Fun
Lazy Sunday: Vivian Howard’s Tuesday Tips
Dear Ann,
Maybe it’s fall, or the Jewish holidays, or some combination of the two, but I’m back into cooking again. Cooking is a habit, and so is not-cooking. If you lose the habit, and start living on tomato sandwiches, for example, you can almost stop cooking altogether. But if you’re in the groove, cooking is uncomplicated and a lot better than rummaging in the freezer, hoping to get lucky and scrounge up a forgotten portion-controlled brick from Trader Joe’s.
One person who gives me some cooking inspo on a regular basis is North Carolina chef and restaurateur Vivian Howard. I first saw her on A Chef’s Life, a PBS series that I used to knit to on the weekends. (It’s streaming on some PBS Passport channels.)
In February, on her Instagram account, Howard started a weekly series of short (really short!) videos called Just the Tips.
I’m in love with it. The series is a gold mine of little kitchen tricks that are fully as useful to cooks as Lorilee Beltman’s life-changing YouTube, Memorize the Kitchener Stitch, is to sock knitters.
Howard limits each Tuesday’s episode to some little nugget that educates, charms, and delights. The first one that hooked me back in February was her method for cleaning her spice grinder. Spoiler: you end up with savory rice powder that you can then use for a gluten-free coating for frying. Isn’t that cool? Every week is a morsel of kitchen wisdom.
Once in a great while, I already know the tip, and get to feel smart. (Example: just like Chef Howard, I use only one knife, a 10″ chef’s knife. It’s tough to share the kitchen with me because you have to wait for your turn with The Knife. But I hate poking around in a drawer full of not-as-good knives. You always want to use The Good One, so just have that one, like me and Chef Howard. Come at me, specialized knife lovers!)
Howard’s tips are easiest to watch on your phone, on Instagram. Just click on the highlights under Chef Howard’s profile (they are labeled Just the Tip, by month), and enjoy.
See the circles labeled Just the Tips, by month? Click and enjoy.
If you’re not an Instagram person, the tips videos are rounded up each month on her website. Start here.
Have a delicious Sunday.
Love,
Kay
In the MDK Shop
I love her. She seems so real.
Well, hmmm, I’ve been throwing away that rice powder. I shall have to investigate.
Well, I think you also have to have a serrated bread knife. Otherwise totally support knife minimalism.
I too support a bread knife! And perhaps a small paring knife for peeling fruit.
Completely agree–must have a serrated knife for bread and cakes. I also have my ”good” 10″ chef’s knife (Wusthoff) and my everyday (Victorinox). I can keep them both fairly sharp, but the Wusthoff’s heft is perfect for slicing a lot of veggies or dealing with meat. The victorinox is fin3 for cherry tomatoes, etc.
Loved the series, especially the actual cooks featured.
As for knives, often many people help in our kitchen, so we have to have duplicates. I have discarded the expensive Wusthof etc in favor of Victorinox – cheapish you will never have to search in the sink for a paring knife and 2 or 3 can wield a chefs knife simultaneously! Also hones to a SHARP edge easily. Get the Accu-something hand sharpener on Amazon and you’ll only have to get out that grinder 2x a year.
I’m so happy to hear about Vivian on IG! Thank you for sharing that. We loved her series and were so sorry when it ended, but I can totally understand that she and her family had had enough. I’m guessing that the Tuesday tips are in her ‘stories’ on IG? I was hoping to go to her IG page and look back at previous tips, but am unable to find them.
They are all saved in her story highlights. (Those are the circles under her profile.) Easiest to view from your phone, not a desktop
Thank you for mentioning that! I never think to watch things on my phone because I have to go somewhere with signal to do it – but I’ll remember to try it with these 🙂
One large kitchen knife, yes! Me too!
I just went back and now I, too, will never have to look up Kitchener again! What a great explanation!
Easiest way to hard boil eggs is to cook them in a pressure cooker. They come out perfect every time and are easy to peel. I will never go back to the traditional method.
I use mainly only one knife also. It’s longish and sharp and has great heft and balance in the handle so is easy to wield – thus satisfying my fencing tendencies). But I do occasionally use a serrated knife for bread too!
I love short cooking tips! It’s why I follow GBBO winner Nancy Birtwhistle on twitter 🙂
Over the summer I got seriously out of the cooking habit, but as the weather turned I realized I need to make the effort to get back IN. Apple season should help!
So, I finally clicked on the kitchner. As always, u were right, she is a genius!!! It’s amazing how 3 sentences can make it all make sense, instead of being complicated magic.
I have no issue with not using specialised knives, but why the heck would you not have more than one of your favourite good knife??
Vivian has the best cooking shows by far, I used to watch the food Network, I no longer do, since it’s all about battles and wars, get real, it’s about food, must be the young immature idiots that are in the programming department, those shows appeal to the millennium morons watching them. Such a disgrace
I too have a favorite knife. I rarely reach for anything other than my Santoku. It’s the perfect size for my small hands.
Absolutely hate cooking do it but don’t enjoy any thing about it .