Getting a chance to share the kitchen with a friend is always a good thing. Getting the chance to share the kitchen and make ridiculous food and get my hair cut by a friend in my kitchen that I haven't seen in about 8 months is even better.
My great friend, who I definitely have not seen in far too long, spontaneously came up with the idea of cooking with me this unfathomable Friday. It was awesome. We went to Meijer and, in classic "me fashion," we ran around grabbing shit to make food. We settled on an odd assortment of food and ended up making, quite possibly, the most eclectic meal to grace the pages of this blog.
The kitchen was brimming with dishes and the dishwasher was actually run while we cooked. And emptied, too. And then filled again. The artichokes were stuffed with a breading that was fairly generic. I guess the steamed artichokes were the hero in this Dickensian play. Not so much Dickensian in its droll literary quality, but in the fact of how grandiose the side was.
The strangest sight ever seen in my kitchen arose when the 360 controller found itself nestled next to a glass of Scotch and a smartphone used as a cookbook. But we trudged on. The German potato salad wasn't anything new for me, it was a side I made before, but this time, I felt I executed it a little better than before. I integrated some diced dill pickles.
The chicken wasn't anything too insane. A plain-Jane blackening. Lots of ancho in it, gave it a bit of a bite.
The night wasn't so much about cooking or producing the best culinary invention in history. The night was about two old friends getting together and spending some time together like they haven't in years. And the kitchen made that possible. Quite frankly, the artichokes frightened me, I didn't much enjoy them. They are a very odd vegetable. Not one I'll enjoy too often, but at least a new experience. The chicken had a very southern vibe to it, quite delicious. The potatoes? My best iteration of the German potato salad.I noticed that my blog, compared to a lot of other food blogs, lacks a lot of the
recipes and cooking tips that others seem to thrive on. This is an intentional gaff. My blog isn't about the cooking and recipes, so much as it is about the cultural and personal identifying markers found lying in food.I don't like to write about precisely what I put into the food, physically, but rather what the food takes and gives from me. Where one person may be interested to know precisely what I blacken my chicken in, I am more fond of expressing the communal power of food and the fact that unremarkable (from the point of difficulty and eloquence) food can bring people so close together.
Looking back on a lot of my past entries, I've grown a bit less sour of heart at my given situation. Seeing the elation that I feel cooking for and with friends and family reminds me that I'm not so alone. Even when I cook food for myself and have enough left over for 3 people... I have left overs. And sometimes they get picked at by my ex when she comes home.
But, for me, this isn't about giving the readers a recipe to follow, but to inspire them (what few there really are) to think about food in their life.
When I think about family holidays, food is something that comes to mind. The turkey with the tumor one Thanksgiving, the pot roast that caught fire one Christmas. And the Chex-mix. Dear god, the Chex-mix.
I'll do my best to provide you, the readers, with recipes that I follow, but I can't make any promises. This blog is more about the journey that food takes us on, rather than the food itself.
And, if I partake of culinary school, it will become about that journey in my life. Also, I apologize about the blurry last picture of the completed food. I'm still trying to get used to this new lens on my camera. It's really throwing me off.
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