Joe Ray
Food & Travel / Words & Photos
Published Work
ARCHIVE OF THE YEAR 2016
WIRED—December 12, 2016
Review: Thermomix—Smart Kitchen 101
THE SMART KITCHEN is the buzzword of the culinary world, connecting appliances to a phone, a tablet, and even the cloud in the name of efficiency. It’s a new market that’s still finding its feet, presenting a mix of industry-changing …
WIRED—November 13, 2016
Cookbooks With A Dash of Science
ONE DAY, WE might look back at 2016 and realize it was the year where everybody finally started getting comfortable with the idea of science in the kitchen. From the latest from Cook’s Illustrated and Alton Brown to funky fermentations …
WIRED—October 29, 2016
Inside the Battle to Rule the Smart Kitchen of Tomorrow
KITCHEN ARCHITECT JOHNNY Grey gives smart, inspired speeches that could be TED Talks. He speaks about the things you’d expect from somebody dedicated to kitchen design, like light, and where you stand to cook. But he also introduces concepts like …
WIRED—October 29, 2016
Review: Misen Chef’s Knife
AMONG ALL THE tools and gadgets that can fill a kitchen, knives are without a doubt the most personal and indispensable. Admire one in a chef’s collection and prepare for an unsolicited earful of its history, but do not expect an offer for you to try it. My own collection is modest but I’m proud of it. Among them, my favorites are a Wüsthof Classic Cook’s Knife and my Tadafusa santoku. The Wüsthof capably does everything from mincing a shallot to cutting up a chicken and the sharper blade angle of the santoku cuts through vegetables like a scalpel.
Would the new Misen Chef’s Knife, offered at what appears to be an amazingly low $65 stack up?
WIRED—Sunday, October 16, 2016
Review: Balmuda The Toaster
FOR REASONS THAT never became clear to me, my brother-in-law Gregory emailed over the summer suggesting that I review a toaster called the Balmuda available only in Japan and Korea. His subject line was persuasive. It read: “The Perfect Toaster.”
…
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Review: Breville Fast Slow Pro—Pressure Drop
Pressure cookers are heralded as near-magical kitchen appliances, making stocks, cooking grains, creating risottos and other flavor-packed meals in a fraction of the time other methods might take. They are smart timesavers and workhorses with a lineage that extends back …
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Review: Weber Summit Charcoal Grill—Burn Rate
Jeff the Weber Grill rep arrived, huffing and puffing at the top of the steps as he introduced himself. His wife Jill looked on worriedly from the door, beyond which lay their big, white delivery van.
“I don’t think it’ll …
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Smartphone-Enabled Kitchen Gear Can (Probably?) Make You a Better Chef
THE JETSONS KNEW how to cook: Ride the conveyor belt over to the kitchen console, press the Bacon button and—BOOP!—there’s breakfast, rising up out of the kitchen table. The animated 1960s TV series was right about some aspects of the …
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Go Shuck, Yourself: 4 Oyster Knives Reviewed
WHEN I WAS a kid, I loved going to work with my dad once or twice a year. Dad was a salesman and on the days we went into Boston for work, he’d bring me to a Faneuil Hall kiosk …
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Review: Pat’s Backcountry Beverages—Brewskis In The Bush
HIKE TO THE top of your favorite mountain, kick back, put up your feet and you may find yourself thinking that the only possible way to make it better would be with a tall, cold one. That’s a dream for …
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Review: T-Fal OptiGrill Plus—Controlled Burn
A few nights back, my wife and I had some friends over for a barbecue on our apartment roof. When it came time to start the festivities, I immediately lit the grill on fire, and not in a good way. …
Friday, April 1, 2016
Review: Breville PolyScience Control Freak—Burnin’ for You
Almost every day in my well-used home kitchen, I work with a double standard. I pop something in the oven and dial in a specific temperature, say 175°C. However, on the stovetop, I settle for the vagueness of low, medium, …
Friday, March 4, 2016
Hacking Your SodaStream With a Paintball Canister Can Save You Piles of Money
We drink a lot of carbonated water in my household. Enough, in fact, that we’ve owned a trusty SodaStream Fountain Jet (the company’s entry-level carbonator) for years. Even with the sunk costs of the machine itself and the purchase of …
ChefSteps - March 2016
Soft, Airy Chinese Steamed Buns: Simplified
The Chinese steamed buns known as bao have been around for more than 1,500 years, but it took chef David Chang to turn them into a global phenomenon. He did it by centering dishes around them in his Momofuku restaurants, …
WIRED - Gadget Lab - Friday, February 12, 2016
Review: DrinkMate Carbonator—Under Pressure
Early last year, an editor asked me to review and rank home carbonators—those countertop machines that turn chilly water into lovely seltzer. Research quickly revealed an industry in chaos. Some brands were plagued with deservedly horrible reviews or simply didn’t …