Cooking with Julia Child

I love my Julia Child cookbook, The Art of French Cooking. I also love watching her old shows on YouTube. The thing is, following her tips really does make a difference - sometimes a huge difference! Her recipes for ham, casserole-roasted chicken, and just today chicken stock, are wonderful. Here's the thing for chicken stock - you really do have to take the scum off! She calls is blanching the meat (boiling for five minutes, then rinsing thoroughly and starting over), and does it ever make a difference. I also like her herb bouquets, and for the stock she uses whole vegetables, including a whole onion, not chopped. At any rate, it is undoubedtly the best chicken stock I've ever made. I also learned that the basic difference between boiling potatoes and baking potatoes is the thickness of skin. Imagine that! Not to mention, baking potatoes will stick to themselves if sliced and cooked in a dish like scalloped potatoes, so that is when using boiling potatoes is important. Well, that's all for today. :-)