Blogging Well; Eating Better

A blog. About food. Why not?

So here I go.

This is as much for me as you. Weeellll... actually probably more for me. Fact is, I love cooking and will cook something complicated from scratch given the time and inclination. I will try a recipe and then tweak it and then leave it for a while and then forget what I did and maybe go back to it some day - but maybe not - so I thought, well, heck, why don't I blog about it which will 1) keep track of my exploits and 2) hopefully amuse and/or educate those I know about food and cooking.

If you know me reasonably well, you will know that I am a fairly hard-core foodie. I loooove me some good food and quality ingrediants. My very first job in Chicago was in a kitchen - which was a position I had absolutely no business getting. A friend of mine (actually of Mark's) was a waitress at this place (the long gone Club Macanudo in the Gold Coast) and she wrangled a position for me there. The chef hired me and quit shortly there after. (Which is why, I suspect, he had no problem hiring me with absolutely NOTHING in the way food servce on my resume.) When the restaurant manager realized that he a new hire coming in that he didn't know at all, he asked my friend about me and my skills and she, God bless her, vouched for me all the way. You can imagine the surprise in the kitchen on my first day when one of the prep cooks told me to julienne some vegetables only to recieve a blank look from me. My education started immediately.

I will leave the Macanudo story for now... I am sure I will be coming back to my experiences that often but, suffice it to say, that was the beginning of how I learned to cook.

Now, on to more important things. Namely, the 2 beautiful grass-fed, dry-aged, New York strip steaks I have waiting in the fridge. Mark mentioned maybe experimenting with dry rubs that include coffee and that was all I needed to spark inspiration.

I started my research the way I always do: by googling a bunch of recipes to see how they differ from each other. I like seeing how intepretations will vary from pro chef to home cook to region. I will then usually pick a recipe that catches my eye or come up with a synthesis. Today's rub will be a synthesis using a coffee rub by Bobby Flay that I found on Epicurious.com as the base. I'm toying with the idea of using Thai spices (I'm thinking red curry paste) instead of his ubiquitous ancho chilies... we'll see how I feel. With it, I plan on grilling some sweet potato, sliced home-fries style (something I'm planning on serving with a dinner next week, so today I am experimenting with it) along with some grilled carrots (cuz we have some) to bring some sweet balance to the what I'm expecting will be a rather heavy, spicy steak. To top the steak, I'm thinking perhaps a chili creme sauce using one of the INSANELY hot peppers we have growing in the back yard. They're way too hot to serve as a side (I tried one last week and half my mouth was numb for an hour - and I'm no wimp when it comes to spicy) so I'm rather determined to figure out a way to use them.

Mark is working on mini-chocolate souffles for dessert.

This could be very, very good.

On a bummer note, I'd prefer to grill everything out back on the Weber but it keeps raining. I can pan-fry the steaks if need be but I'm really hoping the weather will pass... Mark doesn't have a cast iron skillet (I know, for shame) and mine is back at my place. The curse of separate house holds! I will keep looking skyward and, in the meantime, pull out my lovely steaks and get started...