Bachelor Chow: Introduction

Submitted by Noah Brand on Tue, 2016-02-23 12:00

A lot of us, men especially, never really got taught to cook growing up. Even when we did, many of us find that we don't have the time or resources to cook "properly". A lot of apartments have lousy kitchens, a lot of people have limited equipment, and when you're working hard, it's tough to make time to simmer things.

How many of us have bought a recipe book or bookmarked a cooking website, only to end up falling back on ramen and delivery pizza? It's because every time we look at those recipes, we think "I don't have any acorn squash! Or a garlic press! Or... what the hell is a double boiler?" Or it takes two hours to cook and we don't have that, or it feeds 6-8 and we'd never finish all that, and then we start thinking about how many pizza places we've memorized the numbers of, and our good intentions go right to hell.

I am the same way. I enjoy tasty, flavorful food, but the cooking gene in my family went to my brother. (I got the premature baldness instead. Yay.) My last apartment had a miniscule kitchen built around a three-burner stove from the Eisenhower administration. Moreover, whenever I buy fresh produce to cook with, it ends up going bad before I get around to using it, because I'm never sure what my plans for a given evening are. I hate wasting money that way. Times are tight for everybody, and none of us have a nickel to spare.

So every Friday here at my site, I'm going to talk about equipment and recipes for making decent, healthy(ish) meals for one or two people, using the following design principles:

  • Minimal tools: Next week I'll talk about the bare-bones minimum stuff you need to do decent cooking. If it only does one thing, you don't need it.
  • Minimal shopping: When you're hungry, you don't want to run out finding where in town has a rack of lamb, you want to grab something you already have and turn it into a meal.
  • Minimal spoilage: Frozen vegetables changed my life. So did jars of pre-minced garlic. Fresh onions and potatoes keep really well. Pasta, beans, and bottles and jars are all but immortal. Say goodbye to that sense of guilt as you toss out the meat or veggies you intended to get around to using.
  • Minimal preparation: Yes, you can probably make your own alfredo sauce, but we both know you're not going to. You can, however, get a jar of sauce from the store and use it as a base for something interesting. You can also cook food that keeps well in the fridge, so you've got tasty leftovers tomorrow.
  • Minimal cleanup: Every recipe will include a list of how many dishes you will get dirty in the process of making this meal. Don't pretend that's not a factor.
  • Dignity: You are a grown adult. You should not have to be eating ramen or a peanut butter sandwich unless you genuinely want to. Nothing in Bachelor Chow should feel like something you are reduced to eating: this is a guide to finding the maximum taste and nutrition for the minimum effort and expenditure. It won't be as good as a gourmet meal prepared by a professional from the finest ingredients, but then, what is?

Come back every Friday for meals, snacks, tips and tricks for getting the most out of that tiny kitchen you hardly use.

A version of this article was previously published at The Good Men Project.

It is a stereotype that men are incapable of cooking, but it’s certainly true that many men, and many women for that matter, don’t have a lot of culinary ability. In men’s case, that may to some extent be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as boys don’t get taught what’s considered mandatory for girls. Even more than that, many of us find that we don’t have the time or resources to cook “properly”.

How many of us have bought a recipe book or bookmarked a cooking website, only to end up falling back on ramen and delivery pizza? It’s because every time we look at those recipes, we think “I don’t have any acorn squash! Or a garlic press! Or… what the hell is a double boiler?” Or it takes two hours to cook and we don’t have that, or it feeds 6-8 and we’d never finish all that, and then we start thinking about how many pizza places we’ve memorized the numbers of, and our good intentions go right to hell.

I am the same way. I enjoy tasty, flavorful food, but the cooking gene in my family went to my brother. (I got the premature baldness instead. Yay.) The kitchen in my apartment is tiny, built around a three-burner stove from the Eisenhower administration. Moreover, whenever I buy fresh produce to cook with, it ends up going bad before I get around to using it, because I’m never sure what my plans for a given evening are. I hate wasting money that way. Times are tight for everybody, and none of us have a nickel to spare.

So in what will become a regular Sunday feature here at the Good Men Project, we’re going to talk about equipment and recipes for making decent, healthy(ish) meals for one or two people, using the following design principles:

  • Minimal tools: Next week we’ll talk about the bare-bones minimum stuff you need to do decent cooking. If it only does one thing, you don’t need it.
  • Minimal shopping: When you’re hungry, you don’t want to run out finding where in town has a rack of lamb, you want to grab something you already have and turn it into a meal.
  • Minimal spoilage: Frozen vegetables changed my life. So did jars of pre-minced garlic. Fresh onions and potatoes keep really well. Pasta, beans, and bottles and jars are all but immortal. Say goodbye to that sense of guilt as you toss out the meat or veggies you intended to get around to using.
  • Minimal preparation: Yes, you can probably make your own alfredo sauce, but we both know you’re not going to. You can, however, get a jar of sauce from the store and use it as a base for something interesting. You can also cook food that keeps well in the fridge, so you’ve got tasty leftovers tomorrow.
  • Minimal cleanup: Every recipe will include a list of how many dishes you will get dirty in the process of making this meal. Don’t pretend that’s not a factor.
  • Dignity: You are a grown adult. You should not have to be eating ramen or a peanut butter sandwich unless you genuinely want to. Nothing in Bachelor Chow should feel like something you are reduced to eating: this is a guide to finding the maximum taste and nutrition for the minimum effort and expenditure. It won’t be as good as a gourmet meal prepared by a professional from the finest ingredients, but then, what is?

Come back every Sunday for meals, snacks, tips and tricks for getting the most out of that tiny kitchen you hardly use.

- See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/brand-bachelor-chow-an-introduc...

It is a stereotype that men are incapable of cooking, but it’s certainly true that many men, and many women for that matter, don’t have a lot of culinary ability. In men’s case, that may to some extent be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as boys don’t get taught what’s considered mandatory for girls. Even more than that, many of us find that we don’t have the time or resources to cook “properly”.

How many of us have bought a recipe book or bookmarked a cooking website, only to end up falling back on ramen and delivery pizza? It’s because every time we look at those recipes, we think “I don’t have any acorn squash! Or a garlic press! Or… what the hell is a double boiler?” Or it takes two hours to cook and we don’t have that, or it feeds 6-8 and we’d never finish all that, and then we start thinking about how many pizza places we’ve memorized the numbers of, and our good intentions go right to hell.

I am the same way. I enjoy tasty, flavorful food, but the cooking gene in my family went to my brother. (I got the premature baldness instead. Yay.) The kitchen in my apartment is tiny, built around a three-burner stove from the Eisenhower administration. Moreover, whenever I buy fresh produce to cook with, it ends up going bad before I get around to using it, because I’m never sure what my plans for a given evening are. I hate wasting money that way. Times are tight for everybody, and none of us have a nickel to spare.

So in what will become a regular Sunday feature here at the Good Men Project, we’re going to talk about equipment and recipes for making decent, healthy(ish) meals for one or two people, using the following design principles:

  • Minimal tools: Next week we’ll talk about the bare-bones minimum stuff you need to do decent cooking. If it only does one thing, you don’t need it.
  • Minimal shopping: When you’re hungry, you don’t want to run out finding where in town has a rack of lamb, you want to grab something you already have and turn it into a meal.
  • Minimal spoilage: Frozen vegetables changed my life. So did jars of pre-minced garlic. Fresh onions and potatoes keep really well. Pasta, beans, and bottles and jars are all but immortal. Say goodbye to that sense of guilt as you toss out the meat or veggies you intended to get around to using.
  • Minimal preparation: Yes, you can probably make your own alfredo sauce, but we both know you’re not going to. You can, however, get a jar of sauce from the store and use it as a base for something interesting. You can also cook food that keeps well in the fridge, so you’ve got tasty leftovers tomorrow.
  • Minimal cleanup: Every recipe will include a list of how many dishes you will get dirty in the process of making this meal. Don’t pretend that’s not a factor.
  • Dignity: You are a grown adult. You should not have to be eating ramen or a peanut butter sandwich unless you genuinely want to. Nothing in Bachelor Chow should feel like something you are reduced to eating: this is a guide to finding the maximum taste and nutrition for the minimum effort and expenditure. It won’t be as good as a gourmet meal prepared by a professional from the finest ingredients, but then, what is?

Come back every Sunday for meals, snacks, tips and tricks for getting the most out of that tiny kitchen you hardly use.

- See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/brand-bachelor-chow-an-introduc...

It is a stereotype that men are incapable of cooking, but it’s certainly true that many men, and many women for that matter, don’t have a lot of culinary ability. In men’s case, that may to some extent be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as boys don’t get taught what’s considered mandatory for girls. Even more than that, many of us find that we don’t have the time or resources to cook “properly”.

How many of us have bought a recipe book or bookmarked a cooking website, only to end up falling back on ramen and delivery pizza? It’s because every time we look at those recipes, we think “I don’t have any acorn squash! Or a garlic press! Or… what the hell is a double boiler?” Or it takes two hours to cook and we don’t have that, or it feeds 6-8 and we’d never finish all that, and then we start thinking about how many pizza places we’ve memorized the numbers of, and our good intentions go right to hell.

I am the same way. I enjoy tasty, flavorful food, but the cooking gene in my family went to my brother. (I got the premature baldness instead. Yay.) The kitchen in my apartment is tiny, built around a three-burner stove from the Eisenhower administration. Moreover, whenever I buy fresh produce to cook with, it ends up going bad before I get around to using it, because I’m never sure what my plans for a given evening are. I hate wasting money that way. Times are tight for everybody, and none of us have a nickel to spare.

So in what will become a regular Sunday feature here at the Good Men Project, we’re going to talk about equipment and recipes for making decent, healthy(ish) meals for one or two people, using the following design principles:

  • Minimal tools: Next week we’ll talk about the bare-bones minimum stuff you need to do decent cooking. If it only does one thing, you don’t need it.
  • Minimal shopping: When you’re hungry, you don’t want to run out finding where in town has a rack of lamb, you want to grab something you already have and turn it into a meal.
  • Minimal spoilage: Frozen vegetables changed my life. So did jars of pre-minced garlic. Fresh onions and potatoes keep really well. Pasta, beans, and bottles and jars are all but immortal. Say goodbye to that sense of guilt as you toss out the meat or veggies you intended to get around to using.
  • Minimal preparation: Yes, you can probably make your own alfredo sauce, but we both know you’re not going to. You can, however, get a jar of sauce from the store and use it as a base for something interesting. You can also cook food that keeps well in the fridge, so you’ve got tasty leftovers tomorrow.
  • Minimal cleanup: Every recipe will include a list of how many dishes you will get dirty in the process of making this meal. Don’t pretend that’s not a factor.
  • Dignity: You are a grown adult. You should not have to be eating ramen or a peanut butter sandwich unless you genuinely want to. Nothing in Bachelor Chow should feel like something you are reduced to eating: this is a guide to finding the maximum taste and nutrition for the minimum effort and expenditure. It won’t be as good as a gourmet meal prepared by a professional from the finest ingredients, but then, what is?

Come back every Sunday for meals, snacks, tips and tricks for getting the most out of that tiny kitchen you hardly use.

- See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/brand-bachelor-chow-an-introduc...

It is a stereotype that men are incapable of cooking, but it’s certainly true that many men, and many women for that matter, don’t have a lot of culinary ability. In men’s case, that may to some extent be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as boys don’t get taught what’s considered mandatory for girls. Even more than that, many of us find that we don’t have the time or resources to cook “properly”.

How many of us have bought a recipe book or bookmarked a cooking website, only to end up falling back on ramen and delivery pizza? It’s because every time we look at those recipes, we think “I don’t have any acorn squash! Or a garlic press! Or… what the hell is a double boiler?” Or it takes two hours to cook and we don’t have that, or it feeds 6-8 and we’d never finish all that, and then we start thinking about how many pizza places we’ve memorized the numbers of, and our good intentions go right to hell.

I am the same way. I enjoy tasty, flavorful food, but the cooking gene in my family went to my brother. (I got the premature baldness instead. Yay.) The kitchen in my apartment is tiny, built around a three-burner stove from the Eisenhower administration. Moreover, whenever I buy fresh produce to cook with, it ends up going bad before I get around to using it, because I’m never sure what my plans for a given evening are. I hate wasting money that way. Times are tight for everybody, and none of us have a nickel to spare.

So in what will become a regular Sunday feature here at the Good Men Project, we’re going to talk about equipment and recipes for making decent, healthy(ish) meals for one or two people, using the following design principles:

  • Minimal tools: Next week we’ll talk about the bare-bones minimum stuff you need to do decent cooking. If it only does one thing, you don’t need it.
  • Minimal shopping: When you’re hungry, you don’t want to run out finding where in town has a rack of lamb, you want to grab something you already have and turn it into a meal.
  • Minimal spoilage: Frozen vegetables changed my life. So did jars of pre-minced garlic. Fresh onions and potatoes keep really well. Pasta, beans, and bottles and jars are all but immortal. Say goodbye to that sense of guilt as you toss out the meat or veggies you intended to get around to using.
  • Minimal preparation: Yes, you can probably make your own alfredo sauce, but we both know you’re not going to. You can, however, get a jar of sauce from the store and use it as a base for something interesting. You can also cook food that keeps well in the fridge, so you’ve got tasty leftovers tomorrow.
  • Minimal cleanup: Every recipe will include a list of how many dishes you will get dirty in the process of making this meal. Don’t pretend that’s not a factor.
  • Dignity: You are a grown adult. You should not have to be eating ramen or a peanut butter sandwich unless you genuinely want to. Nothing in Bachelor Chow should feel like something you are reduced to eating: this is a guide to finding the maximum taste and nutrition for the minimum effort and expenditure. It won’t be as good as a gourmet meal prepared by a professional from the finest ingredients, but then, what is?

Come back every Sunday for meals, snacks, tips and tricks for getting the most out of that tiny kitchen you hardly use.

- See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/brand-bachelor-chow-an-introduc...

Tags:

Oscar Project articles

Wings (1927)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-02-22 12:00

It’s hard to remember now just how amazing airplanes were in the 1920s. Barnstormers used to cruise from one small town to another, charging impressive fees just to show off their miraculous flying machines. That sense of wonder deeply informs Wings, in a way that’s hard to understand from here in the miracle-jaded future. The story of two young pilots and their service in WWI is nothing new even for the time, but the flying shots are spectacular, and in 1927 they might as well have been magic.

Tags:

The Broadway Melody (1929)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-02-29 12:00

I hated this movie. Hated it. Hated it in a way that started to feel weirdly personal after a while. The title song is repeated every five minutes by someone or other, which would be tolerable if it were a good song, but it’s not. There’s not a single likable character in this movie, which is a serious problem since we’re supposed to find them all charming. It’s about various people trying to achieve true love and showbiz stardom, but I didn’t want anything good to happen to any of them.

Tags:

All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-03-07 12:00

This is the earliest Best Picture winner that doesn’t require any apology or explanation before showing it to contemporary friends. It holds up perfectly, a stark and even angry look at the pointless, brutal cost of war. Its characters join the German army as teenagers full of idealism and hope and all that dulce et decorum est crap, and everything goes downhill for them from there.

Tags:

Cimarron (1931)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-03-14 12:00

This is one of those movies that has to be taken in context. It traces the history of the development of the American West through the life of one man, from the first Oklahoma Land Rush up through the present day. Thus, the first piece of context that must be taken into account is that “the present day” means “the Hoover administration”.

Tags:

Grand Hotel (1932)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-03-21 12:00

Watching Grand Hotel, the 5th-ever Best Picture winner, it struck me how rapidly I was seeing the art of filmmaking develop. An audacious plotline-juggling comedy, this movie makes remarkable use of the camera in ways that haven’t shown up in previous films, but will continue showing up in subsequent ones. (Except for the fact that Greta Garbo has a proprietary lighting system that exists only for her character, as though she’s in a whole different movie by herself. That one’s all Garbo.)

Tags:

Cavalcade (1933)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-03-28 12:00

This was based on a play by Noël Coward, and the nicest thing I can say is that maybe it worked better on stage. On film, it’s a godawful tedious slog through two generations of affluent London life, showing the great upheavals of the 1899-1933 period via a bunch of colorless, unlikable characters who mostly die, but not soon enough to suit me.

Tags:

It Happened One Night (1934)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-04-04 12:00

This movie feels like the beginning of an era. Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Frank Capra directing, and a romantic-comedy plotline we’re still using today. These are all elements that became dominant over the coming years, but here they all still had that new-star smell. The storyline’s nothing new, your basic fall-in-love-over-an-involuntary-journey bit, but the journey in this case provides a wonderful look at 1930s Americana, all the little motel cabins and logistical weirdness that made up a pre-freeway road trip.

Tags:

Mutiny On The Bounty (1935)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-06-20 12:00

A scene I’m 100% sure took place in Irving Thalberg’s office at MGM one day in 1935:

“So, last year Gable took his shirt off in It Happened One Night, and we made… how much money again?”

“All of it, sir. All the money.”

“Oh yeah. That was great. We also won enough Oscars that I had to have my mantelpiece reinforced. Anyway, having said that, what’ve we got this year?”

“We’ve got a picture where Clark Gable is shirtless for literally half the running time.”

“Good start. What’s he wearing the rest of the time?”

Tags:

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-06-27 12:00

Do you like long, slow musical numbers that involve almost nothing but looking at showgirls’ legs? No? Well, tough shit, because you’re in for a LOT of them. Get comfy.

Tags:

The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Mon, 2016-07-04 12:00

This is what you call surefire Oscar bait: a period biopic that talks about an Important Social Issue. The Life of Emile Zola is a weirdly-paced story with a strange two-part structure. First, we have your conventional biopic. Zola starts out penniless and living in a garret, but perseveres and works hard and finds success with Nana, because it turns out sex sells. He raises a family, yadda yadda yadda, and his career and the film are both slowing down by the halfway mark.

Tags:

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Fri, 2016-11-18 13:32

Of the various films in the genre of “Frank Capra directs Jimmy Stewart and several other stars in a surprisingly funny drama about socioeconomic injustice”, You Can’t Take It With You may be the least of them. Adapted from a George S. Kaufman play, it feels stagebound and claustrophobic, lacking a strong sense of visual expression. The story is just about a rich guy meeting a houseful of Manic Pixie Dream Anarchists, and some of the jokes don’t really work in the 21st century.

Tags:

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Thu, 2017-01-19 14:54

Gone With The Wind is a serious problem for me.

On the one hand, as a movie, it’s pretty good. The cinematography’s great, the actors are gorgeous, the sense of an epic is powerful and heartfelt, and the score is top-notch.

On the other hand, most of that is also true of Triumph of the Will, and it’s hard to escape the comparison.

Tags:

Rebecca (1940)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Fri, 2017-01-27 12:00

In beginning this review, I had to double-check the date. Rebecca was seriously released in 1940? Weird. It feels later than that, like maybe 1950, give or take a couple years. The product of another ten years of the development of film as a storytelling medium, in other words. That may have been what tipped it over to victory; it’s not just emotionally compelling and visually gorgeous, it has a level of nuance and emotion in the structure of every shot and scene that one just doesn’t see in other films from that year.

Tags:

How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Fri, 2017-02-10 15:09

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: nobody actually thinks this was the best movie made in 1941. Nobody thought it back then either. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Citizen Kane is better than How Green Was My Valley, but that William Randolph Hearst was a vindictive sonofabitch who owned half the newspapers in the country and had Louella Parsons on permanent payroll. It simply wasn’t safe for voting members of the Academy to support Kane, so they went with a safety.

Tags:

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Sat, 2020-01-11 12:00

This film is part of a brief, awkward period in Oscar history: the two years following Hitler's invasion of Poland and preceding Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. From 1939-41, there was a very strong "America First" movement in the U.S., which opposed America's entry into the war, often because they were outright Nazi sympathizers. This demographic was not well-represented in the film industry, because many of Hollywood's leading figures, like Lubitsch, Wilder, Dietrich, and others, were German by birth.

Tags:

Casablanca (1943)

Submitted by Noah Brand on Tue, 2020-01-14 16:11

Casablanca. What can I, or anyone, write about this movie that hasn't been written a hundred times? That it's awful darn good? It is. You may have heard this is a very good motion picture. I must inform you that you heard correctly. Glad we had this talk.

Tags: