This is going to be good. Super Bowl? Meh. Olympics? Whatever. Those guys who kick balls that look like panda heads? Yawn.
On May 5, Food52 takes on Cook's Illustrated!
It's an interesting match. Cook's Illustrated is my favorite food magazine. Here's what I said about it in 2003:
If I could only have one, this would be it. It's for food geeks.
Their primary strength is that they take a dish -- meat loaf, lasagna, pound cake, whatever -- and develop the perfect recipe and methods. They study dozens or hundreds of recipes, test countless variations, and tweak absolutely everything. They might cook something dozens of times as they home is on perfection. They also test shortcuts (do you really have to cream the butter and the sugar? How long do you really have to marinate? Can inexpensive olive oil work in this dish?), so they are not just optimizing the dish, they also have efficiency in mind.
Food blog Food52 has a different idea: a consensus of cooks will produce a superior recipe. They invite readers to submit recipes, which they test and reveal a winner.
The challenge: A sugar cookie and roast pork shoulder recipe from each publication, developed using their pet methods, will be put up for a vote. Slate.com will host the contest starting on May 5.
The whole story is on Salon.com.
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