Was it the Romas or the technique?

I made the best batch of red spaghetti sauce I've ever made last night. Perhaps it's because the ingredients are all so perfect right now? Anyway, here's (roughly) what I did:

Quartered a bunch of Roma tomatoes. Put them in a large frying pan with a bunch of torn basil. Cooked over highish heat for approximately 10 minutes, until they had all broken down. While tomatoes were cooking, minced up four large cloves of garlic and diced half a yellow onion. Once tomatoes were done, I passed them through a food mill (medium-holed disc). Heated a good amount of olive oil (1/3 c.? Maybe even 1/2 c.?) in my (rinsed out) frying pan, added garlic and onion. Cooked over low heat until onions were transparent and kitchen smelled yummy. Tore up more basil, added to pan. Added tomato sauce, post-food mill. Add good pinch of salt and several cranks of fresh pepper. Mixed together and let cook down for about 10-15 more minutes while I rolled and cut pasta and cooked it. Result: sweet sauce, nice tang, smooth on tongue. Not just tomato flavor, it was a rich melange of all the ingredients, and perfect on the fresh linguine.

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Googlecooking

We've got Googlewhacking, Googlebombing and now we can add Googlecooking to our lexicon. My mother types whatever ingredients she has on hand into Google and then picks the most appealing recipe returned in the results. What a good idea!

What's funny is I've always wanted a database of all my cookbooks so I could do just this. It never occurred to me to use Google instead. If I didn't have dinner plans, I'd try it tonight. I wonder what it would return for rotten basil and an onion?

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Thomas Keller in the NY Times

How to Boil Four-Star Water: A Master Class is a New York Times' article about French Laundry chef Thomas Keller and his approach to food. Less focus this time on his perfectionism and more general details about his approach in the kitchen. And more about his use of the word "finesse."

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