My Cooking Style

My husband is my most valuable kitchen tool.  He's very open to trying new things and always goes along with my crazy diet ideas and helps me where he can.  When he was still in school, he did most of the cooking because I had a job and he was awesome.  Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing sexier than a man who can cook you a good dinner.  Now that I stay home more, I'm the cook but he's still an invaluable source of inspiration.  Every meal, we eat together and discuss what was good and what could be improved.  You don't have to have natural cooking talent, you just have to be open to constructive criticism.  If you don't have a spouse like mine, you should definitely get one.  I highly recommend the Southern boys.

Being born in and having my whole family hail from the Chicago area, I make Chicago-style pizza.  Let's just get that out of the way.  I believe that New York-style "pizza" is more accurately a flatbread and real pizza should start with a good crust and be eaten with a fork, not folded like a paper airplane.  I hate pizza that uses the crust only as a piece of cardboard by which to deliver the toppings.  Respect the Crust!

I don't like really greasy or fatty food.  I have bad acid reflux so lots of grease sits very hard on my stomach.  I am from Atlanta, however and will eat the soul food from time to time but I don't typically cook it in my kitchen.  I do have a deep fryer because I don't think my in-laws would have accepted me if I didn't know how to make chicken fingers or fried pickles (that's right, pickles.  If made right, I admit they're amazing).  I rarely use it anymore though.

I like to challenge myself from time to time but I usually don't want to be in the kitchen all day.  I don't bake very much because with only Josh and myself, we'd have to eat what I bake and then we wouldn't look good naked so I try to keep that to a minimum unless it's a special occasion.  I don't do crazy foodscapes or take too much time on my plating.  Although I'm a designer, I'm an industrial designer before any other type of designer and because of that, I think form should follow function.  I'm practical and just use the plate as a means to get the food to my face.  Good food should look good without making it into a sculpture.  I like my basic, square white plates because squares are more practical than circles when storing in a cabinet and food looks best on a white plate.

I love my knives.  I have a fabulous set of Wusthof Classic Ikon knives that we bought with the majority of our wedding money (turns out, if you only register for $100 apiece knives and other expensive stuff, people will just give you lots of cash).  I didn't want china, I didn't want tablecloths, I already had most kitchen essentials from having lived with Josh for a couple years so I just wanted a sweet set of blades.  You really haven't cooked properly until you've chopped garlic or diced a tomato with a piece of carefully honed steel (you also haven't really cut yourself unless one of said blades has made you bleed profusely without even feeling it cut your skin).  There's just no going back.  Would you let a surgeon operate on you with a Walmart brand scalpel?  You're a good cook, you deserve good tools.

I like to do my own prep-work.  I love my knives so I enjoy using them.  I don't like to buy pre-cut food because 1) I feel more connected to my food when I prepared every bit of it and 2) if your food is pre-cut, that means that it touched one more set of hands and took that much longer to get to you.  Just take it out of the field and give it to me.  I'll do the rest, thanks.

I love wine.  I got married at a winery.  I used to love white wine but now I only like red.  Preferably Cabernet and preferably cheap because at the moment, I'd rather spend my money on organic food or a vacation than an expensive drink.  I am a total Two Buck Chuck devotee and if you don't watch your glass, I might drink yours too.

I love garlic.  I use it often.  You can usually catch me sniffing my hands after cutting it like a warped Mary Katherine Gallagher.  If you don't like garlic, you can usually omit it or reduce it because chances are, I've added it to an already perfectly good recipe to make it better.  Then again, if you don't like garlic, I don't know if we can be friends.

  
This is me after cutting garlic



I hate green vegetables.  I try. I really do try.  My parents made me eat all my veggies and tried to tell me that someday my taste buds would change and blah blah blah...I still don't like them.  I don't hate all greens, though. I do love salads, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, and spinach if it's raw or in a dip. I don't like beans either.  Something about the texture just feels gross.  Having said this, you now know that if you're all about the greens, you probably won't find much to eat here. Sorry. 

On the other hand, Josh and I have been trying to cut out some of the meat and dairy in our diets.  99% of the time, we only eat chicken and fish but on occasion, I can be convinced to have a steak but only if I cook it because once again, I'm a good cook.  This change came about when I read the book Skinny Bitch.  I know that to many people it sounds silly to worry about and I used to think it was silly to worry too but it just made me think about where my meat comes from.  European chefs will agree that a happy animal tastes better than a scared or stressed animal because their bodies release adrenaline and other stress hormones that affect the taste of the meat.  At the risk of sounding too preachy, the large-scale American meat industry is more concerned with quantity than quality (that shouldn't surprise anyone) so unless I know exactly what they're injecting into the animals and how it's affecting my body long-term, I'd rather be paranoid and eat less of it.  By no means am I trying to change anyone's mind or tell you what not to eat, I'm just trying to give a basis for why you won't see much pork or red meat on my site. 

My dream is to have an organic farm with a little restaurant someday.  Summer 2009, I decided to use the large flower boxes in front of my house to grow herbs.  I was also getting married that September so to save money and go with the whole local-sustainable-rustic theme of the winery where we got married, I thought herbs in vases would look nice on the tables.  While picking out seeds,  Josh suggested we grow some jalapenos.  Everything grew really well.  The herbs looked amazing and I had peppers coming out my ears all summer.  I realized that nothing tasted so good as when it was made with ingredients that I cared for and picked just minutes before.  I was hooked.  Because of this epiphany, I buy fresh and organic whenever possible and you really can taste the difference.