We’ve made and devoured two batches of homemade tamales in the last month. If you have never made tamales, I assume it’s because (a) there is a tamale truck parked outside your house, or (b) you’ve heard that they’re hard to make.

(Before we go any further, yes, I realize the Spanish singular is *el tamal,* but “tamale” seems like a perfectly good English word to me.)

Tamales are not hard to make. They are extremely simple to make. Maybe I’m breaking some sort of *tamalista* code by revealing this. Furthermore, tamales are actually better if you cook them ahead and reheat them. Further-furthermore, tamale-making produces delicious byproducts. From the last batch, we have leftover pork filling that will go into tacos or burritos, plus a bunch of rich, garlicky pork stock that will form the basis of tortilla soup.

Finally, you can make a lot of tamales for not a lot of money.

We’ve tried two different pork tamale recipes, one from Rick Bayless and one from Zarela Martinez. Both were good; the Martinez recipe was slightly better, if only because the pork had a little vinegar in it. It’s hard to go wrong. Next time we’re going to try doing a cheese and green chile filling and a chicken with tomatillo filling. My only tips are: use good lard; spread the masa thinly (I used an offset spatula); and don’t skimp on the soaking time for the husks.

Iris has gone crazy for tamales. She has had tamales for four meals in the last three days. Okay, actually, so have I.

If you have a couple days off between now and 2009, and you’re not as snowed in as I am, please do me a favor and make some tamales. I want to hear about it.

We’ve now had snow on the ground for over a week, which is unusual for Seattle. We live at the top of one of the steepest hills in our neighborhood, which has become a sledding/snowboarding/skiing hill night after night until long into the morning. A couple days ago we saw someone going down the hill in a wheelchair. Iris sledded down twice and then got wet socks and had to come inside, which makes her a girl after my own heart.

One day during this endless silent barrage, we got a few inches of snow and then a layer of freezing rain atop the snow. Iris and I went out and karate-chopped every glassy surface we could get our gloves on and had a contest to see who could extract the largest unbroken sheet of ice.

I was explaining this unusual weather to a friend. “Then more snow came down on top of the ice layer,” I said. “So you had a thin crunchy layer between two soft layers, kind of like a breaded pork cutlet sandwich on a soft bun. Wait a minute, I was going to make burritos for lunch, but now I’m going to make a pork cutlet sandwich.”

And indeed I am.

This month on Culinate.com:

The cider house rules: Real cider, for adults

> For his current bottling, Irvine’s Vintage Blend, he’s using a mix of bittersweets (tannic apples with low acid) and sharps (tart apples with low tannin): Yarlington Mill, Brown Snout, Vilberie, and Chisel Jersey. (Have you noticed how any article about apples soon devolves into a list of apple varieties with evocative names?)

While researching this article I came across the fact that some people believe drinking cider vinegar will make them live to 120. Since hard cider is the necessary precursor to cider vinegar and I drank plenty of it for research purposes, I figure I’m good for 117 years at least.

Oh, and I also appear in a great gift idea column which you should NOT read until after Christmas if you are Jake.

Mark Bittman, in a column about his small kitchen (bigger than mine!) in last Sunday’s Times, brought up something I’ve been thinking about:

> I’ve developed material for my column and books when cooking on electric stoves (heat is heat, after all), in unfinished basements using hot plates and microwaves, and in borrowed kitchens all over the world. The equipment can make things more or less difficult, of course, but after all, cooking is cooking.

I’ve used cheap gas stoves, cheap electric stoves, and expensive gas stoves. The expensive gas stoves are definitely the best. But I’d argue–and this seems to be a minority opinion among cooks–that cheap electric stoves are much better than cheap gas stoves.

It’s all about the heat output. My cheap electric stove gets really, really hot (the large burners do, at least). Not Viking-hot, but hot enough to do a respectable stir-fry. Every cheap gas stove I’ve used has annoyed me by being wimpy. When we had one, I got used to it, but if someone had under $1000 to spend and asked me which kind of stove they should get, I would say electric, definitely.

The only thing I’ve ever felt an electric stove was holding me back from accomplishing is dolsot bibimbap.