Documenting Dinner

I read an interesting blog post recently about a chef's irritation with people photographing meals, chef, staff, etc. And I think I'm of the same mind (to a large degree).
I have to admit, I've not yet seen this happen in the gulf coast - no surprising, really. But just the idea that people would take pictures of food. Really? I read blog, so I see it, but ... strange. At least to me. Maybe if it was just so perfect, or artistic or if you're a restaurant critic (we have none of those here - sigh) and I could understand, but a cheeseburger - I mean, really?
I'm also astonished that someone would take photos of someone else w/out asking. What about other customers? The idea of recording the wait staff as he explains the special (My face is all screwed up in a question mark kind of way while I type this as I find it so - just  - wrong). You've really got to be kidding me. I guess I'm just naieve -or from a backwater where weird restaurant behavior isn't a habit. I feel bad for anyone who gets stuck in this awkward situation  - esp. a dinner companion. This article illuminates why some people feel the need to photograph food. But this quote is interesting ..."“In the unconscious mind, food equals love because food is our deepest and earliest connection with our caretaker,” said Kathryn Zerbe, a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders and food fixations at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland." Creepy.
Do people really care so much about what they eat or is it all self publication. See, I went to French Laundry and here's the proof. Wonder what the French Laundry thinks of this? What a way to have a special experience ruined.
I do take photos of things I make at home. I'm experimenting after all. I'm not bugging anyone except the MotH and the Boy (possibly) and I feel justified since I did the work and the whole idea of this blog thing is an easy way to keep images and ideas together. Still I will not be photographing my cheeseburger at the Oar House.

Why I Cook?

Why cook?
Michael Ruhlman had a post recently that reasoned through his thoughts on why he cooks? It's here.


So, why do I cook - my first thought is that I have no earthly idea, but that just a stall tactic.  I had experience with great menus and great food in my events career, so I have exposure to how things can be and what things go together - all new and different to me. I had to learn - it was part of the job. Now that explains how I could be god-forbid, a foodie, but not really why I cook.
It's simple - I am curious. What will work? What won't?


Under lying all this is the strong desire to make MotH happy and occasionally please the Boy enough that I'll make something that doesn't need ketchup added. And part of is to be different - to do something most people, honestly, don't do (or at least some people don't do). Does that mean I make homemade mayo every week -- no. But I will make it to go in my chicken salad. Sure call me a food snob - go ahead - it ain't the first time. 


Cooking is, contrary to what MotH thinks, relaxing - even if I'm tired of standing at the end of the weekend.  Even picking the weekly menu is a kick (though sometimes that's more difficulty that others). I like looking at cookbooks - hoping to discover the next great thing or trying something I've never done before. Or magazines, but increasingly more often now - blogs.
It's artistic - at least creative, and that's pretty nifty. 


Cooking has lots of perks. You know, largely, what's in your dinner. You get leftovers (lunch!). As previously mentioned (see sentence above), it's relaxing and simply fun.


Hell, cooking means I order seeds for hot peppers, cukes, and a few some a lot of flowers (you need pollinators damn it). 


Why not cook?

I'm tired - really tired.

It's something I just don't want to take on that night (pad thai, gyros, dolmas)

I'm out of time... for at least what I want to eat that night.

Ingredients are too costly - I'm notorious for being cheap -  there are something I can't rationalize.

And it's the weekend... so it's time to start ... cooking!

Food Snob?

I have been called a food snob. I'm not totally sure why; I make my own pickles, so what's the big deal? People used to do that as a matter of course. No one turns down my bread-n-butter pickles, by the way. In fact I have been presented with bags of pickling cukes and dutifully with in a couple of days return with a couple of pints of pickles. I do the same with summer squash (yellow crookneck, zucchini, etc.) that overflow in our area at this time of year.
Maybe because I try new things in the kitchen or don't really follow recipes or because I buy from the farmers' market and decide dinner as I stand between the local softball-sized tomatoes and the fresh green onions. After all, I still make things like lasagna and sloppy joes, I just mostly make them from scratch. The sloppy joes started from a recipe that now it is so far removed from, I don't feel like it's based on it anymore.
But do any of these quirks make me a food snob? I don't know, but I do know I'd rather be a food snob than a foodie. I won't go into what I consider a foodie*  - suffice to say, it's not positive.
Better yet, I'd prefer to be called what I consider myself - curious.


*now...


random thoughts
Why is background music on tv food shows so annoying?
Please shoot me... "What would Brian Boitano make?" - who the frick cares!

Food Terminology

Last night, on the 1st episode of Next Iron Chef, the participating chefs kept tossing around the word confit. Now, I know of duck confit, but I've never heard of someone making mango confit or salmon confit. Both sort of defy the definition of the word. If you look at Barron's Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst, which I have owned and used since 1999 at least, you would not that confit is defined as such, "...is derived from an ancient method of preserving meat (usually goose, duck or pork) whereby it is salted and slowly cooked in its own fat. The cooked meat is then packed into a crock or pot and covered with its cooking fat, which acts as a seal and preservative."


It certainly seemed like everyone had just learned the word so they were using it as much as possible - blame it on the foodie I suppose. groan.


So are they just tossing around words to impress people who don't own a copy of the Food Lover's Companion? If (and that's a big IF) Food Network is interested in getting people to cook - which I realize these cooking contest are not designed to do - you would think they would advocate for proper use of terminology. I would have expected, at a minimum, that Alton would throw the BS flag on the chefs... disappointing.