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I can’t help but think that my dad would be laughin’ his arse off about my love of cooking.
My father and uncle owned and ran a family-restaurant up in New England. Started by their parents, the restaurant stood on the same property as my Grandmother’s house. Despite her age, she was still involved in the restaurant, working on some key dishes that she prided herself in not sharing with other hired cooks. In the meantime, my father and uncle bickered (as brothers do), and always fought to establish dominance in the very man’s man world of bartending and business. In the meantime, my uncle did not have any male offspring. My father seemed to be setting the same trend up until, low and behold, “male-child” was born. Quickly dubbed Joe Jr., it was as if I was pre-destined as the only child with a hangy-downy-thingie to take over the family business. Yet, there was one little problem with this concept. I hated it. I wanted nothing – absolutely NOTHING – to do with the restaurant. I hated being in that kitchen. I hated the smell of seafood (and still do). And I couldn’t imagine for a second that I would ever get into cooking anything beyond a frozen pizza.
Surprise!
I really do have to thank the SCA for my love of cooking, among other things. Seriously – had it not been for period recipes and learning to redact and extrapolate recipes, it opened up my world to flavors and ingredients and all kinds of fun inspiration – including the blending of sensory ingredients that the typical American diet does not consider. And this takes me to this past weekend.
While sweating away the other day on the elliptical, I was watching one of my absolute favorite shows – Diners, Drivers, and Dives. While Guy Fieri somewhat works my nerves, I do appreciate his pursuit of restaurants across the country that are known for their unique from-scratch methods of food preparation. Constantly, I see people who get it and put their heart and soul into cooking. But the other day, I received some fantastic inspiration. The show visited a Basque restaurant where a typical dish involved fried banana, fried dates and homemade sausage. That combination of sweet and savory seemed to delight the guests. So I thought to myself – “hmmmmm… what if I make sausage and instead of adding sugar like I normally would to a sweeter sausage, instead add chopped dates?” So filing that away in my brain, I decided to experiment on Sunday.
WooHOO! Following a traditional bratwurst recipe, I threw my own spin on it, using grains of paradise instead of cayenne, longpepper instead of cracked black pepper, smoked salt, and a half cup of dates ground into the meat.
One word – FAAAAAAAAAAAAABulous!
I love foodie-fun!
My father and uncle owned and ran a family-restaurant up in New England. Started by their parents, the restaurant stood on the same property as my Grandmother’s house. Despite her age, she was still involved in the restaurant, working on some key dishes that she prided herself in not sharing with other hired cooks. In the meantime, my father and uncle bickered (as brothers do), and always fought to establish dominance in the very man’s man world of bartending and business. In the meantime, my uncle did not have any male offspring. My father seemed to be setting the same trend up until, low and behold, “male-child” was born. Quickly dubbed Joe Jr., it was as if I was pre-destined as the only child with a hangy-downy-thingie to take over the family business. Yet, there was one little problem with this concept. I hated it. I wanted nothing – absolutely NOTHING – to do with the restaurant. I hated being in that kitchen. I hated the smell of seafood (and still do). And I couldn’t imagine for a second that I would ever get into cooking anything beyond a frozen pizza.
Surprise!
I really do have to thank the SCA for my love of cooking, among other things. Seriously – had it not been for period recipes and learning to redact and extrapolate recipes, it opened up my world to flavors and ingredients and all kinds of fun inspiration – including the blending of sensory ingredients that the typical American diet does not consider. And this takes me to this past weekend.
While sweating away the other day on the elliptical, I was watching one of my absolute favorite shows – Diners, Drivers, and Dives. While Guy Fieri somewhat works my nerves, I do appreciate his pursuit of restaurants across the country that are known for their unique from-scratch methods of food preparation. Constantly, I see people who get it and put their heart and soul into cooking. But the other day, I received some fantastic inspiration. The show visited a Basque restaurant where a typical dish involved fried banana, fried dates and homemade sausage. That combination of sweet and savory seemed to delight the guests. So I thought to myself – “hmmmmm… what if I make sausage and instead of adding sugar like I normally would to a sweeter sausage, instead add chopped dates?” So filing that away in my brain, I decided to experiment on Sunday.
WooHOO! Following a traditional bratwurst recipe, I threw my own spin on it, using grains of paradise instead of cayenne, longpepper instead of cracked black pepper, smoked salt, and a half cup of dates ground into the meat.
One word – FAAAAAAAAAAAAABulous!
I love foodie-fun!
