It took a trip to Japan this year to open me up to the complexities that one could provide in a seemingly simple combination of meat, rice, and vegetables. Like most things in life, however, the most simple things can be the easiest to fuck up.
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This week, I got excited about a salad.
I know. This sounds like something that should be whispered in hushed, shameful tones to one’s religious leader. Or maybe it’s a loudly proclaimed cry for help to most Americans, but I can assure you that my mental health is about as stable as it ever was. Hell, maybe better after tasting this.
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In the grand scheme of things, I can rarely think of a skill that is of better benefit in the kitchen than knowing how to make stock. With the right tools this simple procedure is fairly effortless, yet the rewards are astronomical. Okay, that’s a little hyperbolic, but this stuff is way better than that sodium-laden chicken-flavored water that you buy at the market.
…An exercise in amazing…
There are very few things in this world that I love more than coleslaw. While I’m pretty sure I’ve said that about multiple things at multiple times in my life, this time I really mean it. Seriously. I’ll fight somebody for coleslaw, if it’s good enough. Sometimes even if it’s just mediocre.
Think about it. There’s very little that screams American BBQ or cookout or I’m gonna stab you if you take the last piece of fried chicken like a tart, yet creamy coleslaw. Cooling in the summer and a way to force vegetables on your kids.
…The other day I made the most awful, offensive thing to grace my stove in many, many years. And frankly, that’s a good thing.
Let me clarify that. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
It all started with the chicken thighs I had bought. I had already cut the vegetables that would be going with the chicken and had them ready to go before I looked in on the meat. It was grey. The kind of grey that suggested death and bad omens. Basically, shit I didn’t want anywhere near my stomach. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some chicken, but when that shit goes bad, I’d almost rather eat a closed oyster. It’s not worth the risk of getting sick. But when the chicken went bad, that’s where things went down hill…
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I go crazy over cookouts. No, really. I get really obsessive over cooking the right things or bringing the most memorable things to the party. There’s some weird part of my brain that hungrily feeds off of the praise of strangers (or even friends) when it comes to the preparation of food. I’m a junkie for it. I have to be the one with the most interesting thing at the potluck. It’s a point of honor or something. It might explain why I spent so long working in hospitality. It probably explains a lot of fucked up things about me.
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There are very few things better in life than quality Italian cuisine. This was cemented in my being one early morning in a 30 second elevator ride in downtown Los Angeles.
I feel that this might need some clarification.
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Oh man. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wing sauce. Ever. Just the words “buffalo sauce” conjure pleasant images of cold beers in a dark bar on a Tuesday afternoon, the wadded up, orange-stained napkins littering your table top like fallen comrades strewn about the battlefield, sacrificed in the vain effort of keeping ones hands and face relatively clean. The kind of memories that end in a full belly, a keen sense of satisfaction, and, if you’re in a quality establishment, lots of wet-wipes.
I can’t think of a single person I know that doesn’t like buffalo sauce. Maybe not because of its popularity, but because I don’t readily associate with those sorts of people. In fact, if you are one of those people, I’m afraid I’m going to kindly have to ask you to leave.
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Alcohol: because no great story ever started with someone eating a salad; a statement emblazoned on T-shirts and Facebook posts letting you know that the owner cannot be bothered to ever eat something other than large hunks of meat accompanied by copious amounts of cheap booze. A sign that the humble salad has been, at least in American society, been equated with weakness and boring food.
And it is boring, when you do it wrong.
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When was the last time you made everyone in your family happy? Go on; I’ll wait. Yeah, I can’t remember either. If you cook for your family, and I don’t mean just that whole nuclear family thing, I mean the WHOLE family, it gets even harder to remember when you bring food into the picture. It becomes the ultimate challenge, the unicorn you’ve managed to cross-bread successfully with… well, anything. It’s mystical and rare and hopefully pulls its own weight by getting drunk uncle so-and-so to stop telling fart jokes at the dinner table.
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