Learning online

It seems easy to learn cooking techniques from a person standing next to you, guiding you as you connect hands and eyes and smell and taste. As much as I love traveling and learning to cook, I have to satisfy my urges on the internet and in the kitchen. I read the blogs listed on the right. I have bookmarked sites that teach me how to mince, roast, tie, clean food items. I needed instructions on making a cartouche and found this link to a video. I make a lot of croutons, but learned a neat trick from a posting on eGullet:

Then we made croutons. This is another think I had learned in Knife Skills. You take a frozen slice of white bread. Trim the crust. Cut into batonnets, then dice. Melt some butter on medium heat. Add the bread cubes. Toss frequently. This was important. “You have to brown them evenly. You can’t do that with a spatula or tongs or anything. You have to learn to toss.” And Chef demonstrated the time-honored professional wrist flip. Jolt the pan forward and slightly upward, causing the contents to race up the curve of the pan. Then pull the pan back to catch the falling foodstuffs.