Growing up, when it came to special occasion and weekend dinners, my sister and I would take turns choosing the entree.

My sister’s favorite was always grilled steak. My dad would mix the meat with some sliced onions, and slather it all with a bunch of mustard. After some time at the grill, he would cut the slice into 1-inch slices, letting the lip of the cutting board catch the juices. My mom and sister would race to be the first to the reddest pieces, while I’d opt for the less-rare slices from the edge of the steak. I didn’t care so much about the meat itself; for me, it was just a vehicle to get more grilled onions to my mouth. Even though I didn’t usually like mustard, I loved the tang it added to the sweet and tender onions, turned bright yellow from the condiment.

But when it was my turn to pick our special dinner, I usually chose manicotti. It was almost like inside-out spaghetti and meatballs, but better. The beef and spinach filling was kept separate from the tomato sauce and ricotta by the pasta shells. Until, that is, you cut into it and took a bite, and all the flavors finally came together. To this day, I still request manicotti when I go to my parents’ house in Minnesota.

Recently, I’ve felt like I need to revisit my earliest blog posts. The first few recipes, the first few Brain Food 101 posts: they have good content, but the quality of the writing leaves something to be desired. So here we go: the types of wheat flour, revisited.

Gluten is made up of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin. When combined with liquid, gluten forms a strong network of protein strands that traps air bubbles and creates an elastic support structure for baked goods. Doughs and batters with more gluten proteins absorb more liquid, forming a stronger gluten network. Different types of wheat flours have different levels of gluten, so you’ll want to choose wisely in your baking adventures.

Bread Flour:

Bread flour has a high gluten content, typically between 12-14%. The extra gluten helps trap air in the bread dough, making the final loaf light, springy and chewy. Bread flour is best for yeast breads, as you’d expect, but is also a good choice when making pastries that have lots of layers of fat and air, like cream puffs.

Don’t use bread flour for lighter pastries or cakes, though; it will absorb too much moisture and leave the final product tough and dry.

Cake and Pastry Flour:

Cake and pastry flour have the lowest protein content, and are usually only around 8 or 9% gluten. Cake flour is different largely because it is bleached to make it whiter in color and to help thicken the batter a bit. Both are best for more delicate pastries and cakes, like angel food cake.

If you choose to use cake or pastry flour for cookies, your cookies will likely spread more than they would if you used all-purpose four. Because there is less gluten, it will absorb less moisture than all-purpose flour would, leading to the spread. To counteract this, use a little less liquid in your cookie dough.

Do not use these flours for bread dough, though. Because they have less protein, they won’t trap as much air, and your bread will be dense and tough.

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1. Wear a helmet. Even if you think they don’t look “cool” or whatever, wear one anyways. Because even if you are aware of your surroundings and riding as safely as possible, it doesn’t mean that the drivers and other cyclists around you are.

Sixteen years ago, a car of teenagers ran my dad off the road just because they could. He ended up with six broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a punctured lung and a lot of road rash. But his helmet saved his life. Dan’s crashed after getting cut off by a turning car; a car backed out of a driveway into our friend, breaking both his wrists; and I hit my head when I fell because my bike dropped its chain on a hill.

So again, even if you are riding safely, it doesn’t mean the people around you are behaving safely or your equipment won’t surprise you. Wear a helmet.

2. Get comfortable with riding on the road, or find a trail. You have every right to be on the road, so use it. Drivers are required by law in many states to give you three feet of space when they pass you. Technically you have the right to a full lane, but I typically stick to the right side of the lane to give cars more room to pass me. Key exception: if I am on a steep downhill or a particularly curvy road, I take the whole lane…it isn’t safe for cars to pass me here anyways!

Note: For heaven’s sakes, don’t ride on the sidewalks. It is annoying to pedestrians, you’re more likely to be hit by someone pulling their car out of their driveway, and in many states, it is illegal. If you’re riding with little kids, I’ll give you a pass; otherwise, get on the road or find a designated bike trail.

3. Know the rules of the road, and follow them. Rule of thumb: bikes are held to the same standards as cars. Ride in the right lane, stop at stop signs and red lights, signal your turns, etc.

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There is a beautiful simplicity to the perfect roast chicken. The browned, crispy skin that everyone, even the most health-minded of guests, fights over. The flavorful, meltingly tender meat that hardly even requires a knife, shredding under the pull of a fork. In many kitchens, a chef’s worth is judged largely on their ability to roast a whole chicken. It is a task that seems so simple, but perfection is difficult to achieve.

Believe me, I’ve tried. I roast a chicken once or twice a month, and I think I’ve only 100% nailed it once. (Granted, I am a perfectionist, so I am probably more judgmental of my own cooking than I need to be.)

My chickens have been fine; they’re never dry, but they often don’t have a ton of flavor. I’ve tried seasoning the outside, but that just makes the skin more delicious, not the meat itself. I’ve tried stuffing the cavity with herbs or halved lemons or garlic, but I’ve never actually noticed a difference in the flavor (am I the only one?). I’ve slid little pats of butter or rubbed olive oil under the skin, and while it added a little flavor, the clouds didn’t part when I took my first bite of chicken or anything.

So I’m continuing my quest for a perfectly cooked, very flavorful roast chicken. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. Let the chicken rest on the counter for 30-45 minutes before roasting, to “take the chill off.” Otherwise, your chicken won’t cook through evenly.
2. Pat the raw chicken dry, both inside and out, with paper towels before seasoning and roasting. If it is still wet, the skin will steam rather than browning and crisping.
3. In my experience, stuffing the cavity with citrus or herbs or garlic doesn’t make a big difference. Am I missing something?
4. Lay the chicken on top of either a roasting rack or a bed of chopped root vegetables to allow air to circulate while it roasts. This way, the chicken will cook evenly.
5. Leave the skin on while roasting. You can remove it afterwards if you’d like (though I don’t recommend it!), but the skin helps keep the meat from drying out.
6. Roast until the temperature of the thickest part of the thigh reads 165F. Some people will tell you 175F, but the temperature will keep increasing as the chicken rests, and the too-high temperatures will make the meat dry.
7. Let the roasted chicken rest for 10-15 minutes before carving. This allows all the juices to redistribute evenly through the meat.  If you carve too early, the juices will run onto the plate instead of staying in the chicken, making the meat too dry.
8. Know where your chicken comes from. Talk to your farmer at the market and find out how the birds were raised and what they were fed. It may not make a huge difference flavor-wise, but it makes a difference ethically.

And here are some of my favorite roast chicken recipes:

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For me, the first sign of spring isn’t the chirping of a robin or a blooming daffodil or even the little shoots of lettuce popping up in the cold frames. No, the first sign of spring is the day we can bike to the once-again-outdoors Farmers’ Market. There usually isn’t much produce yet – just the last bags of carrots, turnips and celery root, and plenty of potatoes. If you’re lucky, you might find the first tiny, and very expensive, bags of arugula or salad greens.

But the artists, cheese makers, meat vendors and winemakers are back with their wares. Plus, there are plenty of seedlings to buy for your garden, if you’re so inclined.

And we can once again meander through the pavilion and sit on the dock with our feet dangling over the water.

Each week, the walkways will fill as more and more people start coming to the market. More produce will pop up: lettuce, radishes, spring carrots, green garlic and ramps first. Then peas and garlic scapes will make an appearance. Eventually, zucchini, tomatoes and beans will show up, too.

Until then, we’ll savor the sunny morning bike rides to the not-yet-full market. The first sign of spring.

What little things are making you happy today?

Photo: My mom and sister came to visit for my birthday this weekend!   

SPRINGTIME

Goal: find ramps ASAP for this ramp pizza!

This description of spring makes me smile.

Smoky red lentil burgers seem like a must this spring.

Moscow Mules are good… Moscow Mules made with homemade ginger beer are probably even better.

EAT SMART

100 Rules of Dinner

“Reduced-fat means extra sugar and/or salt has been added. Read labels and compare.” Truth. 

CREATE

For those of you with limited space: window gardening tips!

Let’s make a time capsule!

LAUGH

My science nerd friends will appreciate this…ha!

Cat-Friend v. Dog-Friend.  Seems about right.

FIND ME

My newest Savvy Blog Talk post: Resizing photos.

Two new winery reviews: Americana Vineyards and Penguin Bay Winery.

Salt, Sugar, Fat: Views From a Former Food Engineer. This was posted on Savvy Eats, but it is one of the pieces I am most proud of, so it is worth sharing again!

In the summer, I spent my weekends cheering on Dan’s baseball team. After the first double header, a 90-degree day with no shelter from the sun that led to us all going home with heat exhaustion, I volunteered to keep score for the team. Thereafter, I basked in the shade provided by the dugout while keeping book and sipping on iced chai.

In the winter, we hosted our first big New Year’s Eve games party. I made homemade pasta, beef in Barolo and cookie dough egg rolls. And then I mixed countless drinks while we all played Thunderstone, Dixit, Cards Against Humanity and Power Grid. At midnight, we rattled our noisemakers and blew our horns, which Max promptly attempted to shred to bits.

In the spring, I started making some career decisions. I began a recipe development partnership with our favorite farmer, pursued freelance work and started on a cookbook proposal.

Interspersed and scattered among all the big happenings of the year were a plethora of wonderful little things. Max was incredibly fluffy all winter long, until his spring haircut shrunk him to half his size. I started painting my nails to help my cuticles heal, and each season was marked by a new nail color (this spring is robin’s egg blue!).

I finally learned to make pasta, cranking out ribbons of fettucini, pockets of ravioli and sheets of lasagna. I started a book club and established weekly craft/girl’s nights with my friend Megan.

Dan and I played countless board games and started playing tennis again. I planted garlic in the Savvy Garden for the first time, and have been rewarded with 25 green garlic shoots already.

So tomorrow, I’ll be excited to embark on my twenty-sixth year. I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

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Things are finally starting to happen in the garden.  Check out what’s going on in the cold frames!

I was concerned last fall when I planted my garlic.  Some creatures were clearly burrowing in the straw mulch I had thickly layered over the cloves, and I worried that they were gnawing on my future crop.  But I think my fears were unfounded, because so far, I see 22 garlic shoots poking out of the mulch, out of the 30-ish that I planted.

I planted the peas a few weeks ago, and then the temperature immediately plummeted for a week.  Luckily, it didn’t seem to hurt them at all, just slow them down a bit!

The sage is beginning to show some new growth, with the oregano and thyme close behind.

We spent Saturday afternoon cleaning up the backyard. Three hours of weeding and watering and dragging away yard waste. We brought in two big carloads of mulch to tamp down any weeds or mud between the raised beds.  And I supplemented the two darker boxes (back left and middle right) with compost and GardenTone, and planted some shallots, ball carrots and arugula.

Who else did some yard work or planting this weekend?

I didn’t mean to post chorizo recipes two weeks in a row, truly I didn’t. I  meant to post gnudi, little ricotta dumplings in a sauce filled with fresh, springy vegetables. Except when I went to make them on Tuesday, I realized that the ricotta had gone bad. So I made chorizo con papas instead, and bought some new ricotta to try again tonight.

Perfecting this chorizo con papas took a few attempts. The first time I made it, I tried boiling the potatoes before cooking them in the chorizo fat. Instead of getting browned, they kind of just fell apart. Oops. But now I’ve got it down: the perfect balance of spice and starch and sweetness.

I served this at girl’s night with a friend. She had just gotten some good news, so I paired it with a celebratory bottle of chilled rosé wine. We chatted and giggled and gossiped as we savored bite after bite of spicy chorizo. It was a great quick and simple meal for a weeknight hang out.

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