July Round Up

The July Round Up

80/20 Cooking Cohort #2

This past May I announced 80/20 Cooking, a cohort course where I teach the knowledge and practical skills to cook at home without recipes. We wrapped up the first cohort last month, and it was awesome. Now I’m working on a few changes and improvements to the course for cohort #2. I can’t wait.

Here’s a quick recap of what’s involved in this course:

• learning sessions that cover foundational knowledge and techniques

• live cooking demos where I show the week’s core recipe, demonstrate techniques live, and answer questions

• access to a Circle community to connect with other curious home cooks, get direct access to me for any questions, and share your progress with other students

• a self-paced library of videos covering basic kitchen skills (kitchen setup, mise en place, various knife skills, prep, and more)

• access to a library of recipes, technique breakdowns, and guides, plus all recorded materials from the course

PLUS a few other fun things I’m working on for this upcoming session.

I’m currently in the process of finalizing dates for cohort #2. It will happen some time in September / October of this year. If you’d like to be notified directly with more information when enrollment goes live, you can sign up here.

What I’m Reading

Francis Mallmann is Playing with Fire - Departures

It’s always fascinating to drop into the mind of Francis Mallmann, open-fire maestro and one of the most interesting chefs alive. It would be something of a dream for me to go out to his island and Patagonia and cook with him. This is actually something you can do— but it’s not cheap.

Texas BBQ Is the Best It Has Ever Been - NYT

This is a cool feature from the NYT about some of the new-wave BBQ happening in Texas. Some of my favorite BBQ spots that I tried in Austin— KGBBQ and Distant Relatives, among others— were far from “traditional.” Thanks to this article I now have a whole list of other spots I want to try in Lockhart, Houston, and Dallas.

How second-generation owners of 99 Ranch are turning the Asian supermarket into a national powerhouse - LA Times

I first discovered the joys of 99 Ranch when living in Austin. Very cool to hear the story about the family business behind it.

What I’m Listening To

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin is my new favorite podcast. Long, in-depth conversations with a variety of creative masterminds and interesting people (many of whom don’t appear much, if ever, on the popular podcast circuit).

His recent episode with John Mayer was fantastic.

The Thermapen

Recently I did some research into meat thermometers (after dealing with some inconsistency with the one I owned) and came across the Thermapen. It’s pretty universally regarded by chefs as the best in the business— Alton Brown, J. Kenji Lopez Alt, and others swear by it.

I’m now the proud owner of one and I can see why it’s so popular. If you need a reliable, high-quality meat thermometer, look no further.

Sofreh

One of the best meals I’ve had in NYC recently was at Sofreh, a Persian restaurant in Brooklyn. I’ve become really fascinated by Persian food recently— it has a lot of overlap with other Middle Eastern cuisines, but many of the flavors and dishes are just totally unique and brand new to me. That process of discovering new dishes and flavor combinations is one of my favorite things in the world. If you live in New York or are visiting the city, don’t miss this place.

I was also super happy to discover that the chef wrote a cookbook, which I’m planning to pick up. Check it out if you’re interested.