Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: secrets

  • A FRANK Tale: NYE 2013

    Many of my readers have said they love my FRANK blogs more than any other, so I’ll try to blog about every FRANK dinner so you can all get a hint of what the experience was like for our diners.  Please note that there are only a few photos of plated dishes on this blog…Jennie,…

  • Ben’s Secret to Stock

    Homemade stocks make ALL the difference in recipes, particularly in soups, sauces, and gravies.  But who’s got room in their freezer for gallons and gallons of homemade stock?  Lots of TV chefs will tell you to reduce the stock a bit and then freeze it in ice cube trays, but then you have to maintain…

  • MasterChef 4 recap: Surfers and Chicken Breasts (S4E14)

    (PLEASE NOTE: This blog is not endorsed or approved by Fox or MasterChef, and you probably shouldn’t read it.  The information in this blog is limited to opinion, only, from a former MasterChef survivor.) 10 contestants left, and the judges are arriving at the beach on jetskis…well, Graham swims up in a skin-colored wetsuit, complete…

  • MasterChef Where Are They Now: Tracy Kontos

    For the next installment of my MasterChef: Where Are They Now? series, I’ve chosen one of my personal favorites from Season 2…Tracy Kontos.  Tracy is one of those people that, upon meeting, you instantly feel like you’ve been bosom buddies for decades.  She immediately sweeps you into this comfortable familiarity and makes you feel like…

  • MasterChef Behind the Scenes: Meet Rebecca

    This is Rebecca O’Connor.  She is a full-time author and has published 12 books, everything from fiction and short stories to manuals for bird owners and scientific works on endangered animals.  Rebecca is also a professional bird trainer, and has been a presenter at many of the country’s finest animal shows, including Disney’s Animal Kingdom. …

  • MasterChef 4 recap: Gordon’s Box and Boxes of Cupcakes (S4E6)

    (PLEASE NOTE: This blog is not endorsed or approved by MasterChef or Fox, and they’d probably rather you didn’t read it.  The opinions contained within this blog post are my own pathetic, uneducated, and uninformed opinions and should not be treated as factual.  While I bore witness to the filming of the entire second season…

  • MasterChef 4 Recap: Children and Cheesecake (S4E5)

    (PLEASE NOTE: This blog is not endorsed or approved by MasterChef or Fox, and they probably would rather you not read it.  The info contained in this blog is exclusively opinions from a former MasterChef survivor who has no inside knowledge of this season or how the show is produced.) It’s time for the first…

  • How to Watch a MasterChef Premier…from a MasterChef Survivor

    My blog today is actually not on my site!  It’s on the site of a MasterChef season 4 contestant named Marie Porter.  Marie is one unique gal.  She and her husband Michael have a fascinating website and company called Celebration Generation which is remarkably like my own…there’s a blog that covers cooking and baking, DIY,…

  • All About Tomatoes

    It’s early January, the dead of winter, and the warmth of summer seems an eternity away. It’s in times like these that I like to fantasize about my favorite seasonal fruits and veggies which are at their best in the warm months, to help get me through the current famine… You see, in my home,…