Recipes often use fancy words like “dice”, “julienne”, or “mince” to describe how to prepare ingredients, without explaining the differences. Knowing proper food preparation techniques can greatly improve your cooking, and this informative guide from the NIH can help.

The NIH's Food Preparation Glossary defines common food prep terms, illustrating them with helpful photos. The Cutting section includes techniques that produce smaller, more irregular pieces, like mincing and chopping, as well as longer, thinner pieces, like julienning and slicing.

The Cooking section of the glossary describes cooking terms that use the stovetop or oven to prepare foods like meats or vegetables. For example, did you know that stir frying, pan frying, and sautéing a recipe essentially means exactly the same thing? This section also describes the differences between terms like “boil”, “simmer”, “brown”, and “grill” to help you follow recipes more precisely.

Food Preparation Glossary [National Heart, Lungs and Blood Institute]

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Frisco Taphouse & Brewery is a beer lover's dream in Columbia. Just about everyone can find a beer to enjoy on the extensive list. Tons of beers are available on draft and even more in bottles. Fifty tap beers are available all the time. Some of the beers are made in house! Feel free to ask for a sample of a beer on draft you haven't tried before. The menu is a mix of bar food and entrees. Indulge in some nachos, wings, pizza, burgers, and sandwiches. Salads are also available. If you like your meal spicy try one of the fajita platters or burritos. Everything is reasonably priced and service is friendly. You can even check out the current beer list on your phone. Visit the website for more information. 

Frisco Taphouse & Brewery
6695 Dobbin Road
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 312-4907
http://www.yelp.com/biz/frisco-taphouse-and-brewery-columbia

If you’re looking to share a creative experience with your kids, the Columbia Association Art Center is your go-to location throughout the year. The planned community of Columbia has worked hard to extend a wide range of opportunities to its residents and visitors, and the Columbia Art Center is one of the best. Not only do they offer rotating exhibitions of local and national artists in their galleries, but the Center also provides up-and-coming artists with a marketplace to sell their wares in the excellent gift shop. In addition to giving visitors things to look at and buy, the primary mission of the Center is to provide experiential arts learning for people of all ages with year-round classes taught by a diverse faculty of artists. From the basics of drawing, line, and perspective, to more advanced classes in everything from video art to glassblowing, you can learn it here. A yearly summer arts camp for kids also comes highly recommended.

Columbia Art Center
6100 Foreland Garth
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 730-0075
www.columbiaartcenter.org