Cooking Dried Beans

by Kitchen Shaman | Oct 18, 2010 | Food Knowledge & History

There is a large variety of legumes (beans) in the world, over 4,000 have been categorized. To further complicate matters, there are fresh beans, classified as vegetables, and then there are pulses (legumes). I’ll leave it to wikepedia, and other sources to sort this all out for you, while we continue on to how to process legumes, the dried bean.

In my kitchen, I’ve learned to appreciate more then just the pinto bean, which is one of the most highly consumed beans in the southwest. There are black or turtle beans, fava or broad beans, chickpeas and garbanzos. I’m working on incorporating anasazi beans, and white beans. These form the basis of our protein diet, since my partner is gluten-free and cannot consume wheat for protein. read more

Great Culinary Adventure

by Kitchen Shaman | Jul 31, 2010 | Perspective

Some days are just meant for great culinary adventures. Today I started out at the Market. I spotted fresh Fava beans (which I am still trying to figure out), and thought, what would go good with these? There was good looking swiss chard. I like sexy food, and swiss chard is one of my favorites. I grabbed some staples, and what was on my list, then spotted the Hawaiian Papayas. Expensive, but I love these papayas. They are smaller then their cousins the Mexican papaya, and typically sweeter. I figured I was just going to eat it. Uh-uh. read more

Erotic Food

by Kitchen Shaman | Apr 29, 2009 | Books, Food Photography

Recently I reacquainted myself with Matt Freedman Photography. He’s been working with Chef Tiberio Simone, originally from Italy, now based in Seattle, on a project that marries food and photography, two of my greatest loves.

Freedman has done extensive work on The Burning Man project, and photographs many subjects. Chef Simone is based in Seattle, and is a James Beard Award Winner. The combining of these two talents has resulted in the book titled La Figa: Visions of food and form, due out sometime this year. They will be showing and performing in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, May 1st-3d. That’s this coming weekend. read more

How I learned to be a right-handed Chef

by Kitchen Shaman | Jul 11, 2007 | Perspective

A few weeks ago, my partner and I were preparing to move. I was pushing, not carrying, boxes down the hallway, and one slipped off the other, and I fell. My thumb was extended from my hand and the result is a severely damaged ligament in my thumb on my dominant hand.

I’ve been in a cast/removeable splint since the accident on 6/20. Consequently, I have not been working. (It’s a good thing, it is off-season for Southern Arizona!) I’ve had three sets of x-rays, and a session in the MRI tube. (now dubbed the wooba-wooba machine).
What’s any of this got to do with cooking? Well, I can’t work, and I can’t really cook at home. Since we just moved and I’m injured, the new kitchen took over a week to put together, and I’m still not sure I like the way I’ve got it set up. read more

Tag: adventure