I keep running into a roadblock with my recipes. Salting is the key element to seasoning food, and I don't know how much salt to tell people to use.

I use Diamond Crystal Kosher salt because I salt by hand. The big crystals of Kosher salt are easy to grab and sprinkle, unlike table salt, which has such tiny crystals that I can't get hold of it. I know that a two finger pinch of Diamond Crystal Kosher gives me a half teaspoon of salt. (Yes, I measured.) I've been using it for a while, and I have a good feel for how it works.

But when someone takes that into their own kitchen, with their own fingers and a different brand of salt, what does it mean?

With salt, density matters*. I've read that Diamond Crystal Kosher salt, with its large flakes, weighs half as much by volume as table salt, with its tiny grains. In other words, a half cup of table salt packs in as much salt as a whole cup of Diamond Crystal. (Morton's Kosher supposedly weighs in between the two, at ¾ cup).
*Salt...it is your density.

I should take this information at face value. It's from Cooks Illustrated, so I'm sure they did their research. But I am borderline obsessive-compulsive thorough. I decided to measure all the different types of salt I use, from ultra-fine grained pickling salt to Maldon sea salt with its huge flakes.

Conversion Chart

To convert from one salt to another: The row is the salt the recipe calls for, and the column is the salt you want. Find the row for the recipe's salt, then move to the right until you get to the column of the salt you have, and multiply the amount in the recipe by that number. (Then I cheat a little, and round to the nearest number that matches my measuring spoons.)

Example 1: A recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, and you have Mortons Kosher salt. Find the Diamond Crystal row, go across until you get to the Mortons Kosher column, 0.7. The multiplication is easy: you want 1 x 0.7 = 0.7 tablespoons. (Since I know a tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, and 3*0.7 = 2.1 teaspoons, I round down a little and use 2 teaspoons of Mortons.)

Example 2: A recipe calls for 1 teaspoon table salt, and you have RealSalt fine sea salt. Find the Mortons table salt row (1st row), then go across until you get the RealSalt fine sea salt column, 1.2. You need 1.2 teaspoons of fine sea salt. (And I would round up to 1.25 teaspoons to make for easy measuring).

Data

Here are the raw numbers:

What did I learn from this?

• Cooks Illustrated was right. A half cup of table salt equals ¾ cup of Mortons Kosher equals 1 cup of Diamond Crystal. Roughly - it slightly over weights table salt and under weights Morton's Kosher, but it's close enough.
• Fine sea salt is not a 1:1 replacement for table salt. I buy fine sea salt from the bulk bin at my local health food store at $0.69/lb, and use it as table salt in my baking recipes. I assumed fine sea salt has the same crystal size as table salt. Oops. Turns out, fine sea salt is closer by weight to Morton's Kosher than it is to table salt. Sea salt must have a crystal with more air in it than table salt. If you'll excuse me, I have to go fix a few of the recipes in my archives…

• Fine sea salt and coarse sea salt have the same density: I assumed coarse sea salt would be lighter than fine sea salt. Nope, wrong again. They are basically identical; in my tests they were within a couple grams of each other, with the coarse sea salt weighing a tiny bit more than the fine sea salt.
• Morton's Kosher salt is not quite weight specific. I read that Morton's Kosher was designed so that its weight would match water, for use in sausage making. Since a pint (of water) is a pound the world around, a pint of Morton's Kosher should also be a pound. Close, but not quite. By my measurements, two cups of Morton's Kosher weigh one pound, one and a half ounces.
• Pickling salt has the same weight as table salt: I expected pickling salt to be heavier than table salt; I heard it had even smaller grains, to help it dissolve faster. It turns out the two are almost exactly the same weight. Table salt is ever so slightly heavier. So, why use pickling salt when pickling? Table salt has added ingredients to keep the salt pourable in humid environments. (Like the ad says, "When it rains, it pours.") Those extra ingredients make pickle brines cloudy. Other than that, pickling salt and table salt are the same thing.

Oh, and the Maldon salt? It is amazing. The flakes are huge and airy. It is a great finishing salt, sprinkled on just before serving. It adds a hit of salty crunch without over-salting the food. Don't use it any sooner in cooking, though, or it will dissolve. There is no difference between dissolved Maldon, Kosher, or table salt - they're just salt at that point. Maldon is very expensive to be "just salt".

What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

Related Posts:

Ingredient questions that I get asked a lot:
A Stalk of Celery vs a Rib of Celery?
Onion Size, or How Big is a Large Onion?
What does Season To Taste mean, exactly?
Things I Love: Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

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I love bright, vibrant colors. That's why I'm so attached to Fiesta ware. I buy new colors as soon as they're released, to add variety to my pictures.
*Yes, I'm an addict. I can quit any time I want. Wait, is that marigold? I must have it.

A friend who grew up in Pittsburgh saw my stack of multicolored plates and said "Is that Fiestaware? My mom would make special trips to their factory store…" What's that? Factory store? Only an hour and a half away? Road trip!

Homer Laughlin is in Newell, West Virginia, at the tip of the Northern panhandle, sandwiched between Ohio and Pennsylvania.
*If you are scared of heights and coming from Ohio, like me, ignore the directions that take you over the Newell Bridge. It is a historical landmark, a fine example of early 20th century steel suspension bridges, with a roadbed of open mesh steel. It felt like driving across a fine mesh strainer. All I could think of was how far down the Ohio river was…and what a great view of it I had through the road. I sang Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy to avoid a panic attack.
**"Don't worry, be happy now. Oooh, ooooh ooo ooh…"

There are two sides to the store. The first is the Homer Laughlin Retail Store, with a beautiful display of all currently available Fiesta ware. The prices are roughly the same as in regular stores, except for some seasonal sales, and sales on discontinued pieces. The selction is impressive - every single piece in every available color. For a Fiesta fanatic like me, it felt like a candy shop. Looked like one too, with all the colors.
*I want…no, want is too soft. I need the limited edition marigold soup tureen. It's only $275. Would I ever use it? Maybe. But I need one!

The other side of the store is the Seconds Warehouse. It is full of boxes stacked with slightly flawed Fiesta ware. The flaws vary, and are usually related to the glazing. Some pieces are barely distinguishable from first quality; others have obvious flaws. The color selection and pieces were limited as well; some plates had more than one box, filled to overflowing; others were limited to a handful of pieces. The advantage to the seconds? The price. They are half off regular dishes. If you are flexible about the colors, can live with minor imperfections, and are patient enough to pick through things with major imperfections, you can get some great deals.

Homer Laughlin Fiesta Retail Outlet
800 Fiesta Drive
Newell, WV 26050
Open 7 days a week, except on major holidays (see website)
Monday through Saturday: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Sundays: 12:00pm - 5:00pm
Phone: 1-800-452-4462 Option #2
Website: HomerLaughlin.com

My Five favorite Fiesta pieces:

1. Luncheon plate: Our everday plates. They're 9 inch diameter plates, part of the mind games I play with myself to keep my weight under control.

2. Stacking cereal bowl: Our everyday bowls. They nest perfectly, and fit in one slot in our dishwasher without leaning on each other. I cherish things that fit well in the dishwasher - they keep us ahead of the endless wave of dishes the kids produce.

3. Large serving platter: Look familiar? It's my favorite display piece.

4. Rice bowl: I discovered this new addition to the Fiesta line at the retail store, and picked up five of them - one for each of us. I need to write an Asian soup post, just so I can show them off.

5. Square plate: Another purchase just for the blog - I wanted to add variety in my pictures.
*I got a great deal on them in the seconds warehouse. And I haven't used them since I got back from the Fiesta store. I forget about them in the rush to get dinner on the table. Whoops - I need to fix that.

Honorable mention: The jumbo cup, which holds my jumbo weekend latte.
*Three shots of espresso, steamed milk. And yes, my coffee mug is bigger than my bowls. 

The sauceboat, which I bought just for the Thanksgiving gravy post.

And the disc pitcher, of course. It's an icon of American design.

*I also picked up a large canister in the seconds warehouse that was missing its lid; it is perfect as my new, jumbo utensil crock.

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Related posts:

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Bwahahahahah!

A quick mac'n'cheese dinner for the kids? How about a macaroni-fennel gratin with chunks of La Quercia's Tamworth bacon that will be finished approximately three hours after the kids go to bed?
"Foodie" Men Are No Help in the Kitchen, Emily Matchar, Chow.com

This article brought back memories. And laughter - I laughed until I was crying.

I've talked about why men should cook…now it's time to talk about the dark side. Years ago, I decided to make dinner every night. How else could I really learn to cook?

Diane was supportive, but dubious. She had good reason to be dubious. I cooked elaborate meals on weeknights. The fire alarm would go off once or twice. When the roast beast on a bed of scalloped potatoes was done at 9PM, Diane would say "This is great, dear. Um...did you make anything green? A vegetable, perhaps?"
Then she'd remind me that potatoes are a starch, not a vegetable.

Weeknight cooking is a completely different skill set from special occasion cooking. It took a long time for this basic fact to work its way through my thick skull. Luckily, I stumbled across Pam Anderson's How to Cook Without a Book. Pam wrote it specifically for weeknight cooking, emphasizing basic techniques with simple flavor variations. As she says in the book, you don't have time on a weeknight to be looking at a recipe. Pam taught me the steam-saute technique. Quick green vegetable side dishes for Diane? Finally!
First Diane had to live through my "saute with pan sauce" phase. I tried every combination in Pam's book, dazzled by the variety you can get from a simple, basic technique. Diane wasn't quite as dazzled. I never caught her, but I suspect that she was feeding the cat sauteed chicken breast with mustard sauce when I wasn't looking. I don't blame her. That was the day after we had pork chop saute with orange sauce, two days after turkey saute with tomato sauce, three days after steak saute with red wine cream sauce…even the cat was sick of pan sauces.

Then the kids came along. Another shock to my system. What do you mean, they're picky? They don't want beef stew with polenta and broccoli rabe for dinner? They'd rather eat the bread, and nothing but the bread?

Eventually, I made it. I learned how to really cook for my family. How to plan out weeknight meals, pick meals that fit into the time available, stick to basic, comforting food, and save the elaborate stuff for the weekends.
Learning to use pressure cookers and slow cookers to bend time in the kitchen also helped a lot.

So, when I read that foodie men are no help in the kitchen, I laughed. "Thank God I'm past all that," I said to myself. "I'm an an evolved Male cook. I don't treat every meal as summit to be conquered, regardless of the consequences."

Then I realized…what do I post on this blog, nine times out of ten? Big, elaborate, production meals. When Diane and the kids see me in the kitchen with my camera, they moan in unison: "Oh, no, is this a blog meal?" Dinner won't be on the table for a while. When I say "five more minutes while I take a couple of pictures" they disappear into the basement to play the Wii. They know what "five more minutes" means.
Fifteen to thirty minutes.

I'm not as evolved as I hoped. I'm more of a recovering Male cook. I've learned my lessons, but I have to watch my step. Backsliding is so easy. There is always a new recipe I have to try, a new technique I just read about. On weeknights, I need to remind myself to keep it simple. Simple doesn't mean bland; I can whip up some pretty interesting meals in a hurry. But if I'm not careful, interesting turns into rolled, stuffed pork loin on the rotisserie with drip pan smashed potatoes. Which is a great meal…just not on a busy Wednesday.
Mark Bittman always impresses me with his ability to strip a recipe down to its weeknight essentials. My favorites involve a fancy restaurant starting point that Mark simplifies for the home kitchen.

What do you think?

What are your kitchen weaknesses? What's the most over the top recipe you tried to make on a Tuesday night? Leave them in the comments section below.

Related Posts:

Why Dad Should Cook
Family Dinners and Small Kids
Weekly Dinner Plans

Inspired by:

Pam Anderson, How to Cook Without a Book
Mark Bittman, Cooking Solves Everything

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I just stumbled across this Weber's 2012 Sneak Peek website...and my lust for grilling gadgets is already in high gear.

*h/t Mike at AnotherPintPlease for passing the link on...

I must have:

Extra Large drip pans. Sized to fit perfectly in my Weber kettle, between the charcoal baskets when I'm rotisserieing. Where have they been all my life?
*If rotisserieing isn't a word yet, I'm going to make it one. Watch out, Merriam-Webster...

Enameled plancha. A plancha is a flat, three-walled griddle from Argentina, designed for use on the grill. I was going to get the one from Williams-Sonoma; now I have to make a choice.

Summit Grill Center With Social Area. Oh my. Hang on, I have to wipe the drool off my keyboard. That's better. Yes, I know it probably costs more than my car. Yes, I'll have to reinforce my deck just to support it. Whatever it takes. I want it. No, I need it. My precious!

Interesting, but not essential:

Gourmet BBQ System Pizza Stone. I grill pizza all the time, but having the stone in the grill is something I've only read about. I may have to pick this up and give it a try.

Fish Baskets. Another grilling gadget that I've never purchased, but meant to. I'm not sure I cook enough fish to make it worth it, but I'll probably check these out as well.

Long Handled Pincer Tongs. Probably a useless gadget, destined to gather dust in the back of my cabinet...but I'm still going to buy a pair.

Curses, foiled again:

26.75-inch Charcoal Kettle Rotisserie. No, it's not there. Again. Every year they leave me hanging. When are they going to make a rotisserie for the larger kettle? I don't care what it costs, I'll pay...just make one already. Please?

Finally, some apologies:

I apologize for the lack of direct links - Weber has all this information in a slideshow, and I can't get the links to work. If you're interested, go to 2012SneakPeek.Weber.com and scroll around until you find what I'm talking about.

I also apologize if you're not a Weber fanatic. We'll continue with our non-Weber programming later in the week. And no, I wasn't paid to promote this in any way. I'm just a Weber fanboy.

What do you think? Anything you have to have for your grill this year? Leave them in the comments section below.

Related Posts:

Why Weber?
Weber Gourmet BBQ System Review

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Can I feed my family for one Lincoln a person?

I mean well. I really do.

Every year I pull a a few tags from our church's giving tree. I pick grocery store gift certificates. "Great lesson for the kids" I think to myself. "We eat cheap, and use the savings on someone who needs help."

Every year, when push comes to shove, we don't eat cheaper. I buy the gift certificates, of course; our savings takes the hit.

This year, I read about the Slow Food $5 challenge. The challenge: eat for less than a $5 value meal at a fast food restaurant. Aha! Money for the giving tree! At $5 a person, we'll have plenty to contribute.

I rushed to my organic grocery store, the one with the good bulk foods section. I wanted exact amounts on my receipt:

*My reuseable bag got me a $0.05 discount, not included in the total.

Forget five dollars a person; I'm closer to three, even with the extra cost of buying organic. I have $8.76 left over from my $25. I'm on the road to savings!

So, how much am I saving?

Not much. Our weekly grocery budget is $200 for five people. If we cut back to five dollars a person, (times five people, times seven days) our budget would be $175. That is not hundreds of dollars to donate to charity.

That didn't seem right. I'm a food blogger. I shop at farmers markets, specialty stores, ethnic markets. I'm a member of a CSA. I eat well - just ask my bathroom scale. I spend a lot on food, don't I? What's going on?

I found answers at the USDA*. Turns out, I am a below average American. I spend less than the "low cost" average per week, and border on the "thrifty" average.
Source: Official USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home at Four Levels, U.S. Average, January 2011. I'm cooking for a family of five; a 19-50 year old couple with a 9-10 year old and two 6-8 year olds. According to the data, for our family, low cost is $220/week; thrifty is $168/week. I would have to spend $330 a week to be on the high end of the scale.

I think of my splurges; extra virgin olive oil, real parmesan, a bottle of good wine. My kids have a different view. "Why does everything have to be on sale?" whines my ten year old.
After I told him to put down the full price Life cereal and pick up the generic Cheerios.

What does it all mean?

Cooking is a great way to save money. Because I cook with real ingredients, five dollars per person isn't much of a challenge. The global average of $2 a day, however...I have some work to do...

Related posts:
Weekly Dinner Plans
Cooking Authentic or Cooking Everyday?
Why Dad Should Cook

What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

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E-cookbooks would never replace REAL cookbooks. No way. I was sure of it. Not my beloved cookbooks, ink on paper, with a olive oil stain to give them character. I love reading, I love books, and I am addicted to cookbooks.* I would never going over to the dark side. Never!
Addict? Me? I can give up cookbooks any time I want. My cookbook habit doesn't control me, I control it… Hey, is that Michael Ruhlman's new cookbook? I must have it. Mine! My…precious!

Now, I'm not a Luddite; I went online with a 1200 baud modem back in the 80's. But books are my constant companions - ever since I snuck them under the covers with a flashlight as a kid. I held out against e-books as long as I could.

My wife, however, used a Kindle for a few weeks, and then had to give it up. After lots of requests, I bought her a Kindle of her own. After a few months, I borrowed it for a business trip. I was hooked - so much for my loyalty to ink and paper. I went out and bought myself an iPad not long afterwards, so I wouldn't have to fight for access to (her!) Kindle.

At first, I only bought novels. (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels are my weakness. I'm sure you're shocked to learn this.) Novels are easy, I told myself; paragraph after paragraph of text, with no special formatting or pictures. E-books would still never replace my cookbooks.

Eventually, I cracked. Mark Bittman's What I Grill and Why, only available as an e-book, was on sale for $2.99. I couldn't pass it up. Then I was obsessed interested in making a Japanese Hot Pot for dinner…tonight. Even with overnight shipping, it would be too late. Ono and Salat's Japanese Hot Pots was just a download away.

Now I'm the proud owner of eight e-cookbooks. I want to buy more; my plan is to trade in my paper cookbooks and replace them with e-cookbooks. Why the sudden change of heart?

Advantages to Kindle Cookbooks:

Convenience:

I'm a blogger, in case you didn't notice. I have a screen in front of me, or within arm's reach, at all times. I spend the day in front of my iMac. I cook with my iPad on the island in my kitchen, recipe at the ready. I blog with my MacBook in my lap. I finish the day on my bed, pillows behind my back, reading from my iPad.* Having my cookbooks right there on the screen, no matter what I'm doing, is so darn easy. All my cookbooks at my fingertips? I don't have to go get them from the shelf, or, heaven forfend, walk downstairs to get one? And if I don't have a cookbook I want, I can download it under thirty seconds, including fumble-fingering my credit card once again? It is just so darned easy. I'm hooked.
And yes, I'm an Apple Fanboy, why do you ask?

Space (the final frontier):

I have a bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks. An Ikea Billy bookshelf, with a maximum load per shelf of 66 pounds. Only 66 pounds? Ha! That poor bookshelf is creaking and groaning under the weight of books I have stuffed in it. Every year I have to purge ruthlessly.*
Or, Ruthlessly, if I have to get rid of one of Mrs. Reichl's books.

I hate to purge cookbooks. It's like throwing away old friends. But after a year of cookbook binges carefully selected purchases, I'm squeezing books into every available nook and cranny, so tight the shelves bulge. After The Purge, my bookshelf is organized…for a while. I always want more cookbooks.
Like I said, I don't have a problem. I can quit any time I want.

An e-book reader solves all this. All the books are weightless, spaceless, hidden behind that thin screen. Done with that one? Delete it and it is stored in your archive. Need it back? It downloads in seconds.

Easy to bookmark favorite recipes, and search for text:

My favorite cookbooks are bristling with bookmarks. I use magazine subscription cards as bookmarks. I also use post-it notes, and random scraps of paper. There's another recipe I want to try - whatever small scrap of paper I can find becomes a bookmark. The bookmark feature of the Kindle reader is the digital equivalent of all those scraps of paper poking out of the top of the book. Looking for Julia Child's Leek and Potato soup? Open up Mastering The Art of French Cooking, click on the bookmarks tab, and there it is.

Text search is the other killer feature in digital cookbooks. I want to check out the pressure cooker recipes in Jaques Pepin's latest cookbook. They're a search away; no worries that they are not in the index. Also, cross-linked recipes can be real links, just like on the web. If the hot pot has ponzu sauce as an ingredient, I just click on the link, then the back button when I'm done.

Now, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. There are some drawbacks to e-cookbooks…

Disadvantages to Kindle Cookbooks:

Formatting and Indexing:

E-cookbooks are easier to navigate…usually. There is a big gotcha. Converting a cookbook to a digital version isn't easy. The care put into the digital conversion of the cookbook matters. A whole lot. Novels are simple; novels are paragraphs of text. You start with the introduction, and read until you get to "The End." Cookbooks are another story*; they use different formats and styles, arrange text in columns and sidebars, and embed pictures to show a technique. The digital conversion of a cookbook is trickier than a novel.
Get it…novels…story…oh, never mind.

My best (worst?) example is the digital conversion of Page and Dornenburg's The Flavor Bible. This is one of my go-to reference cookbooks. I use the hardcover version on a regular basis. When I saw they had a kindle version, I jumped on it - how convenient, being able to carry it with me! But wait...

The main part of the book is a dictionary of flavor combinations, hundreds of ingredients with a list of other ingredients they go with. As an example, Thyme is listed in bold caps, followed by an indented list of other ingredients that pair with it; particularly good matches are in bold caps, good matches are in bold, normal matches are in regular type. Finding an ingredient in the hardcover is tricky; I zero in on the section of the alphabet, like finding a word in a dictionary. "Let's see, Thyme. (Opens book to middle). Mangoes, (flip) Shiso, (flip) Trout, (page back) Tomatoes, (page back) Thyme…no wait, that's under the Tomatoes (page back) Thyme. There it is."

The e-book version of The Flavor Bible takes this from tricky to painful. All of the ingredient lists are in one chapter, with no sub-headings. I have to start at Achiote Seeds and work from there. Text search doesn't help - almost every ingredient goes with hundreds of other ingredients, so the "real" copy of the ingredient is lost in the flurry of matches. There is no good way to flip around in the e-book; dragging the scroll bar is the best way I've found, but does not work as easily as flipping pages in a book. Finally, there is no index of the ingredients with links to work from. And…in spite of these problems, I still use the e-book version more than the paper version. Like I said, I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get it off the shelf when it's right there. And it feels like I'm saving time, using the e-version…but it could be so much easier.
*If anyone has a good way of getting around in the Kindle version of The Flavor Bible, please let me know in the comments!

Another example is Ono and Salat's Japanese Hot Pots. In general, the conversion to an e-cookbook is well done. The table of contents has every recipe with a link, making it easy to get to the recipe you want. There are a lot of useful cross-links in the ingredients, referring to basic recipes earlier in the book. But there is one thing the digital conversion missed. The book has a lot of sidebars, next to the main flow of the text in the paper version. Usually, the e-book moves the sidebars to the end of the current section of text. Except when they don't. Ono and Salat are discussing a list of finishing options for hot pots, and in the middle of the list a sidebar paragraph suddenly appears. It looks like the finishing options are done…but there are a couple more coming after the sidebar. It's not a fatal flaw, but it is annoying.

Please note that I'm not blaming the authors for these problems. It feels like publishers are still working on how to format digital cookbooks. A great digital cookbook conversion is Jaques Pepin's Essential Pepin. The table of contents has a link to the first page of each major section: Soups, Salads, Poultry, Beef, and so on. The first page of each section lists all the recipes in that section, with a link to each recipe. Every recipe is three clicks away. Jump to Table of Contents, select Poultry, select Poulet-au-Pot from the recipe list…and there it is. Quick and easy.

Price:

Sometimes, the price of Kindle cookbooks feels like a ripoff. It seems like Kindle books should be significantly cheaper than paper books. You don't have to take a couple of pounds of paper and ink, wrap it in bubble wrap, put it in a cardboard box, fly it across the country, and pay for the nice UPS guy to walk it to my front door to drop it off. That's a lot of effort, right? The Kindle version saves all that effort, so it should be a lot less expensive, right? Yet a twenty-five dollar cookbook is available in the kindle version for...twenty two dollars. Seriously? All that extra effort is only worth three dollars?
*Jaques Pepin's Essential Pepin, again, is an example how they should handle this. It's a steal at $9.99 for the e-book version, compared to $26.99 for the hardcover.

Availability:

Of course, what's worse than feeling ripped off? No Kindle version of the book at all. I'm ready to complain about the expensive Kindle version, but I have my credit card out, and they won't even take my money? How dare they. How dare they not rip me off!
Wait, I need to be logically consistent? Shoot. Since when?

E-cookbooks are new, and digital conversions are few and far between. Finding an old favorite in the Kindle format is hit or miss - usually miss. And, even with newer cookbooks, the release of the e-version can be delayed. I wanted the e-version of Michael Ruhlman's Twenty, and I had to wait a month after the paper version was released. As I said above, one of the huge e-cookbook advantages is instant gratification. How does four weeks qualify as "instant"?

The Book Experience:

Michael Ruhlman's Twenty is a tribute to publishing. The book is a work of art. Hardbound, printed on substantial, glossy paper; loaded with Donna Ruhlman's gorgeous photography; it even has a ribbon bookmark, to help you mark the page you're reading. It belongs on a pedestal in a library, next to the Oxford English Dictionary.

We're all comfortable with books, and used to working with them. Books don't need batteries, they aren't ruined if you spill something on them, and you can instantly jump anywhere in the book by flipping to a page. Books are an old friend, and feel comfortable in my hands.

But then again…

This is where it gets interesting. Ruhlman's Twenty belongs in a museum, but it wound up buried on my bed stand. I read through chapter eight (Dough), found the book fascinating, put it down…and once it was covered up by a couple of other books and magazines, I never got back to it. Even though I knew I should. I bought the Kindle edition for this review (after that month long wait, darn it) for comparison.

Here was my perfect test case. How does a beautiful book compare to the e-book version? It's not the same experience; not the same feeling of holding a work of art in my hands. But the Kindle version is a very good digital conversion. Donna's gorgeous photography is in there; slightly smaller on my iPad, but still looking great. I don't have my ribbon bookmark…but I can drop bookmarks wherever I want to. I wanted to find the braised chicken leg recipe; a text search got me there instantly. And, most important, I finished reading Twenty in the Kindle version. The paper version is still hidden under a stack of magazines on my bed stand; once I had the e-book, I didn't feel the need to find it.

Summary:

I've gone digital, and I don't think I'm going back. In spite of the drawbacks, and there are quite a few, the electronic versions are just too convenient. I love the feel of a book in my hand…and I also love the feel of an e-reader. There's something about sitting under a blanket with my iPad, tapping the right side of the screen to flip pages. It feels effortless. And having every e-book I own at my fingertips, in a 1.33 pound package? I'm in love. I still buy cookbooks all the time, but I'm starting to get annoyed when there isn't a Kindle version available.

Notes:

Why Kindle? Why not Nook, or iBook (or some other format I don't know about?). Format wars are another downside to e-books. When my wife decided to get a Kindle, I was pretty much locked in. If I stick with Kindle, I can read all the books she buys, and vice versa. Kindle seems to have the best selection of books. Finally, Kindle reader software is available on almost every platform. I can take my e-books from my iPad to my desktop to my laptop.
The Nook format also looks good; they seem to have software that runs on all platforms, and a good selection of books. But, like I said, I was committed to Kindle before I really made a choice.

Why iPad? A couple reasons. One...It is so choice. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up. (Again, I'm an Apple Fanboy.) Two, the big screen on the iPad is amazing. There's no comparison to my wife's (old, black and white) Kindle screen.

The Kindle Fire could give the iPad a run…but I don't want to give up the larger iPad screen, and extra processing power, even for a lower price. That said, I may have to pick a Fire up for my kids, to get them to stop playing Jetpack Joyride and give me back my iPad!
*Really, I want see how Apple responds to the Fire before I commit to yet another platform.

What do you think?

Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
Ruhlman's Twenty: The Ideas and Techniques that Will Make You a Better Cook
Apple iPad 2 Tablet (16GB, Wifi,) NEWEST MODEL
Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

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T-Day minus three and counting. Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Last week, I shared this year's turkey recipe and how I make gravy ahead of time:

• Rotisserie Turkey with Cajun Dry Brine on my Weber Summit
• Pressure Cooker Giblet Gravy, though a pressure cooker isn't absolutely necessary.

Annual Thanksgiving Advice:

• Grill your Thanksgiving Turkey
• Even better: rotisserie your turkey on the grill. Rotisserie Turkey with Orange and Spice Dry Brine - Weber Kettle version
• Save the carcass and make turkey stock for the best soup you've ever made.

Best Thanksgiving Question:
Now, for some rotisserie turkey details. My question of the year (so far) was from an observant, anonymous commenter:

It seems that your setup on you Summit varies. In a 2009 post on rotisserie turkey, you advised to set the two outer burners on medium and the infrared on medium. Here you say the two right hand burners on high and the infrared on medium. Why the changes?

I have changed my approach over the last couple of years. Long-time readers know I preach using an instant read thermometer to see if the bird is done. The problem is, turkey should be cooked to two different temperatures. White meat is safe to eat when it has been at 150F for ten minutes, and starts to overcook and dry out at 160F. Dark meat is safe at 150F, but very chewy because of fat and connective tissue. Those break down about 170F, so the dark meat is best at 170F to 180F. That's a big swing.
(See my Turkey Temperature - the 150 Question post for more details on cooking turkey.)

Now, the thickness of the breast slows down its cooking compared to the legs and thighs. Trussing also seems to help by pushing the drumsticks out from the bird. But I've adopted two tricks to help cook the legs faster, and slow down cooking the breast.

The first change is mentioned in the question. I don't use an even split of indirect heat with turkey. I use a "U of fire" in my Weber Kettle, or light two burners on one side of my Weber summit, and then point the legs of the turkey towards the hotter side of the grill. This gives the legs more direct heat than the breast.
[h/t the How to Barbecue a Turkey pamphlet from Weber grills for this idea]

The second change is to make the breast colder than the legs. I take the turkey out of the refrigerator an hour or two before cooking, fill a zip-top gallon bag with ice cubes, and set the bag of ice on the breast. That way, the legs come to room temperature, while the breast stays cold.
[h/t Harold McGee and Cooks Illustrated for this tip]

Best Thanksgiving Question(s) on the Web:
This year, everyone seemed to have a "ask any question, we'll answer it" series on their website. Here are my two favorites, because of the crazy range of questions they answered:

Kenji Alt - The Food Lab Answers Questions
Turkey, non-turkey mains, gravy
Sides and Desserts
Leftovers, Family Traditions, etc...
My favorites:

• The turkey butt debate: disgusting, or the best part of the bird?
• Fry your own fried onions for green bean casserole
• Dropping the pumpkin pie in front of your mother-in-law

What do you think? Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

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