Practical Experience Search Results

Cook Like a Chef: Use Parchment Paper Lids Instead

Simmering or poaching food is a total pain sometimes. The problems are numerous: a layer exposed to air often dries out and creates a gross skin that can ruin the texture of the sauce, the poaching liquid evaporates too quickly and causes the poached protein to burn, and so on.

How To: Make Whiskey Ball Ice Without a Mold

If there's a better way to impress your friends than with cocktails, I don't know what it is. Some nice glasses, quality spirits, and a recipe that doesn't involve pre-made margarita mix, and you'll automatically look suave. However, the most overlooked cocktail accoutrement (and the coolest, in both senses) is the ice.

How To: Perfect Your Eggs Benedict with These Foolproof Hollandaise Methods

In an age where restaurants can charge $20 for eggs Benedict at brunchtime (if you're lucky enough to even get a reservation on a Sunday), many people long for a way to create this classic dish at home. But once you've taken pains to perfectly poach an egg and gently crisp your sourdough, the problem of the hollandaise still lies before you. The key to any good hollandaise sauce is to apply enough heat to cook the egg yolks, but not enough to scramble them. The minute the eggs begin to solidi...

How To: Tell if Your Steak Is Done Without Using a Thermometer

In my opinion, there is nothing in the culinary world as satisfying as cutting into a steak, and seeing that you've cooked it to perfection. Even if you're one of those bizarre people that prefers their steak medium or well done (hey, no judgement... okay, fine, a little bit of judgement), it's culinary heaven when you realize that you achieved the perfect doneness on your steak.

How To: Five Ways to Repurpose Shellfish Shells

When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with shells. And while most of my shell collection came from combing the beach for treasure, some of it came from a different source: dinner. Whenever my parents had fresh clams or mussels, I would take the leftover shells, soak them overnight in soapy water, and add them to my collection.

How To: 5 Reasons Why You Should Always Keep Stale Cereal

It happens to even the most avid cereal eaters: sooner or later you open a box, unfurl the crinkled plastic bag, and find that the cereal inside is stale. Maybe you forgot about it, maybe you ate it too slowly, or maybe you just found a new, better cereal and left it behind like Andy left Woody. Either way, the crunchy goodness is now stale, and you grab the box and walk to the trash can. Stop!

How To: Reduce Eye Strain When Using Smartphones

The smartphone has become one of the basic reasons for sore eyes. If you are addicted to your beloved smartphone, there is a fair possibility that your eyes will be paying off its expensive price. If you use your smartphone, tablet, laptop or any other similar gadget consistently, you may experience tired, dried, itchy eyes and also severe headache. Your vision can also become blurred by the time, which it means it is affecting your eyesight. However, you can lower down your eye strain by mak...

How To: Wait... Photographing Your Meals Actually Improves Them?

Last year, The New York Times wrote that certain restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn banned patrons from taking photos of their meals. That means no flash photography, no standing on chairs for a better angle, not even a quick pic for your Instagram followers before the first bite. Little do these restaurants know, this ban can actually make their customers' food taste worse, so to speak.

How To: Convert Your HTC One into a Google Edition HTC One for an Enhanced Nexus Experience

Ditching Sense (HTC's stock Android Launcher) is a great way to breathe new stock-like life into your HTC One smartphone without rooting, but even that has its limitations. If you really want the full Google experience, albeit with some extras, CyanogenMod has always been the go-to ROM. In effect, this will give you an experience similar to the Google Nexus or the new HTC One Google Edition.

How To: 9 Ways to Cut an Onion Without Shedding Tears

Is it possible to cut or chop onions in the kitchen without stinging eyes and looking as if you just watched the saddest movie ever? Before we get to that answer, it's important to know why we tear up when cutting raw onions in the first place. What is this irritant? Are you reacting to the odor? The answer to the latter question is "no," and the irritant responsible is amino acid sulfoxides.

News: Expand Your Vision for Success

EXPAND YOUR VISION: So many people don't achieve their goals and dreams in life because they don't have a big enough vision for themselves. The biggest enemy lies within. Picture and see yourself achieving your goals, becoming financially independent, making yourself more valuable to the market place, or losing that excess weight that you have always wanted to lose.

How To: Use the Straight Line Tool in Xara Web Designer

In this web design tutorial learn how to use the straight line tool. Although the straight line tool might seem like a useless tool I can tell you from experience it is very useful. Especially if you have ever attempted to draw a straight line with a tool other than the straight line tool. There are many ways you could use the straight line tool such as dividing content, design graphics, separating navigation menu headers and much more. My recommendation would be that you take a look at some ...

Steampunk R&D Podcast 02: Joey Marsocci on Professional Steampunking

This week on the Steampunk Research and Development Podcast, our guest is Joey Marsocci, better known to the world as Dr. Grymm. He's a full-time, professional Steampunk maker, and is the owner and operator of Dr. Grymm Laboratories. He's written several books and has worked as a designer at companies such as Hasbro and Disney. In fact, he worked with Disney to design the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attractions for both Paris and Tokyo Disney parks.

How To: DIY Pulsating Light Rod Speakers That Dance to Your Music

If you've found your speakers to be lacking in the visuals department, this is just the mod for you. Using 3" PVC, you can turn your speakers into light-up glow rods that pulse to the beat of your music. You'll need some electrical skills and experience soldering to get this one together, but otherwise it's not all that complicated. The main components you are going to need are speaker drivers, PVC pipes, LEDs, and the necessary cabling for those devices. The device works best with higher vol...

How To: Block RFID Signals, Build an RFID Reader Detector, and Make Custom RFID Tags

RFID chips are everywhere. They're in passports, credit cards, and tons of items you've bought in the last 5 years or so. Big retailers like Walmart started using tracking products with RFID as early as 2004, and today, they're used in everything from mobile payments to hospital record systems. Chances are, unless you're a hermit (in which case you wouldn't be reading this anyway), there's an RFID tag within a few feet of you. Photo by sridgway