Fight 4 Taste

   I am not a career restaurateur, food service professional, or even one who has worked in the industry in a supporting role. I worked at Marie's Luncheonette in my mid-teens and at Colonial Pizza. Both were owned by second and first-generation Italian Americans, respectively. Their food culture was precise, impressive, and intense. I learned a great deal about my work ethic from these extraordinary men, and I am grateful for the experience. I find myself constantly heaping heavy loads and huge demands on myself to produce. Most of the time, I am very pleased with the end result. Once in a while, I fall short, although no one seems to notice. That is because the destination I had in mind does not match the destination achieved. I think the reason I get a pass on that from my diners is that they still cannot get what I made elsewhere, and they don't die, so it is still like going on vacation and experiencing something different. 24 years ago, I decided that I could cook anythi...

 What does my food week look like? Some weeks are triumphs. Some weeks are train wrecks. Most are somewhere in between, tangled up in the usual chaos of work, obligations, distractions, and the random curveballs life enjoys throwing at us. The fantasy is that we control our schedules. The reality is that we're often hanging onto the bumper, getting dragged wherever the road decides to go. That's why I believe in culinary contingency plans. Not glamorous plans. Not ambitious plans. Familiar plans. The dishes you can make when you're exhausted, distracted, or running on fumes. The ones you've made so many times that your hands know what to do before your brain catches up. They become muscle memory. Comfortably repetitive. Maybe even a little boring. That's fine. Boring is underrated. But getting there takes time. Back in 2002, when I was a fledgling home cook obsessed primarily with Korean food, I decided I was going to recreate the spinach and artichoke dip from an I...

 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...