Breakfast

I'm trying to get myself to become someone who eats breakfast. I usually eat something in the morning (late morning) and in the last year I've gone from cereal to home cooked foods and now I pretty much don't eat cereal at all. I feel the more calories (good calories) I can cram into breakfast, the better I will eat throughout the day. I figure, if you're going to eat fat, why not do it in the form of egg yolks which are not only delicious but affordable and full of energy. Per gram, fat gives you more than twice the energy of carbs or protein, so eating more fat in the morning just makes sense. After todays breakfast I could reenact any montage that Sylvester Stalone ever filmed with no problem.

7 minutes of preparation time

3 stems of purple kale
3 stems of Lacinato kale also known as dinosaur kale
1 handful of baby spinach leaves

3 poached eggs

2 pieces of toasted homemade bread with apple butter
2 spoonfuls of salsa with guacamole

This might sound like a lot but it wasn't even as much food as you get at your local diner.

1.) First put on a small pot of water and add a splash of vinegar, letting this come to a simmer
2.) put olive oil in hot saute pan, add all the greens, I take the thick part of the stems off of the kale, just tear off the leaves into smaller pieces.
3.) The greens will drastically reduce in size but all those amazing vitamins are still in there, add a little salt and pepper to these if you like and I prefer even a little acid, I used sherry vinegar this morning but lemon juice is usually my favorite with sauteed greens.
4.) The greens can sit on low heat for awhile so you can poach your eggs and finish your toast
5.) crack one egg into a small bowl and gently slide it into the simmering water, repeat with however many eggs you want. When I poach more than one egg I don't swirl the water, I don't really care how they look. If I were going to poach only one egg, I would swirl the water around carefully like a toilet flushing and gently slide the egg into the water. The swirling water will wrap the egg white around the yolk into a nice little bundle. This is a good technique to use if you want that sexy looking poached egg on top of something, very impressive.
6.) let eggs poach until they are done, 3 -5 minutes or so, I don't usually count, I just look at them and pull them out with a spoon. Some people drop the eggs in and turn the heat off and let the eggs sit in the hot water for about 5 minutes, that would work fine. If you are worried about undercooked eggs either let them cook longer or buy higher quality eggs.
7.) Your toast should be toasting during this process and when its done, put it on the plate, spread some butter or apple butter or whatever you want on it, plain toast is fine too if you like that.
8.) put the greens on top of the toast, put the eggs on top of the greens and add a little salsa and you are done.

This is a great way to get veggies into your breakfast. Something I'm always working on.

Purple Kale and Lacinato Kale

The meals in between

I, along with millions of Americans have developed a lot of unhealthy eating habits, and these habits have created what I believe to be addictions. I spend a lot of mental energy thinking about what I eat, not just as a chef but as someone who is trying to figure out how to be healthy. Through research and school I've learned an extraordinary amount of nutrition information and I believe that it's very important knowledge, but that's only the beginning.

With my parents visiting in town and living in such a gourmet city, it's hard not to indulge for each and every meal. I had a nice thought tonight that popped in my head, "It's okay, as long as you eat well for the meals in between". This is an interesting concept if you really think about how much eating goes on BETWEEN events and special occasions. I love getting nachos and hotdogs at a baseball game, and I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life thinking I would never do that again. What about birthday parties and going away parties and baby showers and vacation and checking out the new restaurant in town or anniversaries or dinner parties?

It's hard to imagine packing some raw veggies and a turkey sandwich to take with me to a wedding reception. Would that be insulting to the bride and groom?

I believe there are so many more eating experiences throughout our lives that are not connected to any type of social event or celebration, and if in those moments we do not waiver and we eat with the sole purpose of fueling our bodies with exactly what they need, we would be a lot better off. It's the lunch we choose 5 times a week that affects our bodies more than the birthday cake at the party or the family get together at the rib joint. I work dinner shifts at a restaurant and have the option to eat just about anything you could imagine for dinner. I have the advantage over most people that I get five meals a week where I can choose from unlimited types of produce and meats to assemble a meal and I don't even have to pay for it, not only that, I get to prepare it in a pan that someone else washes for me on a stove that resembles a jet engine and eat it out of a bowl that someone else also gets to wash for me. That's a pretty convenient meal option right there. The flip side of this scenario is the temptation to eat too much of the wrong foods and to do that every day. If one week has 21 meals in it, and fifteen of those are really healthy and modest, who cares if you want to have your neighbors over to inhale some pizza. It's meals (and snacks) in between that really count, don't worry about the ones you actually really enjoy. It's the "All or nothing" dieting that always ends in failure, so try to find a lifestyle that works, and hopefully includes a generous amount of ice cream.

My outlet

I need an outlet. I need a recording of thoughts and processes. I need to write. This blog is intended to fulfill all these things and hopefully more. I forget how important writing is, especially for artists, and I need a place where I can write about the things that inspire me. I don't care much for blogs about people's daily lives with no real purpose. A blog is like a business, it needs a mission statement and a target audience.

Mission Statement:

To write about my own personal food culture and cooking. To record my experiences and experiments for present and future analysis. To share with others what I know and am learning. To inspire myself and others to see the importance of food in our lives. To vent about things that piss me off. To express my excitement about things that nobody around me wants to hear (for example, finding the best deal on duck fat or how to make french fries even crispier). My wife is afraid that I will alienate my family and friends with my convictions and passion and I believe she may be right. With a blog, the reader is choosing to read your opinion and therefore can't really be upset about it. At the dinner table with my family, ranting about GMO's or concentrated animal feeding operations might get a little annoying if not worse.


My Target audience

Anyone who chooses to explore the world of food through reading and cares about what they put into their mouths and where it comes from. Anyone who loves to cook, wishes they could cook better, cares about the details and most importantly loves to eat. I am all of these things so I assume I will be my biggest fan. Why don't I just write in a notepad? The main reason is because I truly want other people to hear my thoughts, for many reasons. I also believe writing is different when the author knows other people will be reading it. Personal journals are great but I feel I can create both a personal journal and possibly contribute something to other people at the same time.

My Anti-Target audience

Most businesses don't probably think about who they DON'T want as their target market but I'm going to. What better way to define what you are all about than by explaining who you don't want as a reader. Plus, I think it's important to exclude people from a group, that's what makes a group a group. Nobody wants to belong to the group called "Everybody".
Anyone who eats fast food at least once a day should not read my blog, unless they are exploring the option of not doing so. "Foodies", who know the details of every ingredient on the planet but don't really cook that much. These are the people who know 15 different varieties of mushrooms but never cook with any of them. These people are excluded from this group because they usually just want to argue about the stupid details not because it matters but because they want you to know how much knowledge they have.


I am here to spur exploration and discussion. I hope to inspire everyone to see their kitchen as a playground and the supermarket as a toy store. The really great thing about cooking is that it leads to eating and eating must happen every day. You get the opportunity to try again when you fail and it really doesn't have to cost that much. I am lucky that my passion is something so easily reached and so vast and important. I feel sorry for people who have an equal passion for dinosaurs or space exploration or the civil war. There really is only so much you can do with those things but I get to cook and eat 3 times a day, and when I'm not doing that I can read about it.

I worked for a chef who once told me "Doing something right does not take longer". This may seem like a very common sense statement but an inexperienced line cook in a hurry will most assuredly start taking shortcuts. The real solution should not be found in shortcuts, but in your mind. When you learn to slow your mind down, your hands can work much faster. When you slow your mind down, your cooking area is more organized and clean, and your processes become much more efficient. Nobody ever told me that, at school or any other job. This chef not only said that, but he lived it. If something wasn't perfect he would throw it away and start over, and it was amazing how consistent this was. This type of integrity didn't get him backed up or behind either, what "Buries" a cook in the trenches is losing focus. You can't use sub-standard shortcuts and maintain the proper focus.

How does this apply to the home cook? I want to challenge the thought that cooking from scratch takes longer, it doesn't. It takes more focus and more planning and more organization. It takes more knowledge and skill and it requires more passion.