Your slow cooker guide to safety

Slow cookers are definitely back. And in a big way. But then who wouldn't like the convenience of a hot meal, ready and waiting after a long day, with just a little early advance preparation?

Just as it takes a few simple tricks to bring out the best in your slow cooker, we have a few simple tips to make sure the meals you make are wonderful -- and safe for consumption. Click below for a list of safety tips, as well as links to additional guidelines and fact sheets.

And let us know if you have additional tips -- or recipes -- to share:

Slow cookers: Break out those recipes

Does the cold, wet, blustery weather have you hankering for comfort foods -- and slow cooker recipes?

Times Test Kitchen Manager Noelle Carter is working on an upcoming story about slow cookers, and has been busy developing recipes for it. (We can say this much: Not all the recipes are for dinner. At least one recipe is for a dessert so good that some have already predicted it will be a front-runner for the Times' top recipes of 2009 -- and it's only February!)

Do you have any favorite slow cooker and crock pot recipes to share with the Daily Dish? Or how about some tips for converting your favorite recipes for crock pot use?

Please let us know -- leave a comment here. We'd like to use them as part of our upcoming feature on slow cookers.

--Rene Lynch

Man Bites World -- and lives to tell about it

After eating out 102 days in a row, sometimes multiple times in one day, Noah Galuten had just one craving left: A home-cooked meal.

Galuten is the Culver City-based blogger behind www.manbitesworld.com, who gained a following when he endeavored to sample a different nationality’s cuisine every day, for as many consecutive days as he could.

A self-described “hugely passionate food person,” Galuten, 26, figured blogging would help him keep his mind off his unemployment woes.

“It was an incredibly emasculating feeling of trying to find a job and not be able to find anything,” said Galuten, a playwright who was looking for a job, any job, in the arts. “I needed something to get my juices flowing.”

Like any good scheme, the plan was hatched with friends over Mexican food, a cuisine that Galuten

This platter is yours for $15,000

There is a platter heaven, and it's called EBay.

That's where Bocuse d'Or champion Geir Skeie of Norway is selling one of his platters. The starting bid is $15,000.

Each chef at the Bocuse d'Or has to have two platters -- one for beef dishes and one for seafood dishes. U.S. competitor Timothy Hollingsworth's platters were created by restaurant designer Adam Tihany (Per Se, Daniel, Le Cirque); his meat platter had recessed lights. France's Philippe Mille says he worked directly with silversmiths to design his platters.

So what to do with them after the competition? Skeie is selling the platter he used for his beef dishes, four re-configurable silver-plated pentagons designed by Johan Verde. (Skeie says he can engrave his signature for the buyer.)

His fish platter already has been sold to a sponsor. Skeie says: "It will be hanging at a nice place in my hometown, Fitjar."

PHOTO GALLERY: Check out the training that goes into the Bocuse d'Or -- dubbed "the Olympics of the food world."

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: Geir Skeie

This little salt piggy ... is not so little

 

I've had my eyes on a salt pig –- those earthenware pots that keep salt from clumping and kitchen tidbits from dirtying up your crystals -– ever since I spied a cute little 3-inch one on a friend's counter last year.

I've tried keeping my kosher salt in a ramekin, in a lidded sugar dish, and in the cardboard box it came in … all to no avail. (The ramekin attracted questionable kitchen detritus. The sugar dish lid was always caked in dried dough left by sticky fingers, and pouring straight from the box is just asking for a salt avalanche).

Mom to the rescue.

Not long after Amy Scattergood blogged about her new salt pig in August, my mom asked what I wanted for Christmas. A salt pig! I did a quick online search and sent her a Williams-Sonoma link to the first one I found, a classic white pig with SALT etched across the front. She'd never heard of a salt pig, thought it sounded lovely, and ordered one for everyone in the family. Apparently, salt pigs are available in more than one size. As you can see from the photo, this little piggy put on a few extra holiday pounds.

-- Jenn Garbee

Photo: Jenn Garbee

Santa baby, bring us one of these

What would The Times' Food staff like under its tree? A samovar, Ronco Showtime rotisserie, Pasquini Livia 90 espresso machine, clay rice cooker, stationary bike blender kit, a whole pig, and spices.

Photo credit: Pasquini Imports

Buy local: Delicious gifts to give, or receive

   

A songwriter friend of mine once observed that some people can walk around the block and see the whole world while others can go around the world and not see a thing. Food can work the same way. With the current availability of almost anything from almost anywhere, thanks to the Internet, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the great products we have right here in Southern California.

So this Christmas, why not keep your gift-buying close to home by using this guide put together by the staff of The Times' Food section. Concentrate on shopping locally and you might find parts of the area you’ve never seen before and even meet the producers face to face.

And if all of that just seems like too much, almost all of them are also available over the Internet.

--Russ Parsons

Photo caption: Box of chocolates from Los Angeles-based Valerie Confections.

Photo credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Santa's Little Helper: Gifts for kids who cook

 

If your holiday list includes a kid who likes to cook, Times food writer Amy Scattergood suggests some gifts to tuck under the tree -- or to stuff inside a stocking.

Photo: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

King Arthur Flour: a great holiday resource

With the holidays fast approaching, cooking hot lines, online recipes, helpful tips and shopping guides are not only practical -- they can also be crucial emergency resources. What you may not know is that King Arthur Flour, this country's oldest flour company, is not only a source for high-quality flour, but it's also a mother lode of the aforementioned resources.

Founded in 1790, the Vermont-based, employee-owned company has a baker's hot line (staffed by actual live bakers) and operates seven days a week, with extended hours on the holidays. If you need help with a technique or an ingredient, re-creating a favorite recipe or just moral support, they're on call.

King Arthur also has online recipes, a baker's blog, free online baking classes, a great catalog (flours, baking tools, specialty ingredients, baked goods), cookbooks and even an online baking circle, a community of 100,000 bakers chatting on a searchable message board. If you're in that neck of the Vermont woods, King Arthur teaches classes at its Baking Education Center (see above left). If you're not, the company sends a crew on the road for six weeks a year (Dec. 3, San Francisco). Or just call or e-mail. They don't do turkeys, but if it's got flour in it, they'll probably be able to help.

King Arthur Flour, 58 Billings Farm Road, White River Junction, Vermont. Bakers' Hotline: (802) 649-3717. (8 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST Monday to Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; extended on weekends Thanksgiving through Christmas to 9 p.m.; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.)  Baker's catalog: (800) 827-6836. www.kingarthurflour.com.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo of baking class courtesy King Arthur Flour

Father's Office, the best bagels, ribs, absinthe and more

The new Father’s Office location in Culver City is much like the original location in Santa Monica. There’s no table service. No substitutions. And no ketchup allowed with your fries. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila’s review kicks off this week’s Food section. Here are other highlights:

• If you want to start a fight in this town, bring up bagels. Here's a guided tour of the two biggest bagel bakers in L.A -- even if you’ve never heard of them, you’ve probably eaten their hand-crafted wares -– as well as a list of the city's best bagel shops and the best cream cheese. For you DIY-ers, making bagels at home is easier than you might think, as long as you’ve got the time. The best part? You can pile them high with the toppings of your choice. Here’s your recipe and a photo gallery taking you through it step-by-step.
• Why does “Ma Gastronomie” –- the embodiment of the late legendary French chef Fernand Point –- have such a devoted following? The newest edition, hitting shelves this month, certainly isn’t filled with the lush photographs or detailed recipes that we’ve come to expect. Times staff writer and editor Betty Hallock explains why it’s a book that chefs love to love –- and why it's beloved by food-loving readers.
• Our Find this week is Copper Chimney. You wouldn’t know it by the name, but it’s a new Indian restaurant in Woodland Hills where the entrees run $8 to $16. You can’t go wrong with any of the Tandoori dishes, but make sure you don’t miss the stuffed naan or the homemade, ice-cream-like kulfis.
• Bob Foutz of Huntington Beach loved the sweet-and-spicy ribs at Sage in Newport Beach, so much so that he just had to have the recipe. Times Test Kitchen Manager Noelle Carter –- who runs our Culinary SOS feature -- was glad to help.
• If you're looking for something to do, check out our datebook: We've got complimentary absinthe, cooking classes, truffles and a workshop on growing your own veggies.
• If absinthe is not your thing, Virbila suggests the moderately priced 2006 Ataraxia Sauvignon Blanc as her pick for wine of the week.

And finally.....

• Did you know they even bake bagels in China?

--Rene Lynch

Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Photo caption: If we can't have ketchup with our fries at Father's Office, we'll go with the soft-shell crab.