10 rules to break?

Raw sprouts? Amen to that brotha!

All good, but why 'preferably paper'? Clearly, a new paper towel is better than a previously used kitchen towel; but a freshly laundered one is just fine. I say this as a recovering paper towel addict, trying to be a little more conscientious. Simple, white cotton kitchen towels are inexpensive in bulk (and far cheaper than PT in the long run), so it's easy to have a stack of clean ones without moonlighting as a laundress.

ATG, excellent point. Recently I was at a local supermarket and watched a little kid, accompanied by a parent, stroll down the produce aisle slappling everything in sight apparently because he was attracted by all the bright colors. I also saw a store employee pick up a bunch of radishes off the floor and put it back on the top of the pile. The produce manager, who is a friend of mine, would have tossed it right away.
ChefOno, my point on bagged lettuces is this; you are correct that unwashed greens are just as susceptable to contamination from outside sources but it might be located to a single part of a field. The washing and bagging process actually proliferates the contagion. Compare it to ground beef where the meat might come from parts of hundreds of animals and e-coli can contaminate the whole lot. Which is why I grind my own meat in order to minimize that risk at least somewhat.

While you're at it, do the same with your refrigerator's plastic egg tray if you use one. Not that eggs are a high-danger item these days but that tray is still a possible source of cross-contamination.

Here is where I will politely disagree with my chum ChefOno; prewashed greens. I'm with Cynthia on this one. I happen to live in a part of the country where most of your prewashed bagged greens come from. The risk to you, convience shopper, is that if a portion of a field is contaminated by maybe being located next to a cattle lot e-coli poisoning can spread throughout the whole batch that is supposedly "triple washed" through the washing process itself. No, and ChefOno is exactly right on this, you can't wash off salmonella from poultry but you can cook it off. People sometimes complain of "stomach flu". There is no such thing. Odds are you've had some sort of food related poisoning. Hey, it's a mean old world.

It does, Pegeen. It isn't simply the question of pesticides that it used to be, but rather washing away possible contaminants. Foreign countries where much of our produce comes from, certainly in the winter, don't have laws as strict as ours concerning irrigation water. And even here, as everywhere, many food contaminants occur naturally in soil. I avoid bagged lettuces for that reason. Remember the terrible cantaloupe contaminations with listeria and salmonella? Melons should always be washed before cutting the rind away because the instant you knife passes through it, it drags with it whatever is on the surface of the melon.

No apology necessary, Pegeen. I was amused, you were so close!

It appears Cynthia and I had a different interpretation of your question so I may be answering a different question than the one you asked but the jest is the same (except I have no fear of pre-washed greens).

One must assume all poultry is contaminated with one sort of pathological bacteria or another. Some erroneously call the pink-colored liquid that oozes from a bird "blood" (it's not, it's a combination of water and proteins). We refer to it in my kitchen as "salmonella juice" to remind ourselves to treat it as the bio-hazard it is.

Fruits and vegetables are also likely contaminated with something -- whatever the person before you had on their hands (the goo dripping from their kid's snotty nose perhaps), pesticides (avoiding the organic debate, the stuff that drifts on the wind from neighboring farms), bird and animal droppings, e. coli from flies playing hopscotch on cow patties -- all manner of yuck. If that weren't enough, there's the big one -- norovirus.

The difference is that you can't wash salmonella juice off a bird or otherwise neutralize it and, even if you did, it would just reappear. Definitely wash your fruits and vegetables.

Ahhh! Where did my paragraphs go???

I am thrilled to address room temperature eggs. The creaming method of mixing begins many cakes and cookies: whip room temperature butter and sugar(s) until pale - nearly white - and fluffy, then add room temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each to be fully incorporated before adding the next. Butter is an emulsion. Standard butter in the U.S. comprises 80% butter fat, 18% water, and 2% milk solids. The butter fat and water percentages are key. Eggs consist of one hell of a lot of water in the whites, and some beautifully emulsifying fats in the yolks. Crack all of your eggs into a liquid measuring cup because it is very easy to tip one egg at a time into your mixer. If you add cold, as in straight out of the refrigerator, eggs to room temperature (left to sit out overnight) butter, what do you think is going to happen to the butter? It is going to chill down. You will see the mixture of butter-sugar-one egg spin around and around in the bowl as the egg tries to ingratiate itself into the butter-sugar mixture. The sugar has done its job of binding up as much free water in the butter as possible, and it's trying for all its might to incorporate the water and fats in the egg, but that egg is just too cold. If you let it beat and beat, eventually, you'll see them emulsify. Chances are, though, that you'll grow impatient and figure what the he** and toss all the eggs in and move on with life. Have you ever done that and wound up with a bowl full of what look like scrambled eggs? You've broken the emulsion. By adding the room temperature eggs one at a time, you maintain the butter-water emulsion. Breaking it means that you have lots of free water (from the egg whites) rambling around in your dough just waiting for some gluten strands in the flour to which to attach themselves and develop (gluten, the protein in flour, develops in the presence of water). You will have a tougher dough as a result. Your cookies and cakes will have a tougher consistency than they would have otherwise had if you had taken the time to raise you eggs to room temp. How to do that easily? Place your eggs in a bowl of warm (not hot) water, about 100 degrees, for 5 minutes. That's all.

ChefOno, I'm not worthy! I agree with you completely on every single point you made---especially on knives. You are more likely to injure yourself with an unsharpened knife than one that has been properly cared for. I also agree with you on sprays. I did a (thankfully) brief stint at a B&B where the innkeeper "chef" used cooking spray on everything even non-stick items. I was making waffles one morning when he came over and said, "You're in trouble". "Oh, why is that?". "You didn't use the spray." Then I said, "watch this". Boink, boink, boink---all the waffles popped right off, perfectly cooked. He looked at me and said,"beginner's luck" and then walked off. I almost took that as compliment.

I pretty much agree with everything, but I just have to put my two cents in to briefly say the following:

1) ghiradelli--ewwww.... gross! At least guittard if not making your own chips!

2) don't knock Dusfresne! 'Eggs Benedict' is a signature dish which I highly recommend plus eggs are basically his favorite thing!

My comment wasn't meant to denigrate Dufresne, quite the opposite, sorry. (If you have to explain a joke…) The author tried to back up his preference and method for overcooked eggs by claiming a well-known chef does the same. Although I've never had the pleasure, I'm sure he (Dufresne) knows better than most what happens when you apply too much heat to an egg.

No I do not do that at home, ever. I still don't have a really expensive one, but I cut pretty much everything with an 8" chef's and I wish I'd got a decent one much, much sooner. So I'm with the people who say to get a good, but not necessarily over the top one unless you can afford it. Get a forged, full tang for balance, accuracy and safety so you can control your cuts and up your skills.

Really? Dull knives are so much more dangerous as the user has to put extra pressure on it to make it cut, increasing the chance that the knife will slip, out of control and jam into your finger.

Yep! Yep I do that all the time!