Rosengarten Classics

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How to Cook–How to Really Cook–Chinese Food at Home

Yes, you bought a wok. Maybe even two woks! Yes, your cabinet is filled with the Chinese pre-mades of choice: soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, etc. Yes, you’ve got on your shelf all the cool cookbooks on the subject of Chinese food, with hundreds of recipes at your disposal.

And yet, if you’re like me–or like I was for many years, before discovering The Secret–the Chinese stir-fries you make at home taste more like Bar Mitzvah food than Chinese restaurant food. (If you’ve never been to a Bar Mitzvah, substitute “wedding food“.) Where is that magical taste, and those magical textures, that every neighborhood Chinese take-out place–not to mention every Chinese restaurant of quality–seems to so effortlessly produce?

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The Smoked Salmon Maze

Many factors contribute to the ultimate quality of the smoked salmon you buy. Here are some of them:

Genus of Salmon. There are two main types of salmon swimming around out there. The most prized is the Atlantic salmon, of the genus salmo salar. All European salmon are salmo salar, as are all eastern U.S. salmon. So, if your smoked salmon is made from salmon that was caught or raised in Scotland, Norway, Ireland or Maine, it’s salmo salar. It is highly prized because it has lots of the good stuff: oil.

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Forget Vintage Port, Say I…..Treacly Tawny’s the Ticket!

I’m in the Tawny Port Minority…and proud!

If you’re a lover of Port–the great, sweet, fortified wine from Portugal, which has many different sub-types–you are supposed to love Vintage Port above all. It is the rarest Port. It is the most expensive Port.

But is it the best Port? Not in my tasting experience.

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Hold that Turkey!!! The Time Is Now for the Big Bird Alternatives

Oh, ’tis turkey season, to be sure. The amount of turkeys on America’s tables on Thanksgiving Day will be truly staggering; nary a household in the land will lack the Big Bird, our National Trussed, on that November Thursday. And is the seasonal turkey onslaught over then? No siree, Tom. Left-over turkey sandwiches will take us into December…then, quite a few menu-challenged household heads…will choose a turkey reprise for Christmas dinner.

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From the Heart: My Guide to Dim Sum

Cantonese Dim Sum…a magical and wonderful collection of little bites…that can be completely confusing to order! Many friends skip Dim Sum completely because they just don’t know what to choose. If you go to a place that wheels carts around, ordering is more of a point and hope; you can just point at what looks good—and hope it’s delicious. If you go to a dim sum place where you order from the kitchen, however, you really need to know your dim sum.

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