Witness to a father's legacy - an autobiographical essay

Iconic Eagle photographer from 1930s to ’50s left treasured images, his son recently revealed.

A collection of iconic Brooklyn photographs by the late Irving Kaufman, mostly taken for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the 1930s to ’50s, were recently digitized by the photographer’s son, Phil.

This autobiographical essay transcends cultures, because, in my opinion, there comes a time in every family's history when we may experience a nostalgic appreciation or acknowledge some insight about our parents. The special exeperience shared by Phil Kaufman is particularly interesting because our culture has become dependent of visual memories preserved in "real time".

Therefore, I appreciated reading Kaufman's story I found published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, newspaper. Enjoy this reflective writing:

https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2020/04/24/the-rare-brooklyn-treasure-my-dad-left-hidden-for-discovery-long-after-his-death/

My father’s early Brooklyn photos are a treasure I didn’t know existed

April 24, 2020 Phil Kaufman

My father, Irving Kaufman, loved New York. Or at least, as I knew him, he loved Manhattan. But, before he loved Manhattan, he loved Brooklyn. And after he loved Manhattan, he still loved Brooklyn.
He was a photographer. His love showed in his photographs. What he loved most, for its own sake, no strings attached, was Brooklyn, then Manhattan: the streets, the stores, the people, the buildings, the skylines, stark urban beauty. Outdoors, where the city could show off. That love is most evident in his early work – mid 1930s through the war years — some for the Eagle, some for local clients, most for his own exploration and growth, all on his own terms.

The local clients during those early years were Brooklyn schools, hospitals, civic groups, charities, business groups. He covered a steady stream of meetings, dinners and public events that didn’t often lend themselves to aesthetics. Yet a lot of the work has much the same character, attention, affection and devotion that showed so strongly in the independent, creative work he did for the Brooklyn Eagle or for his own joy.

Inevitably, he moved his studio to Manhattan to join the boom years of commercial photography. His work centered on advertisements in magazines or commercial publications. He also photographed charity events or institutional meetings and dinners. He took portraits or covered appearances by “important” people in business, public affairs, entertainment. Always excellent. Always professional. Always appreciated. Often whimsical, creative, distinctive. “Photography that tells is photography that sells” was a motto he used to advertise himself. He meant it and he delivered on it.

I see extraordinary love and beauty in most of his early work. Of necessity those qualities come along less often later, but I still see them, sometimes even stronger, throughout his almost 50 professional years. But maybe that’s just me. I’m his son, after all. I’m biased.

I reviewed the Kaufman photographs published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. This image is certainly vintage, a man stands on the trolley tracks near a car that appears to have its wheels removed. (Yikes, what happened when the trolly appeared?)

But I haven’t been biased for long. I never saw any of the early work I’ve just described while my father was alive. The thousands of 4 x 5 black and white negatives stayed stored away in file cabinets and boxes in garages for decades after he died. There was no practical way to review and evaluate them.

Then came digital photography on phones and tablets, with “invert colors” and basic editing capabilities. Still a daunting task, but now his retired son at least had a fighting chance to visit, evaluate, and resurrect his father’s work from 80 years earlier.

It has been a joy for me to see the world through my father’s eyes. I was familiar with some “special” shots, and I knew of his love for the city. But that didn’t prepare me for the scope and artistry of what I uncovered. These early works overflow with historic and human interest and are simply beautiful in their own right. I hope you agree. (Yes we do!)

A physician's pandemic message to her patients

Ah, look at all the lonely people.

#COVID19Lonliness

"All the lonely people were do they all come from, all the lonely people were so they all be long."

By Maryann K. Overland..."She loves her patients very much."
Special to The Seattle Times- an echo essay from a physician to her patients.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney could not have predicted how accurately the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” would describe the list of my primary-care patients requesting a call. 

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the clinic's days were a mix of patients with severe chronic diseases and those who I would describe as terminally lonely. These are people who, through life's circumstances, spend most days without the benefit of meaningful human contact. They depend on brief social exchanges and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed — getting cash from a bank teller when the ATM would do, buying a pack of gum for a chance of having a quick conversation with a supermarket checker, becoming a regular at the coffee shop in hopes of becoming friendly with the barista.

Any primary-care physician will tell you, our daily victories often consist of knowing that we provided kindness and dignity — and the power of human touch — to individuals who might not otherwise have experienced it. This raises a key question: 

In the COVID-19 era, what becomes of all the lonely people?

The human experience of loneliness may have evolved to warn us of the threat of isolation and abandonment. Loneliness is also a risk factor for depression, Alzheimer’s dementia, coronary heart disease and stroke. Indeed, the odds of dying are 50% higher for lonely people, which are similar to the odds of dying from smoking and greater than the odds dying of high blood pressure and obesity.

For primary-care physicians, knowing our patients — their interests, their social contexts, their fears — is critical to maintaining their health. Since early March, my virtual clinic visits have included troubleshooting flares of chronic low-back pain, adjusting insulin, brief cognitive-behavioral techniques for anxiety, examining rashes and fine-tuning heart failure medications. Perhaps more importantly, these visits have centered on topics that are nonmedical but at the same time vital for health. We have discussed books, travel, Bob Barker versus Drew Carey on “The Price is Right,” the merits of having a dog during the pandemic and where to get the best takeout in Seattle.

One patient simply wanted to commiserate about how unsatisfying a telephone call is compared to a clinic visit. (Maine Writer: as a nurse, this does not appear to bode well for an evidence based advancement and the calling for more telehealth?)

Several have made appointments to make sure that I am OK and ask after my family. One shared an exhaustive list of every meal he had eaten for the past week. He admitted he was so lonely he had driven to the beach to eat in his car while watching pairs of people strolling on the sand. We all agree that our encounters would be richer if we could truly see the sparks in each other’s eyes. The loss of photon exchange between patients and providers is truly felt.

To be sure, social distancing has flattened the curve of COVID-19 transmission and saved countless lives. Appropriate attention is being dedicated to the economic and educational consequences of the pandemic and our collective response. However, as a society we must also be cognizant of the invisible health costs.

After the COVID-19 surge passes, I anticipate a different kind of surge: Waves of people returning to primary-care clinics who were avoiding or delaying care during the outbreak. While staying home to protect themselves and their neighbors, they suffered from profound loneliness — and the related health consequences. I doubt there will be daily White House briefings or a federal task force to address the pandemic of loneliness. However, the primary-care doctors on the front lines will be ready to take up the charge, and I, for one, cannot wait to share a smile, a touch, a room with my lonely people.

Maryann K. Overland Maryann Overland is a primary care internist who lives and works in Seattle. She loves her patients very much.

When a bridge transcends literature and time

The Brunswick-Topshamm Maine "The Swinging Bridge" with Roebling Ropes suspension- art in engineering.

There is a picturesque bridge in Brunswick Maine called "The Swinging Bridge". This bridge was constructed with a purpose to create a footbridge from Topsham Maine across the Androsgoggin River to Brunswick (and back to Topsham), for Franco-American workers to use, because they were needed to provide labor for the Cabot Mills and other manufacturing plants that were reliant on hydropower.

The Swinging Bridge is historic because it was designed by John Roebling and the suspension is supported by Roebling Ropes. This is the same engineering concept as was used to construct the famously picturesque Brooklyn Bridge, in New York.

I have reported on the historic preservation of Brunswick and Topsham "The Swinging Bridge" for over 20 years, as in my blog link in this report.

Therefore, I was pleased to read this review about a new biography about Robeling, published in the History News Network. Although The Swinging Bridge in Brunswick-Topsham Maine is not mentioned in this particular HNN article, I have posted the link to my article to the CUNY Twitter announcement about the biography:
Bangor Daily News:
http://francoamerican.bangordailynews.com/2019/08/09/franco-american-news-and-culture/androscoggin-swinging-bridge-franco-american-mill-workers-history/

History News Network- engineer Roebling in literature

by Richard Haw

Spiritualism and Suspension Bridges: John Roebling and a Biographer's Sympathy for the Weird 19th Century

John Roebling was one of the nineteenth century's most brilliant engineers, ingenious inventors, successful manufacturers, and fascinating personalities. Raised in a German backwater amid the war-torn chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, he immigrated to the US in 1831, where he became wealthy and acclaimed, eventually receiving a carte-blanche contract to build one of the nineteenth century's most stupendous and daring works of engineering: a gigantic suspension bridge to span the East River between New York and Brooklyn. (And the Brunswick, Maine "The Swinging Bridge).

Richard Haw is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and the author of the newly released Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling (Oxford UP), as well as The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History and Art of the Brooklyn Bridge: A Visual History.

Two things that have often seemed in short supply in our national politics over the last few years are a respect for history—not just the lessons it can teach us, but what forces and factors drove those lessons—and empathy for the people stuck in that history.

People live their lives situated in time and space and are forced to make choices with the knowledge and context available to them. They are often fooled or foolish—also often astute or fortunate—but there are usually sound reasons for the way people act, whether we agree with them or not. Keeping that in mind is what makes the job of a biographer such a humbling practice.

About eleven years ago, I set out to write my first biography, of John Roebling, the man who designed the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling’s life seemed grand and exciting, full of ideas and incident. Born in Prussia, he attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin, emigrated to the US to start a utopian farming community in rural Pennsylvania, wrote passionately of his abhorrence of slavery, and went on to become one of the nineteenth century’s greatest engineers and manufacturers, and certainly its greatest bridge builder. He built bridges over the Niagara Gorge (over which Harriet Tubman transported formerly enslaved people to Canada) and over the Ohio at Cincinnati (the first structure to link a Northern with a Southern state after the Civil War). He had just begun the colossal New York and Brooklyn Bridge—one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century—when a random accident at the bridge site claimed his life.

I thought Roebling was a genius. He could wrestle thousands of tons of wood, granite and iron into beautiful and intricate bridges, far longer and sturdier than anyone else on the planet could. He combined advanced mathematics and physics with the eye of artist and a master craftsman to produce sublime artifacts of the industrial age, great icons of the nineteenth century.

I also thought he was a complete weirdo. Roebling believed in spirits; wrapped himself up in a wet sheet before going to bed (a friend of mine thought my book should be called “More Wet Sheet”: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling); assiduously attended séances; ate his own bodyweight in charcoal; treated himself with cold running water when he had tetanus; thought he could ward off cholera by pacing up and down repeating “I have it not, I have it not!”; created huge long lists of things he wouldn’t eat, including nearly all fruits and vegetables, which he seemed to think were somewhat toxic; believed in Odic Force, that space was a substance (“ether”), and that the afterlife consisted of seven spheres of existence that you slowly worked through to get to the final state, disarmingly named Summerland.

This all seemed so rich and wonderful to a first time biographer. The guy was clearly bonkers and it would be such fun to rake over it all, I thought.

But I don’t see him as a weirdo now, even though much of what he believed we would now call mumbo jumbo. And I have no interest in poking fun at him, laughing at his failings (ok, maybe a chuckle about the wet sheet), or wallowing in my superiority. I have learned, I think, the first lesson of biography: that we need to take people on their own terms, not on ours. And Roebling’s terms were the nineteenth century, not the early twenty first.

The nineteenth was an age of invention, belief, and exploration. People believed they could find answers to everything, Roebling more so than most. He was at heart an ideas man. He had thousands over the course of his life. Most missed the mark in one form or another, but some didn’t, and those ideas helped change the face of a nation. His views on medicine may strike us as misguided and delusional but the medical profession had barely entered its infancy by the mid-nineteenth century. To one degree or another almost all ideas about medicine were wrong. (The doctor attending Roebling’s brush with cholera blamed the disease on “the epidemic constitution of the air,” “high heat and humidity,” and “soil poison,” for example.) But the point was not so much the accuracy as the effort at understanding itself.

Roebling’s life and beliefs showcase a society struggling to reconcile the rising influence of science with the declining authority of faith and religion, a hallmark of the nineteenth century and a process we mistakenly regard in hindsight as linear. Yet even for someone like Charles Darwin, shrugging off religion was the work of a lifetime, “like confessing a murder,” he wrote his good friend Joseph Hooker. Beliefs were in flux. New knowledge was created at a bewildering pace, much of which refused to sit easily next to established ideas. A surprisingly large number of prominent Americans—judges, journalists, abolitionists, historians, military officers, politicians, businessmen, and poets—took to spiritualism, for example, precisely because of this. In a climate of change and creation, new things seem possible and within reach: new ways to build, communicate, and think; new places, materials, and laws to discover; even perhaps communing with the dead. In this, the nineteenth century was a time of optimism, but also of huge loss. War, disease, and large-scale migration separated family members, often forever, as it did with Roebling, who lost a beloved child in infancy, had a son fight in the Civil War, and never saw any of his immediate family after leaving Europe when he was twenty-four. This confluence of discovery and loss fed the spiritualist movement, which in turn reflected the age in which it appeared. If the religious impulse represents the search for answers in the face of profound grief, then spiritualism offered a comforting, plausible solution to a bewildering era that took away as much as it promised. Spiritualism sought to bring science into the world of faith: to make the afterlife a verified, observable fact. We might scoff at a nation as taken with séances as hard science but it’s entirely possible that, during Roebling’s life, more people believed in spirits than suspension bridges.

Roebling, of course, believed in both.

Roebling was a believer and a scientist. He belonged to the blurred line that ran straight through the nineteenth century, shaping its unsteady but inexorable march. Roebling helps us remember that the achievements of industry and engineering—what we take to be the triumphs of applied reason—are often created by people with a decidedly different perspective on the world than our own.

He is also a reminder that people can be many things, and that contradictions aren’t always as clear as with hindsight. Arthur Conan Doyle—the mind behind literature’s most rational brain—was a doctor, ophthalmologist and botanist who studied at one the UK’s most prestigious medical schools. He was a full-throated advocate of vaccinations. He also believed in fairies.

Roebling’s achievements in applied science stand in somewhat stark contrast to his ideas about other branches of the natural arts. But his failings in this regard aren’t his own alone: they belong to the times, just as his successes do. One might also say they weren’t even failings at all. We think of people like John Roebling as embodying great contradictions but they are only contradictions to us. They weren’t contradictions to him or to others of his era. Instead they were the creaks and groans of a culture working things out, moving itself forward in time and in understanding, trying its messy best to incorporate new aims and new ideas into an existing order.

The nineteenth century is not our century. It’s easy to judge but harder to understand, which is why we need to have empathy for those that lived in and through it. We have the gift of hindsight. They had only the unknown.

Writing in the time of pandemic- a retrospective focus on today

Appreciated reading this opinion echo, an analysis with perspective, published in the Tennessee newspaper Knox County News

'A Journal of the Plague Year' relevant 300 years after publication | Opinion

By Misty G. Anderson 

"...a time in history when our ways of talking about the health of our nation have been narrowed down to talking about business profits", Misty Andereson

Daniel Defoe wrote the book everyone knows, whether they have read it or not: "Robinson Crusoe." It’s a story we tell again and again, whether as "Castaway," "Gilligan’s Island" or "Lost," about what you would do if you were shipwrecked on a desert island, which looks more appealing than ever these days. But Defoe’s less well-known 1722 book, "A Journal of the Plague Year," about the 1665 London outbreak of bubonic plague, might be the more useful read for this moment. 

The Black Death wasn’t just a 14th-century event, and yet another outbreak of it in Europe in the 1720s prompted Defoe, with the help of his uncle, to reflect on how England had behaved during the 1665 epidemic. Like modern reporters, Defoe tells the story of the epidemic through the death count by region. His descriptions of those who sickened and died are harrowing. The disease hit doctors and nurses hard (then as now), prompted hoarding and led to rumors about minority groups (in London, the Jesuits) who could be blamed for it. Astrologers, quacks with miracle cures and fortune tellers all sprang up to pick the pockets of frightened people desperate for a sense of control. They preyed on the most vulnerable, especially those who couldn’t afford not to go to work.

Health is about more than the economy

In fact, Defoe was a small businessman himself before he was a novelist. He wrote about the impact of interrupted trade on people’s livelihoods during and after the epidemic, and he worried about when the economy would pick up. But he was always clear, like Tennessee state Sen. Richard Briggs, that there isn’t much of a livelihood without life, nor an economy without people.
Our current crisis asks us the classic stick-up question: “Your money or your life?” Unfortunately, it comes at a time in history when our ways of talking about the health of our nation have been narrowed down to talking about business profits. Tennessee has been especially hard hit by this substitution of economic for actual health. Thirteen rural hospitals have closed since 2012 because they weren’t profitable (they make money on elective procedures), and that number could double by the end of this year. Those closures take thousands of rural jobs and strain the remaining hospitals.

The national shortage of personal protective equipment is also an effect of just-in-time supply chains that maximize profit for companies and shareholders, but that can be deadly for medical professionals and the patients they are trying to save.

Our most popular stories of self-reliance, as attractive as they are, don’t tell the whole story, because their heroes don’t really live alone. The fictional Robinson Crusoe had all the stuff from the ship, “his man” Friday, a lot of goats and, eventually, more castaways. He also shipwrecked while running an illegal slave trading venture. The real Henry David Thoreau, who went to the woods to “live deliberately” and wrote the American tribute to self-reliance, "On Walden Pond," had neighbors. He bought a shack from an Irish railroad worker’s family for $4.25 and stripped the wood to build his cabin. He went to dinner at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house often, and his sister and mother brought him baked goods and doughnuts every weekend. Even Han Solo realized he needed his friends, that he loved them and that he wasn’t doing it just for the money. Veterans know this in their hearts and their bones.

We’re in a moment where we have to think about the relationship of the individual to the community flourishing in order to face this crisis. Our country will get through it, but no matter how much we socially isolate, we won’t be doing it alone. We’ve all seen and experienced anxiety and selfishness since the coronavirus pandemic hit, but also empathy, sharing, sacrifice and community-making.

Joy awaits us

Defoe saw that same range of responses 300 years ago, and he ends his book by commenting on the utter delight people experienced on seeing each other in the street after the plague had passed, with strangers sharing in the joy of being together. 

So, as you look forward to the joy of being with friends, loved ones and, yes, strangers at restaurants and concerts and ball games, take a moment to think about how our ability to flourish is tied up in the flourishing of others. What would we do differently as a society if we took that seriously? We’re all on this island planet together.

You can slow the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, by staying home for all but essential trips, practicing social distancing and washing hands with soap and water frequently. If Americans can slow the pandemic’s spread, it will prevent deaths by reducing stress on medical professionals and the health care system. 

For more information about COVID-19, please visit cdc.gov/coronavirus.

Misty G. Anderson is a professor of English at the University of Tennessee.

Learning to cook for the not so culinary inclined

Maine Writer- When I was managing a company with young employees, I was stunned to learn how little most of them understood about cooking. Many, literally, did not know how to boil water! One young nurse who reported to me said that in her family, on Easter Sunday, they sent out for Chinese food because no restaurants were open. She couldn't prepare a ham! (The easiest cut of meats to cook!) Perhaps, this extraordinary pandemic experience will encourage young people to want to learn how to cook! I found this article published in the Dallas Morning News and enjoyed reading this descriptive writing:

Published in the Dallas Morning News:

https://www.dallasnews.com/food/cooking/2020/05/04/8-essential-cooking-skills-to-learn-while-still-stuck-at-home/

By Rebecca White

Many are still dining in. But even if you’re not a skilled or well-equipped cook, you can still turn out good meals. Knowing some basic cooking skills will make cooking easier and more enjoyable.

There’s no time better than the present to acquire confidence in the kitchen. Below are a few areas in which you might need a refresher course. Also, don’t feel ashamed if you know none of the steps below. We all start somewhere, so start today.

While some of these techniques may not be James Beard-approved, they work.

Feel free to alter these steps to best fit your kitchen rhythm.

How to properly salt: Knowing how and when to salt food is fundamental to cooking. From the beginning, middle and end of the cooking process, salt plays a critical role in the overall outcome of the final dish. When cooking,  salt meats 30 minutes to an hour before cooking. 

If salt is added at the beginning of the cooking process, it has the time to penetrate the food.

When distributing salt, be sure to sprinkle the salt from a good height. America’s Test Kitchen suggests 12 inches to achieve the most even distribution.

To make chicken with skin more flavorful, be sure to peel back the skin and salt underneath. Salt steak anywhere from 1-8 hours before cooking to achieve great flavor. This time frame is based on how thick of a cut of steak you are working with.

How to cook eggs

Boiled: There are two methods. Try each and see which one works best for you and your cooktop. (Maine Writer note- I purchased an egg timer that works by putting it into the pan with the water.)

(This is a Julie photo- the egg timer works just like the directions describe.)

* Place eggs into saucepan. Pour room temperature water over the eggs. Place onto the cooktop and bring the pan of water to almost boiling. Cover and remove from heat. Set timer to 10 minutes. Quickly pour out the hot water and fill with ice water to stop the cooking process. Seven minutes for soft-cooked; 9 minutes for squishy yolk; and 12 minutes for hard-cooked yolk.

* Bring pan of water to boil. Gently place eggs into the water. Boil until desired doneness is achieved. Quickly pour out the hot water and fill with ice water to stop the cooking process.

Scrambled: Crack the desired number of eggs into a bowl. With a whisk, scramble the eggs until frothy. To achieve the frothiest (which yields the fluffiest of scrambled eggs) eggs, use a blender or Vitamix to blitz the eggs. Place a ceramic (or nonstick) skillet onto the cooktop. Place a small pat of unsalted butter into the skillet. Melt over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, swirl the butter to coat the pan. Pour the frothy eggs into the skillet and stir with a rubber spatula. Continue to stir the eggs for a few minutes. Once the eggs have warmed through, season to taste with just a pinch or two of salt (a small amount goes a long way with eggs). At this point, add any cheese or greens desired. Continue to stir, and once the eggs begin to look firm but still wet, remove from the heat. Continue to stir once off the heat. Serve warm.

Fried and Runny: Place a skillet onto the cooktop and warm a splash of olive oil or unsalted butter over medium-low heat, about 3 minutes. Crack an egg into a small bowl. Once the skillet is evenly heated, gently pour the egg into the skillet. Cook until the white is cooked through and the yolk runny, about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 30 seconds. Carefully remove from the pan with a spatula and serve with toast.

Poached: Bring a pan of water to boil. While the water is coming to a boil, crack eggs into individual bowls (be sure to not break the yolk). Once the water is boiling, add a splash of white wine vinegar to the water. With a spoon, make a whirlpool in the water by stirring the water in a quick, fluid circular motion. Gently slide the egg into the whirlpool. Cook for 5 minutes. Gently remove with a slotted spoon. Serve immediately.

How to chop vegetables

Onion: Slice the paper tail off. Place this end facing down onto a cutting board, with the root end up (the hairy end). Slice in half. Peel off the papery outer pieces. Take one half of the onion and place flat onto a cutting board. With a knife, slice horizontally through the middle of the onion, stop right before slicing all the way through the root end. Starting from the side closest to you, make half inch horizontal slices all the way through the onion, working your way across. Once the onion has been halved and then sliced, start at the open end of the onion and cut vertical slices from the cut end of the onion, all the way to the root end of the onion. Save the ends of the onion for stock.

Carrot: Using a vegetable peeler, remove the browned outer layer of carrot. Wash the carrots. Slice the carrot vertically in half from top to bottom (think hot-dog style). Place the carrots on the flat side. Make quarter- to half-inch slices. Continue to slice until you reach the top of the carrot head. Save the top for stock and the leafy greens for salads, soups and roasted vegetables.

Celery: Slice off the leafy greens and save to use in salads, frittatas, soups and roasted vegetables. Slice the celery in half vertically (think hot-dog style), slice these two halves in half one more time vertically. Place the flat side down on a cutting board. Make quarter-inch horizontal slices.

Bell pepper: Remove a small slice from the bottom of the bell pepper to secure a flat bottom. Place the flat bottom onto a cutting board. Slice one side of the bell pepper from the top all the way down to the bottom. Now that one side is completely open, place this open side flat onto the surface of the cutting board. Slice the next side from top end to the bottom end. Rotate this open side to the flat surface of the cutting board. Repeat the step until all side are complete removed. The top of the bell pepper should remain intact with the core all the way to the bottom of the pepper. Place the bell pepper sides onto their flat, inside surface onto the cutting board. Cut into thin strips and then, if wanting to dice, cut the strips into desired sizes.

Garlic: Peel off pieces of garlic from the garlic bulb. Using a flat wooden spoon or the side of a large knife, crush the garlic. Remove the outer papery peel. If there are green roots inside the garlic, feel free to ignore or remove. Make vertical slices from the top of the garlic to its bottom. Two to three slices should do the trick. Then chop the garlic into desired size. A quick rough chop is sufficient.

How to brown (sear) meat

Many recipes require meats to be “browned” or “seared” before moving to the next step of cooking. To achieve a nice sear, a proper skillet (cast-iron or heavy-bottom), high heat and a splash of fat is all that is needed.

Thirty minutes before cooking, remove the meat from the fridge and season with salt, seasonings of choice, and a bit of oil (canola or olive). When ready to cook, add another splash of high-heat tolerant fat to the skillet (canola, vegetable or olive) and warm over high heat. Add the meat to the skillet (2-3 pieces at a time, this depends on the size of the skillet) and cook for 2-3 minutes per side, depending on thickness and specific type of meat. Do not push the meat around and move it all over the surface of the skillet. The meat must stay still in order to properly brown. Resist the urge to move the meat. Once browned, remove the meat and place it onto a rimmed plate (I like to use a glass pie pan) and cover. Continue this process until all meat is browned.

Please note: If the drippings in the pan begin to burn, remove the pan from the heat and add a splash of water and scrape up the brown bits. Slightly turn the heat down and place the skillet back onto the burner with a splash more of cooking fat. Continue the cooking process.

How to thicken soups and sauces

Soups, casseroles and sauces sometimes call for thickening agents. There are several different ways to do this. If you have, unfortunatel,y added too much liquid to a dish, these methods can also help fix the problem.

Roux: Add unsalted butter to a skillet or pan and melt over medium-low heat. Add flour to the melted butter and whisk. Continue to whisk as the flour cooks. The goal is to cook the flour, which yields a dark golden color. Once golden, pour in warmed liquid (like chicken stock). Increase heat to medium and continue to whisk and cook while bringing the liquid to a boil. Let cook for 1-3 minutes to thicken.

Adding warm milk will turn the roux to a béchamel, which when combined with white cheese and nutmeg makes for a delicious sauce for pasta. A good ratio for roux is 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat.

Corn starch: Add 1/4-1/2 cup of cooking liquid (make sure it’s warm) to a tablespoon of cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Slowly pour the “slurry” back into the cooking liquid. Stir to combine and continue to simmer until thickened.

Flour and water: Combine cooking liquid and flour into a sealable container. Let the liquid cool for a few minutes. Seal and shake until mostly smooth. Whisk back into the cooking liquid. Continue to simmer until thickened. Stir and smush any visible flour pockets.

How to roast

Vegetables: Heat the oven to 400 to 450 F. Place the vegetables into a bowl. Add a splash or two of olive oil (or your favorite oil) and toss with salt.

Place the vegetables in a single layer on a rimmed sheet pan. Roast for 15-30 minutes or until the vegetable is browned to preference. A few roasting hacks:

* Steam and then roast: For heartier vegetables like Brussels spouts, broccoli and cauliflower, tightly cover the sheet pan with foil and roast at 500 F for 5-10 minutes. This will steam the veggies to soften them, and then the roasting process will add the flavor. Remove the foil cover, reduce the temperature to 400-450, and then continue to roast until desired color and texture achieved.

* At the end of the roasting time, remove the vegetables from the oven and add fresh lemon juice and zest to brighten the flavor. Once out of the oven, cover with a sprinkling of fresh herbs.

Meat: The key to a good roasted piece of meat is 1.) season properly before roasting; 2.) create a proper sear on the piece of meat before putting into the oven (see above); and 3.) use a digital kitchen thermometer.

Heat the oven to 400 F. Sear meat and place onto a lined baking sheet. Place the instant read thermometer into the thickest part of the meat. Place sheet pan into the oven and cook until thermometer indicates that the meat is cooked all the way through.

• Chicken: 165 F

• Pork: 145 F (medium), 150-155 (medium-well), 160-165 (well-done)

• Beef: 130-135 F (medium-rare), 135-140 (medium), 145-150 (medium-well), 155 (well-done)

How to cook dried beans

Beans are one of the most versatile, nutritious and inexpensive ingredients to keep in the pantry. Before cooking, pour out the dried beans and pick through them to remove any bad beans or rocks.

There are two opinions on when to salt beans, at the beginning or at the end of cooking. I add salt at the beginning and then salt to taste at the end. Additionally, I like to add a splash of red wine vinegar to my beans to add a layer of flavor.

There are two methods to prepare and cook beans:

Soak: This method requires a brief moment of foresight. Place the beans into a large bowl and cover with water. Make sure an inch or two of water tops the beans. Let the beans soak for 6-8 hours. Strain the beans from the water and rinse. Place the beans into a large pan and cover with water and again, leave an inch or two of water above the top of the beans. Add any aromatics you desire (halved onions and bell peppers, crushed garlic, herbs like bay leaves and rosemary). Bring the water to a boil, add salt and reduce to a simmer. Partially cover and cook until beans are tender, about 1 hour.

No-Soak: There are a couple of ways to cook beans without soaking.

* Pressure Cook: Combine 1 pound of beans, 7-8 cups of water, 2 teaspoons kosher salt and 1 bay leaf torn in half in a pressure cooker (like an Instant Pot). Cook on high pressure for 30-35 minutes. Natural pressure release for 20 minutes.

* Cooktop: Place 1 pound of beans into a large pan. Cover the beans with enough water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a quick boil over high heat. Boil rapidly for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and cover for one hour. After one hour, strain and rinse the beans. Place back into the pan, cover with water (and add any aromatics at this point). Once simmering, add salt and simmer for one hour or until cooked through.

How to quick-pickle

Almost any vegetable can be pickled ― cucumbers, carrots, fennel, green beans. The life of produce can easily be extended by pickling. A quick internet search will yield a variety of pickle brine recipes, but a few of my favorites come from Cooks Illustrated and Bon Appetit.

* Create a brine (2 cups water + 1 cup vinegar + 1 1/2 tablespoons salt + 1 teaspoon sugar, heat until salt and sugar dissolve).

* Prepare vegetables (thin or thick slice, it is up to you!)

* Place vegetables and aromatics into a sealable container (1 teaspoon mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 1/4 cup diced onions, 3 crushed garlic cloves, pinch red pepper flakes). I prefer big glass jars, but any sealable container will work just fine.

* Pour hot liquid over vegetables and aromatics in the container. Let cool and store in the fridge. Pickles will be ready to eat within 2 to 3 hours.