Scientific cooking

[Food Network Fan]

Scientific cooking Akron Beacon Journal - Akron,OH,USA Shirley O. Corriher is the Dr. Gregory House of the cooking world. She's a culinary diagnostician. Rice sinking to the bottom of your pudding? Dust it with corn starch first. Cookies too flat? Swap out some of the butter for shortening. Custard too watery? Reduce the sugar and add another egg yolk. Her current patient is a pumpkin flan recipe sent to her by a Texas chef. It fails to set up in the center. So far, Corriher hasn't been able to figure out what's wrong. It could be that some enzyme in the pumpkin is interfering, it could be the ratio of sugar to eggs, it could be any number of things. ''I'll figure it out. I've only been working on it a week,'' Corriher said. At 74, Corriher is going strong, teaching, consulting and writing, despite a ''titanium knee'' that makes getting around a bit challenging for her. Her latest book, BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, ($40 hardcover, Scribner)released in November, walked away with the James Beard Foundation Award for best cookbook in the Baking and Dessert category on May 4. A week later she was at the Western Reserve School of Cooking in Hudson to teach a two-day series of classes on baking, based on the book. When I sat down with Corriher, she still had the Beard Award stored in a zipper-lock plastic bag in her purse, and she laughed that she had to resist the urge to wear the heavy bronze medallion that hangs from a bright orange grosgrain ribbon. Corriher isn't a chef, but her number had been on speed dial for some of the most notable — Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, to name two. She has consulted for the Pillsbury test kitchen, is a frequent guest on Alton Brown's Good Eats show on the Food Network, and has solved more culinary mysteries than Nancy Drew and Jessica Fletcher combined. Corriher has a degree in chemistry from Vanderbilt University, but it was only after a divorce and years of financial struggle to raise three children on her own that she found her way into Rich's Cooking School in Atlanta in the 1970s. Corriher started out taking classes at the school, run by famous Atlanta chef and cookbook author Nathalie Dupree. But Dupree eventually hired Corriher to help set up cooking classes and clean up after. It wasn't long before Corriher distinguished herself by being able to offer scientific explanations for culinary puzzles, and her career began to develop. Her first book, CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking ($34.99 hardcover, William Morrow), also won the Beard Award and is considered a must-have kitchen companion for many chefs and home cooks. ...