©2008 Harry Kenney

Well, I’m back after my “hiatus”. My initial thought was to put up one of the maybe dozen new dishes I’ve made over the past several months. Instead, I’m starting back up with my most very recent meal. I got a bit more adventurous the other night, making something competely new for me and it turned out so well I’m going to share that one first.

But before doing that I want to talk about taste or maybe it would be more accurate to call this the “conveyance of taste”. Now I consider myself as having a pretty good palate. Mind you, I haven’t yet taken any blind food tests — although to sate my own curiosity I have a friend who promises when she gets a chance that we’ll do one. I always watch Hell’s Kitchen and each season it’s amazing to see how trained chefs can’t tell the difference between an apple and a piece of potato when blindfolded. Ok, I’m on a bit of a tangent; let me get back to the heart of the matter here, which is, in this case arugula.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

One thing you know about the way I do things, for those who follow me, is that besides pointing out tips I point out the rough spots, the mistakes that I’ve made on a previous version or how to correct mistakes if they’re made. What you don’t see (though I sometimes talk about) are the once in a while big flops.

Yes, I have them too. We all do. (You might find some comfort in that.) Maybe I made a silly mistake that flopped the whole thing. Once in a while the technique I used was the downfall — as when I tried too tough a cut of beef for shish kabobs. Sometimes I misjudge as with a recent braised Swiss chard recipe where by (having not used it before) I totally miscalculated the amount of shrinkage and so the other ingredients in the dish came out in too much proportions.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Seems lately I’ve been doing some pairings. First the pesto then the pasta. Another day, a side and then a soup to go with it. Today, something similiar. I’ve made two Greek salad dressings and tomorrow or the next day I’ll put up the Greek salad that goes with it.

I told you I got into a bit of a “rut” doing a lot of Italian and Italian-American food. Well, rut is a negative word and I’m not pinning that in any way on the food, just the lack of variety. So you’ll also notice that I’m taking a more global walk on the wild side. Why? Pretty simple. I love all kinds of food. And fortunately seemingly every country, and often smaller regions of countries, have contributed major food items or at least nuances to the overall food tapestry of what we eat.

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I’ll no doubt add to this later — that is, I can easily see having a bunch of little articles on the topic of “cooking math” — but for now, there’s some simple little rules you should know about certain things. We’re talking quantities and proportions, or to put it another way: just how much of what goes with (or into) what.

Funny thing is, a lot of this stuff I’ve stumbled on over time … You can watch these cooking shows on TV and almost never be told the proportions. And hey, let’s face it. As much as one might want to, we just don’t always run back here on the web to find out the recipe of the show that was just on. That means you need a fall-back, a guideline, a rule of thumb.

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