Oatmeal Sunrises

There was something different about today.  Some intangible, immutable force told my body that sleep was a waste of time. Why would someone want to sleep when there is so much to do in the world? So much to see, experience, and share.  It's easy to get caught up in the fast pace of life; to forget where we are going; to mindless go through the motions; to forget how to forget where we are going; to simply wander and enjoy the moment for the moment's sake.  Yes, but today is different.  The awe inspiring beauty of simple, elegant, universal, primitive sunrise reminds me to slow down and appreciate what's around me.  The tranquility of the early morning commuters driving (no honking) in linear patterns and bursts to their destinations remind me that Chicago can be a peaceful, beautiful place if you know how to look at it (The chant-like mesmerizing song of Sigur Ros doesn't hurt either). It can appear overwhelming and unaccepting at a superficial glance but it has many hidden gems if you look past these trivial aspects.  Chicago can be a disaster zone.  People are quarantined off from each other while Transformers films; they turn into barbarians at the first hint of a store sale; they yell and honk because they have to sit in traffic a few seconds longer or might miss the light, "gotta run the yellow!"  Sometimes after living in the city I get angry for these people's rudeness and their unreasonable persistence to be angry, but I forget that they have simple forgotten how to enjoy the little moment's of life.  (Because it is the little, awkward, embarrassing, foreign, quirky, frankly unmemorable moments that stick most in my head throughout the years and I look back most fondly on.)  I try to remind these busy people of the compassion of others in my own feeble attempts.  I always make a point to say hello to the bus driver on my way to work, ask him how he is doing, and give a sincere thank you as I leave the bus.  These conversations are very short and sometimes make the bus driver angry that a skinny white kid is slowing down his route, but I hope that the simple act of a thank you will remind him that he is appreciated and to be a little more positive that day.  I just do little things like that, no grand gestures.  In light of the beautiful sunrise, today cannot be wasted.  No sitting around for laziness sake.  Today will be full of adventures, new experiences, unintended side trips, and accidents.  No plan but to see the beauty of Chicago, hopefully with some little moments along the way.

I recently got braces for the second time.  Life is a cruel mistress but it will all work out for the best.  However, this makes eating very difficult at times, which is the worst part.  I didn't realize how much of the flavor is released by chewing and mixing the food together.  So I've set out to find softer foods that are still bold and flavorful.  I am a big fan of beets.  I know that they look kind of intimidating and gross on the supermarket shelves.  They are usually hidden at the bottom of the rack below some leafy greens.  But when they are roasted, correctly, they take on a super sweet robust flavor and turn a magnificent deep red, which complements the green of salad well.  I found a recipe from Martha Stewart for chilled summer borscht.

Alright beets, sour cream, yogurt, cucumber, dill how bad could this be? A little greek twist to the beet.  It sounded perfect to me.  So I got out my pot, boiled the beets, got out my knife, copped the cucumber, put it all in a bowl, and let it mingle for a few hours.  Wow was I wrong.  It tasted just like beet and cucumber... in a bad way.  None of the flavor melded together like I'd hoped and the creamy consistency I'd expected was lacking.  Hmm puree? My sister is too low on the food equipment scale for that.  Sorry borscht but not cutting it.  I will keep my beets roasted.  On to something else.

I absolutely love oatmeal.  Real, hardy oatmeal not that fake instant stuff.  The coarser, the better with irish steel cut oats as the best )but who really has the time to regularly spend thirty minutes on a bowl of oatmeal?).  My first oatmeal recipes were very basic: milk, oats, lots of brown sugar.  It was inconsistent and often runny.  Then I started experimenting with different flavors: vanilla, almond, honey, berry, peanut butter (not as good as it sounds; quite the opposite actually), banana, spices.  Hmm now what about the texture: milk to water ratio, cooking time, flax, wheat germ, granola.  Egg. What's that? Egg doesn't go in oatmeal, you say? That's what I thought at first too.  But my sister revealed this groundbreaking discovery to me that really allowed me to take my oatmeal to the ultimate level, beyond ordinary fare.  The egg white makes the oatmeal light and fluffy to almost a custard texture.  It gives it a creamy, rounded flavor. Trust me it works.  After many, many tests I think I finally have my perfect recipe.  It is simple, well-rounded, healthy, and filling.

• 3/4 cup oatmeal
• 3/4-1 c. milk (with up to half of this volume being water)
• 1 sliced banana
• 1 egg white (egg beaters work best)
• extract: vanilla, almond, banana
• spice: cinamon, nutmeg (freshly ground please), all spice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. frozen blueberries (frozen are much better for this than fresh)
• 2 tbl flax seed
• crunchy, real granola

Place the oats and milk in a big enough bowl for it to double in size. Add half of banana, egg white, salt and stir thoroughly.  Microwave for 2 minutes.  Take it out to stir, check for liquid ratio (it should be just slightly watery), add rest of banana.  Microwave 1-1.5 minutes until the top has been covered in foam for a few seconds.  Add your choice of tsp extract and spices.  Then stir in frozen blueberries and flax seed.  Top with a layer of granola.  

You now have a quick, healthy meal in a bowl.  Great for cold winter days or anytime actually.  The bottom is light and creamy, the blueberries cool it down and give a burst of sweetness, and the granola gives a great crunch for a wide range of experiences. For variation try: almonds, pumpkin puree, diced apple, raisins, dried fruits, pecans, a splash of buttermilk on top, maple syrup, or maybe you have some other secret ingredient that I've yet to discover.  It's quite possible.  But I humbly submit this recipe as the best oatmeal that I, at least, have ever had.

Sticking It to the Senate

While the Senate may not have the foresight and determination to pass the cap and trade carbon emissions bill because of outside pressures, there are still some people who do have a conscious and a backbone.  The Senate can choose not to pass the bill but that does not mean that states cannot independently take action to do their part in reducing global warming effects.  A group of western states and Canadian provinces has joined together to form the Western Climate Initiative.  Their goal is to reduce carbon emissions to 15% below 2005 levels by 2020; it's not a huge change... baby steps.  This would be a landmark and huge stepping stone on the path to lower carbon emissions and improved energy efficiency.  With the new carbon caps, power plants and automobile makers will be forced to be more efficient, which means less wasted energy and carbon emissions.  Most likely and hopefully, this will lead to new energy research and plant developments, like nuclear, wind, solar, etc, that will eventually create a zero net emissions process.  We have already dug ourselves into a hole that cannot be reversed for centuries but with any luck by the end of the century temperatures will be the same as now.

To achieve their goal, the WCI intends to initiate its own market based cap and trade legislation.  The laws are still in planning stages but they have a general outline.  First a general total cap on carbon emissions will be set on power plants.  This will force them to be cleaner and more environmentally friendly.  They also have regulation against importing electricity from power plants that are not a part of the carbon capped program.  However, in states like California transportation is the largest producer of carbon emissions.  Regulating vehicles is much more difficult because if the restrictions are too severe the California residents will revolt and kill the project.  Prius and hybrid vehicles are already rewarded and common in California and becoming more popular daily, but to ease the change vehicle carbon restrictions most likely will not be introduced until 2015.  (However, due to the admirable social and environmental conscience of California residents, it has become taboo to drive a conventional gas vehicle.  In some neighborhoods you are shunned if you drive an SUV or the vehicle is vandalized via spray paint or keyed.  This social pressure is the best momentum for electric vehicles that one could hope for).

Granted, this is the in the infant stage.  It will likely have many problems and meet much resistance at the start.  Logistical problems will pop up like determining the total acceptable carbon emissions level, how many credits each person gets (without being corrupted by lobbyists or money), monitoring the carbon emissions in an affordable and practical way, etc.  Despite any of these problems, this is still a huge leap forward for the US. Hopefully it will serve as the example for the rest of the country to set up its own legislation if the Senate won't.  With any luck people will realize that the cap and trade can work effectively...

Cooking the Planet, Pigs, and Dinner

I enjoy a nice sunny day on the water like any other reasonably minded person.  What I do not like is riding in a car on the Chicago jammed highway without AC in record setting, blistering heat and humidity; the windows have to be kept open to avoid heat stroke but at the same time increasing my chance of carbon monoxide poisoning.  As I feel my senses leaving me from the fumes, I wonder "Why does it have to be like this?" I mean, it is 2010. This was suppose to be the decade when the robots rise up and computers control the world.  However, when I look around all I see is antiquated technology in the form of gas guzzling cars, or even worse the 13 mpg, soccer mom SUVs that have never seen life outside the city.  When I was young the future was so promising.  What happened to the Segway nation? What happened to fuel cells? Renewable energy, huh? Wasn't Al Gore suppose to save the world right after inventing the internet? There were so many promising solutions that simply vanished in the past decade.  WTF?! Who is the culprit? Look no further than the mirror the next time you grab your keys to run to Walmart to buy a bottle of water.  We can blame the Senate, House, the President, big business (who all do play their part) but in the end it is the mass population that is responsible for idly sitting back and not demanding better.  We are far too happy to let other people do what is necessary and do not look at the bigger picture.  Each time we commit these relatively small, seemingly innocent violations we add to the snowball that now has almost too much momentum to stop.  Will Arnold Schwarzenegger save me soon? Please.

In the 90's fuel cells were suppose to be our savior.  In ten years, "they" promised we would have a hydrogen economy where liquid hydrogen canisters would replace gas pumps and water vapor replacing toxic tailpipe exhaust.  This was another great example of the incompetence of our government science divisions.  The government gave a huge percentage of its research budget toward fuel cell research, but all of the reports were based on fabricated and false data.  As well, they didn't realize that more energy was required to create liquid hydrogen than is released by the fuel cell, resulting in a net negative energy operation.  Because of this oversight blunder, viable other research was underfunded which set us years behind (which is why Japan is master of the hybrid car) and even today fuel cells are not anywhere close to being an effective energy storage device.

Then the new millennium was the era of electric transportation.  The US invented the car and the assembly line, and we lead the electronic industry so why should we not logically also be the forerunners in electric vehicles? American companies became too greedy and satisfied with putting out inferior, unoriginal products while Japan realized that oil scarcity and global warming might actually be a big deal so began developing a hybrid car in 1995.  As a result, we are a decade behind in technology than Japan, who has already mastered the hybrid vehicle after 15 years of experience and research.  Meanwhile, GM has spent a mere two years frantically working on the Volt that will supposedly revolutionize the american car industry by introducing the first plug-in hybrid car (PHEV is a hybrid car that has 40 miles battery power range before the motor starts).  But spilling over $41,000 and without a smart grid capable of handling a huge wave of electric cars, the Volt will meet too much resistance and not shock anyone into consciousness. If people do not want to save money by simply turing off the TV while they are out, they will not plop down another ten grand on a car that they don't understand.  Then there is the all-electric Tesla which is an amazing engineering feat (it beats a Porsche 911 in a quarter mile race).  However, it is two years behind schedule and prohibitively expensive.  As well, it can only travel up to 300 miles without changing the battery, which the US does not have the infrastructure to support.  Neat idea but not working for me.

Cars are the most obvious offender to the environment but not the worst.  Factories and industry emit massive levels of pollution and green house gases that are causing ice caps to melt, cute polar bears and penguins to die (if this doesn't disturb you, watch march of the penguins and then see how you feel), and temperatures to rise dramatically.  Rhode Island should not be hotter than 100 several days in a row; that is not normal, I'm sorry Fox News.  There is a reason that no one in NE has air conditioners.  We had a chance at redemption with the recent bill to cap carbon emissions with the cap and trade bill.  However, due to financial support from oil companies, republican deniers, and cowardice the bill was denied.  There is a complete lack of responsibility and bravery in the leaders of our country.  Even the maverick John McCain who was once a friend of the environment was swayed by reelection votes and money so voted against the bill.  Case in point is the latest BP oil spill.  The company seemed almost to be testing America to see how long they could let the pipe leak until we would actually force them into action.  With solutions like clogging the pipe with trash and golfballs or setting a makeshift cap on top, I have to either assume it is intentional or they are utterly ignorant.  I mean, who would have thought that a sophisticated 75 ton fitted cap installed by intelligent robots would be the best solution?

To improve my faith in mankind, I read this fascinating article about how to roast a pig, Hawaiian style in your own backyard.  This has been something I have wanted to do for years.  I had it all planned out one year but it fell through in the end.  I even know exactly where to get the pig in Kansas.  The pig roast sounds like the perfect day long adventure full of drinks, food, and friends.  Imagine the satisfaction of buying an entire pig, digging a pit for a 1000+ degree fire, and then throwing in the hog to roast for an entire day! That is luxury if anything is.  My main problem is finding enough mouths to help me eat the pork.  That is a lot of meat, especially considering half my family would not eat it.  Reading that article did just the trick to put me in the mood to cook dinner!

I am a die hard fan of SmittenKitchen.  Her writing is very friendly, informal and inviting.  Her pictures are amazing.  But most importantly, her recipes are consistently fantastic and get me praise from everyone who tries the dish.  Some recent successes I have had are: buttermilk ice cream which is great with berry cobbler,  oatmeal cookies, and shakshuka.  The most recent experiment was scalloped tomatoes with croutons.  It was a lovely mix between bread pudding and spaghetti.  I had a week old baguette that was almost uncuttable that I needed to use so I thought it was time to test out this recipe.  To start, I cut the baguette into cubes and sauteed it in evoo for a few minutes to toast it.  Then I added a can of San Marzano tomatoes, sugar, salt, and pepper.  Continued to cook until thicker.  Then I stirred in fresh basil and oregano.  Plus I added a little sausage and topped it with Parmesan.   It was a delicious, simple dish that had the perfect combination of sweet and acid, soft and chewy.   The terrifically stale bread gave a great texture and absorbed the liquid like a dream.  On its own the dish was great, but with poached duck eggs it was over the top extraordinary.  I will definitely make it again.  For protein I just did a simple roast dish of a whole trout.  Good end to a long day after a 3 hour, eventful trip taking my sister to the airport.

Farmers' Market Fever

This past spring I was lucky enough to be offered an internship at IIT in Chicago for the summer to work on hybrid electric vehicles.  Even luckier, I have an awesome sister who lives in Chicago and lets me live with her for free! Unfortunately she works very unusual hours so I don't get to see her as much as I would like, but it works out well overall.  We are ten years apart so by the time I was old enough to be interesting she was already across the country in college.  So the time together is a nice change of pace.  We are both very particular in what we like and how we like it so I was a little worried at first about sharing a small apartment but it has been fabulous.  We have an unspoken agreement that in exchange for housing me I do the majority of the grocery shopping and will cook whenever she has time for dinner and wants food other than salad.  Her apartment is situated in the center of a fun, diverse city right near downtown, which allows me to explore lots of new places and try all sorts of new things.  For most of my grocery shopping I succumb to my yuppy urges... I walk to a marvelous Whole Foods to pick up our weekly fruit, vegetables, yogurt, etc until my reusable bags are packed to the brim with things that I never intended to buy.  Damn those marketers who package Whole Foods and make it too irresistible to a feeble minded foodie like me.  I mean, who could pass up organic honey (how honey can be organic still perplexes me) and truffled goat cheese conveniently placed side-by-side?

The best day of my week is Saturday.  The anticipation and wondering Friday night nearly kills me.  My mind races thinking about the subtle firmness and round shapes; the juicy, succulent interiors; all sorts of flavors and colors.  Of course I am dreaming about the farmers' market.  I rise with the sun so that I can be one of the first to arrive at the market for the best choice of produce.  This is the most GIANT organic farmers' market that I have ever seen.  My sister and I went together my first week here and I was enchanted; I go every chance I can.  First of all it is set in beautiful Lincoln Park right beside the lake and the heart of historic downtown Chicago.  Second, the food selection is huge! Fresh berries, berkshire pork, duck eggs, mushrooms, real fruit smoothies, milk fed goat, homemade butter, local coffee, fresh milk, hand packed ice cream, pastries and so so much more... Good for me but bad for my wallet.  Without fail, no matter how much money I bring, I always spend every last dollar I have on me, even if that means missing the bus or skipping lunch.

This last market was particularly special for me because I had the opportunity to buy food to make a going away dinner for my sister who will be living without luxuries for the next month.  I was honored that she asked me to make her dinner.  She is a recently converted vegetarian to vegan to vegetarian and now sensible meat produce consumer.  With that in mind, I wanted to create a very simple, fresh dinner for her that included some sort of meat that is mild but flavorful: of course, chicken.  So with the faint idea of a menu beginning to hover in my mind, I stepped on the El headed to the market.  The first thing, of many, to catch my eye at the farmers' market was my favorite stand: mushrooms!  30 dollars later I had a big bag of gorgeous, fresh mushrooms that make grocery store shiitakes look like wood.  I also got an amazing portabella, spinach, cheese dip that is heavenly.  Next I moved on to bigger and trickier game: heirloom tomatoes.  The perfect tomato is like love.  You never quite know when you will find it and it usually isn't in the package you expect.  When it comes to heirlooms, the ugly plump girls are my favorite.  Finally the center piece: chicken.  My favorite meat recipes are simple and clean.  I decided to roast the chicken based off a combination of Adam Robert's meyer lemon chicken and Thomas Keller's roast chicken with root vegetables.

After all that work of taking the El and wandering the market, I just had to get myself a treat.  Enter the best crepe cart in the states; they actually spoke french and could say chevre with the suave elegance that only the french can.  I was torn between a classic sweet bananutella and a savory filled with goat cheese, sun dried tomato tapenade, and a balsamic reduction.  In the end my sweet tooth won because they were out of savory batter.  But I will return to tackle the savory crepes.  The best part was watching the artist's precision as he poured the batter, shaped the crepe, and assembled it all.  They had a special gun to shoot out Nutella onto the crepe in perfectly even lines for optimal coverage.  That toy just moved to the top of my unnecessary want list.  Overall, the crepe itself was soft like sponge and perfectly sweet and delicate.  And banana/nutella combo makes anything better (particularly ice cream but that is for another time).  It was all nicely rolled up into a neat, little package like a gyro for on the go eating, but this level of indulgence required sitting down on park fountain side to fully enjoy.

I had some time to kill as the day was still young so I journeyed to the specialty oil and vinegar shop that I have been dying to try.  The shop is very unassuming from the street and I would never have imagined the vast selection of oil that sat behind the doors.  Sitting on an island in the center of the shop are at least 15 30 gallon drums of olive oils from all over the world and infused with anything from truffle to herbs.  They had an oil for everything: smooth and mild for drizzling over tomatoes to strong with a peppery after bite for bread.  They had balsamics so sweet and light that I was dying to bath strawberries in it.  But I had to be practical so got a versatile herbed evoo and classic 18 year vintage balsamic.

Dinner time! First course: heirlooms tomatoes.  For these I let the beautiful tomato be the star of the show and just offered it a little support.  I layered thick slices as the foundation and then sprinkled a generous pinch of truffle salt and fresh black pepper on top.  Next a healthy splash of the evoo and balsamic.  Finally a nice dollop of creamy burrata cheese.  If you don't know what burrata is, go to your cheese monger and buy the biggest package you can because it will not last long.  My convincing point, burrata literally means "buttered" in italian.  This cheese is made with a outside shell of mozzarella but the interior is a creamy mixture of cream and mozzarella; nothing compares.  Biting into it is like nibbling on a cloud of freshly skimmed cream.

Sides anyone? Roasted asparagus with poached duck eggs and roasted mushrooms.  To explain what a duck egg is like, simply think of the best egg you have ever eaten... but on steroids so it is richer, stronger, and bigger like Barry Bonds.  For the mushrooms I simply sliced and coated them in a mixture of Plugra and herbs to be roasted in the oven with the asparagus.

Next was the chicken.  Popular consensus says to flavor the chicken by stuffing its cavity and rubbing the outside of its skin.  I don't buy into this.  First off, I used to absolutely hate roasted chicken unless it was dark meat or covered in gravy.  I later discovered the culprit: overcooked and dried out white meat.  The way the chicken is shaped makes it naturally prone to parts drying out before being fully cooked.  To battle this I played with different recommended methods: covering in foil, layers of fat, shingles of bacon, but none were quite satisfactory.  Finally, I thought why not break tradition by using something that flavors as well as protects the delicate white meat without overpowering it or clotting my arteries.  The simple lemon was my savior.  But first you need to mix softened butter with a whole lot of FRESH herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, or whatever is your poison) along with a splash of olive oil.  Slowly loosen the skin on the breasts and legs, careful not to tear the connective tissue that attaches the skin to the breast bone, or else you will have shrinkage.  Then rub the herb mixture under and on the skin of the chicken.  Next is the secret to moist, flavorful chicken.  Slice the lemon very thin and place slices under the skin all over the chicken.  As the chicken sits in the oven, the lemons will absorb much of the heat thereby releasing juice onto the white meat that would normally dry out as the legs finish cooking.  Roast at 500 for 25 min and then 400 for 45 min until right before the thigh is done.  Another secret to moist chicken breast I learned from Ina Garten: cut the entire breast off the bird and then slice it perpendicular to the skin.  The resulting bird is not the prettiest, but it has a crisp skin and the most flavorful, moist meat you have ever cooked.  While the bird rests you can make a quick gravy (although I am hesitant to call it a gravy because it is more of an au jus) by deglazing the pan with a nice splash of white wine and balsamic and then adding a roux until thickened.  The lemon and herbs give this gravy a light, refreshing note that is a nice change of pace from traditional lumpy gravy.

All in all it was a very pleasant day and night in old Chicago.  What more could a person want? Beautiful lake view, fresh local food, good wine, and even better company.  For dessert we had left over banana pudding.  And hurray for next day leftovers and cold gravy with bread! 

My Path to becoming a Foodie

For as long as I can remember, I have had an affinity for understanding how things work. When I was little I disassembled electronics and toys so that I could learn how to build them myself, but better. This affinity led me to a passion for science, particularly physics and mechanics. In these classes, I began to actually learn how a nonstick pan becomes nonstick or why there are different metal qualities for pans or how an induction cooktop works without getting hot. All these things are governed by very predictable and consistent rules; I liked that. In mechanics classes in college I have learned mathematical and physical equations that help to explain the world in an understandable and predictable way; to reduce the chaos of life. I have discovered through trial and error how to methodically and precisely design and build something from a combination of existing models and my own imagination. Now, one might not think that a person like me would logically have a connection to cooking; even I am surprised.

I was a huge newborn baby, tipping the scales at 10 lb. As a child, I loved food. Or should I say, I loved to eat food. I didn't understand the nuances of taste, texture, and presentation. I simply ate to eat. My first hint of entering chefdom came when I was 6 years old and I was staying at my grandma's house while my parents were on vacation. My three older sisters were all bothering me when we were playing outside so, fed up, I came inside to see my grandma who always had a treat for me to cheer me up. Whenever I came in her house I smelled a hint of eggy custard and butter; she was making her classic (and might I mention famous) coconut cream pie. She pulled up a chair for me to sit by her beside the work table on which she was rolling out the dough. I had never before known how much skilled work goes into making a pie. The amount of precision that is involved in making a crust and the art of making the perfect meringue top intrigued me. From then on I would always ask to help my mom or sisters when they made cookies so that I could learn how to construct a pastry. But I was still just a consumer of food and not a creator.

The real seed was planted by my grandma, Nana. I am completely unable to eat any fried chicken from a restaurant, even if Thomas Keller himself fried it for me. To me fried chicken is not just a delicious piece of food, but a collection of memories and stories. Let me explain. Every Sunday night my family would hop in the car to go to my grandma's for dinner. This was my favorite time of the week because the whole family would sit together and chat and eat and be happy. On the drive to her house we would all talk about what she made for us that night (it was always a secret and she would never tell us before). We would argue, "pot roast", "no, liver and onions," "I hope it's meatloaf." But the holy grail of cuisine was her fried chicken. She would spend all day laboring over the skillet, frying fresh cut chicken (because butchers never do it right) from her generation old, top-secret recipe. My mouth still waters just thinking about walking into her house, the first thing I hear is the subtle popping of grease. My mind begins to hope. Then I smell the faint hint of twice baked potatoes (because they always came in pairs). When I see the coconut cream pie I am sure, tonight she made her fried chicken dinner; my favorite. These family dinners, thanks to my grandma, are some of my favorite experiences from childhood. The reason I first began to cook is simple: I wanted to create these feelings I have in other people, via food. Even at age 93, my Nana still spends all day making cinnamon rolls to pass out to her friends that I help her pass out occasionally. The smiles and instant happiness on the recipient's face that I see when I hand over the pan makes me want to be able to share this amazing gift as well. The love and years of crafting experience that go into making her food make the best gift that anyone can ever give. If I could even recreate 1% of the fondness from the events that my grandma created for me, I would be happy. So I set out to learn to cook the only way I know how.... study, research, analyze, refine, repeat.

Being a bit of a perfectionist in combination with my mathematical mind, my first cooking attempts were very systematic and calculated. I began the process by continuously watching cooking TV and reading magazines so that I could learn proper technique and skills. My parents grew wary of hearing, "How bad can that be?" or "Bam!" My next step was to do research. I would scour the Internet to find a recipe that looked interesting to me. Then the experiment began. Precisely measuring and leveling teaspoons and chopping onion after onion, I began to build my cooking experience. I learned that much like physics, the world of cooking, especially baking, was very precise and predictable. It was a science in disguise. I enjoyed understanding the difference between a butter crust and a shortening crust. I especially loved Alton Brown's cooking show "Good Eats" because he, like me, liked the scientific part of cooking. My mom was very pleased with my new interest because after 28 years of cooking for 1 to 4 kids, she needed a break. I began cooking dinners for my parents (as my older sisters were all in college). My mom would politely smile and give her support as she plugged her nose to eat my early creations. My dad? He asked for seconds; taste doesn't matter to him. I could always count on him to give me a morale boost when I had messed up a dish.

When I finally thought I was ready to entertain for friends, I began with something easy: pancakes. After several attempts at getting the perfect batter, and melting a spatula along the way, I learned how it felt to fill the hearts of loved ones via food. At this point, I began having brunches, BBQ, and dinners to bring my friends together. I began to not just eat food, but to enjoy and to appreciate it as not just sustenance. I began searching for new, exotic ingredients and cooking methods. I found an organic market (which is a diamond in the rough in rural Midwest) and began traveling to a weekly farmers' market so that I could chat with the farmers about what is in season, good ways to cook it, and what they suggest eating. I thought it was important to know not just what my food is, but where is came from. I spent hours in book stores looking at cookbooks by juxtaposing styles, chefs, and cuisines. Over time, I began to develop a basic understanding of how food works. Like I use my quantum mechanics text to aid with a problem set, I use Julia Child as my text book to study for making a souffle for my friends. I don't see cooking as haphazard, throw a little of this and a little of that, in a pot. No, it is a very well thought out and precise formula based off of years of exploration and trials that are passed down to younger generations via recipes boxes and cookbooks and grandmas. I am not saying that culinary exploration is wrong (in fact quite the opposite), but the understanding of food must first be acquired before one can really cook. To quote Julia Child, "This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!" (My Life in France)

Any time I cook, I try to keep Julia Child and my grandma in my mind. I try to have fun, enjoy myself, and don't be constrained by recipes. No great person has ever simply stuck to what works. Is the world flat? Is the atom the smallest thing? Will the hadron collider make the world end? To improve we must try new things and make mistakes. Lots of mistakes! I make it my goal to try something new everyday in some form or another so that I can learn from these experiences. I search for odd restaurants or unusual ingredients or try something on the menu that I normally would not. Keeping my grandma in mind, cooking should be about enjoyment and making other people happy, as well as making tasty food.

In a rare boasting moment, I was actually lucky enough to be on Foodnetwork! Even better, I was on for my combination of culinary and mechanical knowledge. The show Glutton for Punishment came to my campus to partake in a competition where teams have 1 hour to build a race car made out of only food. At the end, all the cars are released from a ramp and the car that travels the furthest wins. Bob was tough competition and had much better art skills than my group, but in the end we took home the prize. Our car traveled over 100 feet (2nd place was less than 10 feet and most cars exploded at the end of the ramp) and only stopped because it hit a man hole. Traffic had to stop because it was about to cross the street. The secret to our success was melting caramel to use as glue for the fettucinni axle. The links are embedded below.

Part 1:

http://www.vimeo.com/10902987

Part 2:

www.vimeo.com/10903345

Until next time, keep eating and exploring.