the platform upon which the converted rail cars sit, but the remaining tracks have been replaced by gardens and gazebos and even a pond stocked with koi and populated by rather noisy frogs. Gas torches light the area at night, providing an ambiance that can be peaceful or quaint or romantic or almost anything your imagination wants it to be.

There are a number of eateries around the property. Two of them are contained in renovated dining cars. One is a fine-dining establishment and the other is a pizza place. I had to go for the pizza place and was not disappointed. The pizza was great and the price ridiculously cheap. I've paid more for less at chain pizza joints.

Exiting the air-conditioned pizza car into a muggy but pleasant evening, we window shopped some of the unique little stores until we found the ice cream shop. A nice completion of our evening meal.

As we continued our stroll, we came upon a pair of horse-drawn carriages. The driver of our carriage was friendly and informative and the ride itself was both fun and romantic. And reasonable, I might add, priced lower than similar rides I've taken in places like Atlanta, Charleston, and Austin.

Next morning we grabbed a quick bite – muffins and Danish – at a little coffee shop on the premises before embarking on our day in downtown Chattanooga. The city operates a wonderful little electric shuttle service in the downtown area. One terminal is right at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and the other is just steps away from the fabulous Tennessee Aquarium, our ultimate destination for the day.

It is just flatly amazing what the Aquarium has done to and for downtown Chattanooga. I first visited the place just a few weeks after it opened back in 1992. Let me tell you, when you came out of the Aquarium at that time, all you wanted to do was get safely to your car and get the hell out of the area. Not so anymore! The Aquarium has brought about a transformation to the Chattanooga downtown riverfront area for which there are simply no words. I might try “beautiful,” “exciting,” “vibrant,” or any of a number of other superlatives, but you really have to see it to believe it. And it's all the more stunning if you have a reference point from years ago.

The Aquarium itself, with its twin River Journey and Ocean Journey exhibits, is something that will take at least a half-day to properly experience. You can rush through in a couple of hours but don't. There's a reason the place is billed as “the highest rated aquarium in America” and is consistently cited as being “number one for guest satisfaction.” The River Journey building, housing the largest freshwater tank in the world, will take a little longer to tour than the newer, smaller Ocean Journey, but don't cheat yourself out of a minute. And the commodious plaza surrounding the facility is usually a pretty hopping place, too. There was a neat little street fair going on the day we visited and we spent some time shopping the vendors and enjoying the live music.

Two aspects of the Aquarium of which we did not take advantage this time were the IMAX theater and the River Gorge Explorer, the latter being a 70-passenger high-speed catamaran that cruises into Tennessee's “Grand Canyon,” the Tennessee River Gorge. We'll do both next time, though.

It's safe to say that the area surrounding the Aquarium could take days to properly explore. We didn't have days, so we just hit the highlights, one of which was the beautiful Tennessee Riverwalk, a thirteen mile path that parallels the Tennessee River from the Chickamauga Dam to the downtown area. We didn't traverse the whole thing, of course, but we did follow it for a short distance from the Aquarium up to the Walnut Street Bridge. Gotta go there, folks.

The Walnut Street Bridge is a truss bridge built in 1890 to span the river. The bridge, which has a rich history of its own, carried vehicular traffic up until 1978. After years of neglect and disuse, the structure was renovated, its asphalt surface replaced by wood planks, and it now serves as a popular pedestrian walkway linking downtown Chattanooga to Coolidge Park and its beautifully restored hand-carved wooden carousel. At 2,376 feet, it is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world. Providing a dynamic view of the city by day and a romantic one at night, the Walnut Street Bridge is not to be missed.

Not far from the Riverwalk and the Bridge is the Bluff View Art District. Here, among the artistic treasures like the Hunter Museum of American Art, can be found some great culinary treasures. I speak in particular of Tony's Pasta Shop and Trattoria.

Once again, there were a few online naysayers who complained about wait times and such. Once again, ignore them. The place is worth the wait. Tony's came highly recommended by a couple of locals, including a desk clerk at the Choo-Choo. A local recommendation always scores points with me.

Located in a renovated Victorian carriage house on the appropriately named High Street, Tony's is a hidden treasure worth seeking out. Now, a tour guide in the downtown area commented that the city must be proud of the few parking spots they have judging from the prices they charge for them. Having ridden the shuttle into downtown, we wound up hoofing it up a hill that was totally inappropriate for an old fat guy and a woman in high heels. In so doing, of course, we worked up quite an appetite and were really looking forward to dinner.

Okay, the place doesn't do reservations and we had to wait to be seated. Twenty-five minutes. Whoopee! I've waited longer at Olive Gardens. And Olive Gardens don't have the wonderful terraces and beautiful views that Tony's has.

Once seated, we were well taken care of by a friendly and efficient waitstaff. And the food was fantastic. I have a thing that I do at new restaurants; I always try the simplest dish first to see how the kitchen does with the basics. If they screw up a plate of spaghetti marinara then I don't hold out much hope for anything else. Tony's most definitely knows how to handle the basics. The pasta fresca was perfectly al dente and the marinara fatta in casa was robust and flavorful. The acid to sweet balance was just right and the herbs and spices were beautifully balanced as well. The online dolt who complained that the sauce tasted “like it came out of a jar” has obviously never had sauce that didn't come out of a jar. The rich dill cream sauce that enrobed my wife's lobster ravioli was similarly tasty and delightful. We split a portion of decadent Italian cream cake, then headed back down the hill, fearing that if we tripped we would surely roll all the way to the bottom.

In short, Tony's was a delight and I will go back there every time I'm in Chattanooga.

After a fabulous dinner, we watched from the Walnut Street Bridge as fireworks filled the downtown skies and then caught the last shuttle back to the Choo-Choo to complete a wonderful day.

Following a great Sunday morning breakfast at the on-premises Garden Restaurant, we took a little twenty-minute tour of the property aboard a 1924-vintage trolley that had seen many years of service in New Orleans before being “retired” to the Choo-Choo complex. As was the case with everybody we met, the conductor was friendly and informative as he pointed out the various historic aspects of the old railroad yard.

Before leaving town we stopped by the Chattanooga Duck station in time to catch the noon duck. I will assume the reader understands that the ducks in question are WWII surplus amphibious vehicles rather than waterfowl. I had ridden a duck many years ago in Wisconsin Dells, but my wife had never had the experience. (We tried to board the ducks in Austin, Texas a few years ago, but were prevented from doing so by excessive flooding. Imagine. A duck being grounded by too much water!)

What a blast! The captain was absolutely marvelous. He was funny, entertaining, informative, laid back, energetic, friendly, authoritative – all at the same time! The splashdown from the city street into the water was exhilarating and the lazy cruise up and down the river – the boat tops out at about six miles per hour – was relaxing and enjoyable. It seemed we were the odd couple among a boatload of teenagers from an Alabama church, but absolutely everybody had a great time.

We left Chattanooga behind with the full realization that we had not even scratched the surface of all that was available to us in the Scenic City. We did not look at any of the Lookout Mountain attractions. We did not see Rock City as dozens of signs had advised us to do. Ruby Falls remained unexplored and we were disinclined to ride the Incline Railroad. And there was no way to fit the shopping mecca that is Hamilton Place Mall into our schedule. You really can't do it all in one weekend. All those attractions – and more – will have to wait for another time. And there will be another time.

In the meantime, here are some places to check out for more information on the Chattanooga attractions we explored. Go. See. Enjoy.

The Chattanooga Choo-Choo: http://www.choochoo.com
The Tennessee Aquarium: http://www.tnaqua.org
Tony's Pasta Shop and Trattoria: http://www.bluffviewartdistrict.com
Chattanooga Ducks: http://www.chattanoogaducks.com

Everything else: http://www.chattanoogafun.com/attractions