Category science

The Flemish Primitives 2010 (part 1)

Again I was lucky that all the practical details worked out so I could attend this year’s Flemish Primitives in Brugge. For some one who’s not attended, it’s not so easy to grasp the concept and ideas behind The Flemish…

Cheer up with some gingerbread for Christmas

The gingerbread cookies pictured are made with ginger, cloves and cinnamon. I didn’t use ammonium carbonate as a leavening agent for these, so no amphetamines were created “in furno” in this case. But I’m sure the cookies can cheer you…

Sourdough work in progress (part II)

A sourd dough bread made from a spontaneous starter After 7 days of feeding my sour dough starter “took off” and was ready for baking. Even with a water bath set to 28 °C it took longer than expected. I…

Nocino – walnut liqueur (part I)

Last year, while visiting family in Germany, I decided to pick some walnuts to bring home to Norway. They were not ripe, which was good, because I was planning to make nocino, a walnut liqueur. You can easily find a…

Dangerous names?

I recently stumbled across an interesting article on risk perception: If It’s Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky – Fluency, Familiarity and Risk perception. Researches from the University of Michigan had students read lists of fictious words and imagining…

Building a meal

There’s a new book by Hervé This available in English: Building a meal – From Molecular Gastronomy to Culinary Constructivism. In the book he examines six bistro favorites — hard-boiled egg with mayonnaise, simple consommé, leg of lamb with green…

The Flemish Primitives: Glowing lollipops (part 4)

Bruce Bryan demonstrated a glowing cocktail drink (top left), and tempted us with fluorescent cake frosting (top right). The chocolate surprise boxes included a lollipop (bottom left) and I was quite busy sucking the lollipop, listening to the translation of…

Accelerated aging of wine

Can the natural process of aging wine in corked bottles be accelerated? I recently found an interesting article on how an electric field can be used for maturation of wine (New Scientist news coverage of the article). Applying a AC…