Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.

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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Using Salt = Cheating (December 2006)
Salt, when overused, blinds your taste buds and covers up your food's true flavors. Here's how to de-condition your palate away from salt. With a bonus recipe for Easy Split Pea Soup.

Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking (December 2006)
Seven practical and specific tips that will make you into an efficient cooking machine. This was one of the first high-traffic posts in CK's history.

Shrimp in Garlic Sauce (Camarones Ajillo) (December 2007)
A spectacularly good and shockingly easy recipe from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Daisy Cooks. I promise it will be one of your best meals of the year.

Pasta With Roasted Red Pepper Sauce (December 2008)
It's almost unfair that a sauce this good can be this easy to make.

Survivor Bias: Why "Big Food" Isn't Quite As Evil As You Think (December 2009)
Who's really selecting the foods on our grocery store shelves? We are. That's right: fattening and unhealthy foods are on our store shelves because we put them there. Read this post to see how and why.




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4 comments:

Sally said...

"You may as well say that ALL seasonings are to cover up the flavor of food." Anonymous

I agree. I think herbs and spices cover up or alter the flavor of food far more than salt does. In fact, I often decrease the amount of herbs/spices precisely because it does cover up the taste of food too much.

Melissa said...

I think all spices cover or alter to some degree... or you can say they enhance. But then, I also think that's what salt does. And I think it's needed in food, probably more than you do, Dan, so we will continue to disagree on this one.

That shrimp in garlic sauce is DELICIOUS. So is the pasta with roasted red pepper sauce. Both awesome, classic recipes here on CK.

Daniel said...

I'm glad there's at least a discussion on the salt subject. I'm militant about salt--except once in a while when I'm not--and it's okay that people disagree with me. I just wish that processed food (and in many cases restaurant food) wasn't so oversalted, because I believe it has conditioned our palates to eat more of it than we need.

Regarding Sally's point, I guess I only would disagree to the extent that, unlike salt, I don't know of any other seasonings are unhealthy when eaten to excess. Thus if you want to drown your food in cumin or cinnamon for example, you aren't risking your blood pressure by doing so.

And Melissa, despite our many disagreements (hehe, not!) I can always count on you for great recipe feedback. Thank you.

DK

Sally said...

Just about anything consumed in excess can be dangerous, especially in the presence of some health conditions or in combination with some medications.