Cooking Podcasts, the Wave of the Future

Since starting this blog, I've gotten so many food ideas from my family that even if I had no inspiration of my own, I would be able to keep writing for several months. I love it because they often inspire me to look outside of the box. An example of this came from my cousin David, who introduced me to living recipe podcasts on iTunes. I had seen advertisements for cooking shows such as Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef (I'm still waiting for them to get Iron Chef and Everday Italian), but I hadn't noticed the podcasts before. And as much I love food, the hyped-up, drama-loaded reality shows in a stylized kitchen just doesn't cut it for me.

The interesting food-related topics that you can find on iTunes are mostly from Epicurious.com. From learning the proper way to dice vegetables to cracking a lobster, Epicurious.com covers the basic skills required in the kitchen. They very conveniently have all their podcasts in streaming video, so you could follow along in the comfort of your own kitchen. While these are extremely helpful for any novice to the kitchen, anyone who can somewhat confidently navigate their way around the kitchen, may find these to be too simplistic. I did, however, enjoy their podcasts on napkin folding, since my memory doesn’t always retain the varying fancy ways a table can be dressed up by napkins. This would also be a good resource if you need a quick reminder on carmelizing sugar or making a hollandaise sauce. A new podcast is added every week, and each streaming video runs between a minute and two minutes, providing an easy approach to the "how-to" of cooking.

Whole Foods Market also features informational product podcasts. I downloaded one about tomatoes and basil (what else?!). The produce connoisseur discussed the benefits of buying local produce, as well as the freshness of the produce. He also gave tips on how to pick the tastiest tomatoes from your supermarket. The "In the Kitchen" segment provided listeners with an easy recipe using the produce discussed earlier.

The Food Network only provides streaming podcasts of the behind the scenes of Iron Chef America with Alton Brown (which is actually pretty interesting) and Ham on the Street (which, to be perfectly honest, I've never seen). These are more show-based that recipe driven, but could be interesting nonetheless.

There are several other cooking podcasts provided by chefs and various networks, but the ones mentioned above were the podcasts that looked like the most interesting and beneficial to home chefs. If you find any that I may have overlooked, let me know, and I'll check it out!