Fight 4 Taste!

 I am sick and tired of inaction. I am calling myself out. I have a well-tested talent for creating delicious food, and I stop short of the starting line. How many years will I allow this to slide by? I really cannot do it anymore. So I have questions, observations, and projections.  I say, no more! Playing it safe does not pay the bills and is not fair to my desire to make something of this. Yeah, there are hoops to jump through. Anything worthwhile is like that. Insurance and permits, fees, and, of course, the biggest of them all, food safety. Yes, I am willing to do everything.  The Boys of Dungeon Lane was released yesterday. It is Paul McCartney's 27th album release since the Beatles ended. This man has played the notes of my soul every decade of my life. Just like learning from a family of 8 hiking the Appalachian Trail, or a Mom with 15 bio kids doing the same, Paul's determination, knowing that he still has more to do, is incredibly inspiring.  I am by no mea...

   There are so many moments when you pull back the expectation,  after not seeing the lights approaching from around the corner for what seems to be an eternity.  The breaking of the elevated self over and over.  Punches, self-inflicted.  Overconstruction, self-inflicted.  The question no one can ask,  Do we break their spirit when they are young?  Or do we let them fall?   I am all for the fall. I was expecting results that cannot exist in reality. So were you. I wanted to shake you from your delusion. The walls we make for ourselves The reality is, the fall comes with so much more flavor. It is the spice of barriers lifting, fences falling, chains falling away. What will you do when you are left out on the lonely road? There is no light to see the way. The wind is there, more fierce in the darkness, but is it really? The pieces, spread out upon the surface, rise from the dark. The orchestra builds to a beautiful introduction. Pho...

  For the last year, I have been taunted. I have lost sleep, tormented, and confused. In the words of the great Arlo Guthrie,  I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things, over a decision that I made last September and October. That is, to not order a particular dish containing potatoes at my favorite Thai restaurant,  Taste the Thai and Sushi House  in Littleton, New Hampshire. Potatoes are controversial, being that they are from the Axis of Evil. For a glimpse into my turbulent past with this lifelong adversary, read  Please Don't Pass the Potatoes , from this blog from a few years ago. The first time we dined at Taste the Thai and Sushi House restaurant, we were in for something good. Sometimes, you can walk into a place and feel the satisfaction of those dining, as well as the attention to quality among the staff. This was that kind of place. They are the winners of the Best in New Hampshire Awards. We ordered the crystal du...

 A little bit of salt takes something unseen and makes it an experience. The complexities of contemporary cooking lie in the mentality of recipes, the absence of recipes, cookware, kitchen appliances, tools, and attitude. It is a little about any of the above and more about the need.  Need has brought the spice to life in the last thousand years. Once those crusaders of the sea and land got a taste of these things, they risked everything to taste once again. But even more so, the real creativity came from people having very few ingredients. Short growing seasons, famine, wars, and scarcity of ingredients forced people to make what was known as poor people's food. From these, culinarily significant dishes were born. Nothing has taken food to a higher level than the so-called "lower decks." Wouldn't it be fun to take a journey, trying and making these foods that have shaped the culinary world? Braising of tough meats, brining of poultry that would otherwise present dry...

   Someone has filled my freezers. That person is me. They are full enough for me to rearrange the contents to fit something new. Something is amiss. I am not shopping more, not hitting great sales, and have not changed my shopping habits. That can only mean one thing. I must not be cooking enough. So what is going on? Winter depression is all around like an unwanted, persistent weather pattern. I remember a time like this a few years ago. I cannot recall how I broke free from its gravity well. My ambition requires a jumpstart, and my motivation has flown south for the bitter winter season. I feel I am left with nothing, like Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last. Socially awkward, Henry could not deal with people in any way whatsoever. His only refuge was found between the pages of a book. It was his special place. A catastrophic event takes the lives of every other person on the planet, yet Henry is spared. As he wanders around a post-apocalyptic city,...

   As I look to the year ahead, I think of the weather. The snowy days ahead, the mud season tease, the awakening of the impossible spring, summer heat, mosquitos, cicadas, autumn that seemed to take 90 years or 90 minutes to arrive, and finally, the terror threat of November into December. I ask myself: Culinarily, what do I wish to achieve during this year? The only thing I could say to sum up the entire composite is that the underlying theme of flavors in my rock opera of cooking would be "maximum impact with minimum effort." In case, throughout my rambling ranting, I have not made this absolutely clear: this is what Fight4Taste is all about. I look back at the tattered calendar of the last year; some plans are memories, and some memories never materialize. You win some, you lose some. Three dear friends went down with the ship, and there was nothing I could do.  As I contemplated being practical, I found myself in the sand, digging for treasure that I already knew was...