Lately Maya and I have been preparing dinner from recipes 3-5 times a week, mostly recipes we have never used before. As a result, I've come to the conclusion that there might be some room for improvement in the presentation of recipes. The typical presentation, with the list of ingredients (sometimes indicating the initial processing, like chopping, necessary for each one) followed by the steps of preparation, is certainly functional and natural. But when I'm in the thick of cooking, I often find myself searching desperately through the recipe's prose for a piece of information that I've already read at least 5 times, and taking too long to find it. I also tend to get slowed down when assembling several ingredients to be mixed together. I read one off the list, fetch it, measure it out, find the next one, repeat, with each 'read' taking, in my opinion, a lot longer than it should. So I've been thinking about other ways of presenting the information that might either replace or augment the standard one.

The most radical innovation I've seen (my experience is still quite limited, and I'd be glad to hear about others) is by Michael Chu over at Cooking for Engineers. In addition to prose, he presents at the end of his recipes a table (patent pending, he claims at the bottom of every page on the site) with a row for each ingredient, and a column for each processing step, with the rows merging every time ingredients are combined. They come out very nicely in HTML. A simple example can be seen by scrolling down in his recipe for Asparagus with Almonds. I haven't actually cooked from any of his recipes yet, but it seems like the table would be a much easier way to get a glance at the ingredients I need to combine in a given step. I might still need to refer back to the prose for details about a step, such as that "[when done] the asparagus should be crisp but without a raw taste," but some of those could always be added to the table if one were willing to sacrifice neatness and compactness. I also want to mention how great it is that Chu provides copious pictures of how the food ought to look at each step, something sorely lacking in cookbooks and on mainstream recipe sites.

Another idea I've had is to provide some visual sense of how long each step in the recipe takes, so that you can have an accurate idea of how far along you are. Many times, despite trying to read the recipe thoroughly before starting, I have looked down to see what to do next with my nice mixture, and found "chill for one hour", or four hours, or overnight. Argh! A chart showing the steps in rows, with the height of the row being proportional to the time consumed by the step, would clear this up instantly. This could even be combined with Michael Chu's tables. Or it could be expanded upon with multiple tracks for steps that can be done simultaneously, such as chilling one item while cooking another. An example, taken from Cooking For Engineers' Cheesecake Recipe:

The basic idea in this recipe is that you make the crust, pre-bake it, and let it cool, and while you're doing that you make the filling, then bake both, then let the final product cool and refrigerate before serving it. In the table above the word "Bake" in the Crust row has been reduced to a single pixel to make everything the right size. But I think this is a pretty fast and effective way of letting you know that you should not be putting your cake in the oven a half hour before the company is to arrive.

It says something either about the vastness of NYC, or about myself, that even after actively keeping up on the restaurant scene for several months, I still regularly have moments like this: I find out from Eater that a restaurant has closed, and it's the first time I've heard of the restaurant, and it turns out it's a restaurant that I would have loved to eat at. The only consolation in this case is that I probably wouldn't have been able to afford more than a light lunch at said restaurant. The place was called Chikubu, and according to Eater and others, served extremely authentic Japanese fare, including ramen lunch on Fridays and Saturdays that turned the place into a madhouse of transplanted salarimen, and at dinner, "a wide and weird array of incredibly expensive seafood delicacies flown in from Japan." Check out some of their appetizers:

• Fresh sea urchin
• Marinated "Hotaru" squid
• Jellyfish with vinegar sauce
• Salted entrails of the trepang (aka sea cucumber)
• Sweet young bee with honey soy sauce

You can see the rest at Menupages, though it won't do you much good at this point. The rest of the menu is mostly more familiar selections, but it all sounds awesome. The lack of California rolls, or any other fancy-named ones, tells me that this must indeed have been one of the more authentic Japanese restaurants in the city. I'm very sad to see it go, particularly without having tried it. For now I'll have to set my sights on Rosanjin instead.

Today I went to Qdoba, the mexican fast food place that just opened a location on 53rd and 3rd. It's remarkable how many details there are the same as at Chipotle, which has a location one and a half blocks away. From the shredded pork available in the burritos, to the salsa options, the self-service fountain drinks and the selection thereof, the bottles of hot sauce and lime wedges, to the slogans about emphasizing fresh ingredients, it's a bit spooky. I won't pass judgment on who copied whom, because the real story is often more complicated than it seems, but it's certainly a direct challenge.

Some things are done differently. The Chipotle location nearby is a dank, industrial box. Frigid air gusts in every time the door is opened. The line snakes around the entire place at peak times, so that everyone eating there has hungry people standing over them. The very high ceilings somehow make it all the more forbidding. It's about the worst place imaginable to eat the food you buy there.

Qdoba is a big improvement in both atmosphere and crowd control. They have two separate burrito assembly lines, and the queues are kept folded up and away from the plentiful seating. A vestibule keeps the cold air out. When I walked in an employee said "welcome to Qdoba," both greeting me and informing me of the correct pronunciation--cue doh ba.

As for the food, some have said it's not as good as Chipotle. Personally I guess I'm something of a burrito utilitarian; I couldn't detect any big difference.

I'm not sure how all this looks for the Burritoville that is almost directly across 52nd Street from Chipotle, completing the trifecta. Its food is somewhat inferior, but it still draws a lunchtime crowd, and I've had a soft spot for the chain ever since high school, when the student special (two dollars for a small burrito and a drink) and free tortilla chips nourished us.

As for me, I'm happy with this turn of events. Clearly the neighborhood's burrito demand was not being met by two merchants. Perhaps the new competition will force Chipotle to become a bit more civilized.

The recent Times article about cooking with ingredients from 99-cent stores, and kottke's comments and assorted links, reminds me of my own experiences with 99 cent stores in my neighborhood. I thought I had written about this, but it turns out I never did, except for a brief mention.

For me it's not so much about trying to make the food seem fancy, though at one point I did sometimes buy food at the 99-cent store. (Their imitation Strawberry Newtons are not too good.) The store I frequent, "99 Cent World," is simply huge, probably a lot like the Jack's mentioned in the article, and has an amazing selection of housewares, hardware, kitchen supplies, and so on. The only catch is that anything you buy there is pretty likely to fail in some way. But because you only paid 99 cents for it, there's not much harm done other than the physical waste, and it actually becomes fun to try to guess what's going to happen. A few reviews of past purchases:

• A plastic plate and soup bowl. For at least a year, the only vessels I ate from at home. I'm still using the plate, but the bowl eventually developed some cracks.
• Sponges. The spongy part separated from the more abrasive scrubbing layer after not very long.
• A level, allen wrenches, sandpaper, screwdrivers, and many other hardware items, most of which worked out just fine, although one jeweler's screwdriver had a tip mysteriously break off.
• A couple of cocktail and martini glasses for my old-timey cocktails project. A connoisseur might sniff at them but I have no complaints.
• A shower curtain set that lasted maybe seven months before a couple of the holes tore through.

Pretty positive overall, though I'm probably forgetting some of the items that didn't work out. PS: the store has the great neon sign "Everything 99 cents and up."

1. When I got an ice cream maker, I was excited to try out some of the recipes in "The Sweet Life" dessert cookbook. For a holiday meal I made two: Apple Cider and Caramel Ice Cream, and Quince Sorbet. The first came off well and offered my first opportunity to make caramel, and as the book said it would, the flavor was quite reminiscent of Tarte Tatin. But I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that the flavor of the two ingredients was so fused, rather than remaining independently recognizable.

The Quince Sorbet turned out very nicely, and was pretty fun to make. The book advised that leaving the seeds in during the preparation, then straining them out at the end, would allow the pectin in them to act as a natural gelatin and make the sorbet creamier. The texture was unique, quite different from that of other sorbet, perhaps halfway between sorbet and Jell-o. The results are below.

2. When I finally got a large Le Creuset Dutch/French oven, I tried out the No-Knead Bread recipe from the New York Times. The recipe's concept is that letting the dough sit at room temperature for an extended period does the same work that kneading would normally do. Supposedly this technique allows home cooks to produce bread of the same calibre as the best bakeries.

The recipe instructs us to "Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature." I let it rest for the full 18, but I found that at that point the dough had actually fallen some from the volume it had at 12 hours. This may have contributed to the compressed appearance the bread had after cooking. It was pretty tasty, but a small reward for the effort because it got stale very very quickly.

3. I spoke recently of my devotion to Pierre Hermé's macarons, or French macaroons. I took the chance to try making my own when the office held a cookie bake-off. I thought I might try to recreate the flavors in the Ispahan, but although I did find Rose water, I couldn't find any lychees in the time I had. So instead I went with chocolate and raspberry, and combined recipes from the web and The Sweet Life. The preparations were a lot of fun and a big mess. Maya offered some much-appreciated assistance in assembling the final product.

To my great surprise, I ended up winning the bake-off. The best part of this was that while everyone was tasting cookies, the bakers were anonymous, so I got to hear everyone's totally honest reactions. Some said that my macaroons tasted like Milanos, others compared them to peanut butter and jelly, and others just made interesting faces. After my trip to Pierre Hermé and the fun I had making them, I think I'll stick to my theme if there's ever another bake-off, and experiment with flavors some more.

4. I've also been pretty excited about Molecular Gastronomy, whatever its limitations, and wanting to see if I can do any of it at home without any anti-griddles or vacuum cookers. I perused the recipe collection at Khymos.org, and one struck me as requiring almost no effort or special ingredients at all. It wasn't really a recipe so much as the idea, from Hervé This, that if you made an emulsion of egg white and olive oil, and heated it in a microwave, it would set as a gel. This might not taste very good on its own, but it was suggested that one could add other flavors easily. There were no measures specified.

When I microwaved the mixture, bubbles expanded outward and upward in an impressive display. I let the microwave go for about ten seconds. When I turned it off, the mixture lost its volume abruptly. I took it out, and it had basically turned into a small puck of cooked egg white. In appearance and smell it was just about the nastiest thing I've ever made; I didn't bother tasting it.

The recipe collection has now been updated and much improved, and this idea has become a real recipe, with fruit syrup in the place of olive oil. It states that one egg white will yield two liters of foam, and that only a couple of seconds in the microwave are necessary.

This past fall I made about five full attempts at macarons, trying to achieve the perfect appearance and deliciousness of Pierre Hermé's creations. I'm happy to report that by the last couple of tries I was pleased with the results, and so it seems like a good time to document what I've learned.

Let's take a step back at this point and talk about what a macaron is and the desirable qualities therein. It is a sandwich cookie with two light "shells" that are made of a nut powder (usually almond, hazelnut is also an option) and a meringue (egg whites and sugar). The filling is most commonly either a ganache or a buttercream, with flavors limited only to the baker's imagination. Bits of fruit, jelly or nuts can also make their way into the middle of the macaron.

In appearance, the shells should be smooth and rounded, with frilly 'feet' around their bottom, and are often colored to match the filling's flavor. The filling should be a rounded disc about as thick as each shell. The texture of the shell is crumbly, airy, and only slightly chewy, and its flavor is mild, with the filling taking center stage ("melts in the mouth" is a common report). Some complain that a lot of the macarons they've had are too sweet. This gripe has honestly never occurred to me.

Why do macarons inspire obsession? I think it's a combination of the difficulty in their preparation, the dazzling appearance of a multicolored selection, and the multitude of flavors that can be incorporated.

As I indicated last time, I've considered a number of recipe sources in my quest. The list has grown to this (and here I'm really talking about shell recipes):

• A la Cuisine
• David Lebovitz (chocolate shells)
• Pierre Hermé from a restaurant industry magazine
• Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé (I transcribed this using Amazon Reader before buying the book)
• Syrup and Tang: a thorough consideration of techniques and variables as well as a recipe
• Nicole Kaplan's "macaroons a la pierre herme", as posted on eGullet. Kaplan is a renowned pastry chef who has worked in Hermé's kitchen, as well as Eleven Madison Park and Del Posto.
• The Sweet Life by Kate Zuckerman - not available online.
• eGullet member JGarner
• Pierre Hermé from his book PH10, translated and transcribed on eGullet (the book costs about $270 and is only available in French).

My plan for the bulk of this project is to go patiently through the macaron-making process, explaining all the different ideas that I and others have tried, what you may encounter, and what I've found to work best. But for now I'd like to expend some text on recipe comparison.

After initially combining the Pierre Hermé restaurant industry mag and The Sweet Life recipes, I started to agonize over which one to try next. I didn't want to end up doing the same thing, without realizing it due to different wording or measurement conventions. I decided on two key variables that determine how a shell recipe is going to work. First, the type of meringue. Second, the proportions of sugar, egg white, and almond flour.

Almost all the recipes start by mixing the almond flour with some confectioner's sugar. Then the meringue is prepared by beating the egg whites and adding some other sugar. Finally the almond mixture (sometimes known as 'tant pour tant', or TPT) is folded into the meringue to complete the dough/batter.

The following table attempts to condense all the recipes into an easily compared form by converting measurements to proportions. Where some cocoa powder was used, I've treated it as confectioner's sugar, since they are texturally similar.

(Definition aside: an Italian meringue is made by pouring boiling liquid sugar onto whipped egg whites while continuing to whip them. This supposedly cooks the whites, and makes them very glossy. A French meringue is made by gradually adding confectioner's sugar to the whites as they are beaten.)

After making this table and reading the eGullet thread a dozen times I decided that 1.33/1.33/1.0/1.33 and Italian meringue represented a sweet spot of Hermé-ness. However when I tried the variation of adding some unbeaten egg whites to the batter, I found that it contained a fatal flaw that still baffles me. What I ended up succeeding with is therefore closest to Nicole Kaplan's recipe, though I pulled technique tips from many other sources. I didn't try all of the others, so they may well work just fine.

In the next post we'll dive into the devilish details of this fickle concoction.

If you're just joining us, I'm going through the entire process of making macarons and considering the different approaches and what's worked best for me.

1. Ingredients and Prep

To review, the shell's main ingredients are almond, egg white, confectioner's sugar, and granulated sugar.

The almond portion of the shell must come from almond flour or meal. (I've found the Bob's Red Mill brand at Whole Foods and other stores in New York, or you can order it here.) It's important for the texture of the final product that the flour be as fine as possible, so you should put it with half the powdered sugar in a food processor to fracture the larger grains; the sugar keeps it dry and prevents it from becoming almond butter. If you don't plan to use almond flour for a while, refrigerate or freeze it.

The next step is to filter out the large grains that remain by putting the almond flour through a tamis, a flat fine mesh sieve. I've been getting by with a mesh strainer and a spoon, but this is one of the most arduous and time consuming steps in the recipe, so any tool that makes it easier may be a worthwhile investment. Lastly, mix the almond flour with the rest of the confec. sugar and you've got tant pour tant!

The egg whites are a fun little world all their own. There is general agreement that older egg whites have a thicker consistency that is better suited to making foams. Some simply recommend using egg whites you bought a week or two before, while others talk about leaving the whites out, uncovered, for anywhere from an hour to three days to let some of their water evaporate. (Supposedly they have their own bacteria-fighting agents; your disgust may vary.) I haven't found all this to be strictly necessary, but I do use older whites when I have them, and let them sit for a little while when I don't.

There's also been talk of using powdered egg whites to help stabilize the foam. I finally found some, the "Just Whites" brand, at an Upper West Side health food store, the kind that sells a lot of other foods and nutrients in appetizing powder form. I've been sprinkling in a pinch of them, but again, I wouldn't go out of your way for it unless you're stuck for ideas, or obsessed like me. Cream of Tartar can also perform this function.

The sugars, thank goodness, are just sugar.

2. Putting it Together

So you've got your tant pour tant and your aged egg whites. If you're going with meringue Italian style, proceed by putting your granulated sugar in a saucepan with just enough water to wet it thoroughly. You will heat the sugar up to about 114 Celsius, and while it is heating use your mixer to whip the whites to stiff peaks. The former task requires a candy thermometer and careful observation so that the sugar doesn't burn or become caramel. Once it's hot enough, slowly drizzle it onto the egg whites while you continue whipping. Make sure it doesn't all sink to the bottom, and the meringue should become extra glossy. Don't worry too much about overbeating, as you want the mixture to become stiff enough that you can turn the bowl over and see essentially no movement. It's as I'm finishing this step that I like to add coloring.

Note: this was where the PH10 and Syrup and Tang recipes went horribly wrong for me. With half the egg whites left out of the meringue, there was not enough to absorb the sugar, and I ended up with something bearing a striking resemblance to marshmallow fluff. In fact that's what it may have been!

If you've got a nice meringue, the time has come to mix it with the TPT and finish the batter. I found this to be a nerve racking moment, as it determines whether the texture will be right, yet any damage has probably been done--there is a limited amount of magic one can wield with the right folding technique. Everyone says the batter should "flow like magma," but for some reason it took me a long time to figure out that this meant very, very slowly. It should look like it's stationary at a glance, but settle a little bit over the course of 30 seconds or so. It's also commonly said that you should not worry about the meringue falling, because it is supposed to fall. I think the reality is a fascinating mixture of a gooey batter and the foamy meringue, and that's what makes these cookies unique. In any case, you want to mix the ingredients thoroughly but not more than necessary.

3. Piping your way to madness

These cookies have to be piped onto the baking sheets. I've found two tools to be indispensable for this:

- Target templates made in your favorite application with 1.5" diameter circles spaced 1.25" apart, on 8.5x14 paper. You'll put these underneath your liner (I use Silpat, others parchment paper).

- Ziploc sandwich bags. If you're proficient with a pastry bag, more power to you, but the batter is quite sticky and I really appreciate knowing it's not going to leak out the other end (that sounded dirty).

Prepare your baking sheets with the templates and distribute the batter into the bags. I prefer to stretch each bag over a glass when doing this. When you are ready, cut a 1/4" to 1/2" diagonal off the corner of one of the bags. To pipe, position the bag vertically about an inch over one of the targets. It will take considerable practice to get the right size and shape. The best you can hope for until you become a zen master is that all the irregularly shaped ones have decent matches. If your batter is stiff enough the batter may not spread to make a smooth top. In this case, dip a finger in water and carefully pat down the peak.

If you are decorating the shells, this is the time to do it. For my mogador recreation I used cocoa powder and a makeshift sprinkling device.

Once piped, the cookies must sit out for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes before baking, depending on the consistency of the batter. When ready the tops of the shells should appear dry and you should be able to touch them (carefully!) without any batter sticking to your finger. A fan can speed the drying process.

4. Baking your way

There are a LOT of variations here and I tended to constantly adjust my strategy batch by batch, but I'll try to cover as many ideas as I can.

Oven type: some prefer convection, others don't. You're probably just going to use whatever you have anyway.

Shelf placement: originally I used The Sweet Life's idea of putting one oven shelf on top and one near the bottom, and rotating baking sheets between them after half their baking time. Lately I just put one shelf in the middle so I can give each batch my full attention.

Temperature: 325 to 375 F. Some say to use 375 for the first half of baking, then lower it to 325. Others keep it constant. Some allow the temperature to fall by propping the oven door slightly ajar during baking, also mimicking convection with the airflow.

Time: anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes depending on the consistency of the shells.

What to look for: The cookies should rise and get their 'feet' after the first six minutes or so. After that you're waiting for them to bake enough to easily come off the baking sheet without getting too browned on the top. If this proves difficult it's probably because your batter was too fluid or your meringue not stiff enough.

Removal from the baking sheet: People have suggested all kinds of methods for this, from lifting up the lining and running water onto the hot baking sheet to steam them off, to placing them in the freezer for a minute, to voodoo-esque rituals. I've pretty much found, at least with Silpat, that they're either ready to come off and it's easy, or they're not and it's impossible and you disembowel them, as seen below. You can sometimes salvage things by putting them back in the oven for a minute or two.

Where did I go wrong? If your shells cracked in the oven, it may mean they didn't dry long enough. If the tops wrinkled or are very thin and fragile, it's probably a consistency or mixing issue. If the feet are absent or deflated, it's yes, consistency. If the shell rose unevenly or had an aneurysm and exploded out of the top, it's because during piping the batter got 'stuck' to the sheet at one or more points around the edge. You can learn to spot this and free it with a knife before baking. The air pocket that develops in the middle of the shells is something I don't see in Pierre Hermé's cookies. But I haven't been able to get rid of it, and it isn't a huge problem as long as the tops are strong enough.

If you've made it this far, congratulations, you're insane! Next time I'll talk about fillings of both the cookie and dental variety, seeing as how one leads to the other and all.