Food Porn Alert

When I set this blog up I intended to post some things about some of the stuff I cook along the way (you've already read my treatise on the Holy Trinity of cereals). Cooking has always been a really important aspect of my lifestyle. Even if it's a crazy day I try to make a home cooked meal, no matter how simple or quick. I can thank my parents for my love of cooking and of food. I grew up in the country and mom always had a huge garden in the backyard for a number of years. She would make our bread and rolls, go for locally raised eggs and farm produce, and look for large cuts of meat which we would butcher up ourselves. A lot of it had do to do with saving money, I'm sure, but it really did give me a good perspective on how to buy and to cook. When I was 5, mom and dad began their catering business out of opportunity and they kept it going until I was about 18 or 19.

Outside of the very unfortunate health food kick that mom went on in the late 1970's, I have very fond memories of cooking with her or family meals in general (the health food phase was not ideal, especially the time mom made dandelion salad, but didn't realize you eat the GREENS AND NOT THE STEMS, not the other way around).

We didn't go out much for dinner, but when we did, it was always a special event and there was nothing off limits on the menu in general. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, you'll remember fine dining was quite a bit different than it is now. There were some pretty predictable standards (prime rib, duck a l'orange, and the one I always coveted - surf 'n turf), but it was what my childhood memories are about eating out. A few weeks ago I wanted to recreate that kind of special feeling from my youth and decided that last night I was going Old School with the surf and turf for Heidi and me.

The thing is, lobster is pretty cheap if you know where to shop. The asian supermarkets usually sell it for $5.99 a pound and they offer full beef tenderloins for $4.99 a pound. The latter is only good if you know how to butcher it up (which, thanks to Dad working in a butcher shop when he was a kid and my copy of The New Professional Chef, I do). I decided to go over the top with Oysters Rockefeller, since that was always a predictable appetizer at such fine establishments as Red Lobster.

After running around yesterday getting all the ingredients - and cursing Giant Food for the decision to stop carrying oysters (jackasses) and tracking down the one lobster that escaped from the bag in my car when I finally found the oysters at a seafood market, I got started. I got up to my apartment and realized, hmmm....I bought two lobsters, I had two lobsters in my bag, I have one lobster in my apartment. Head back to car in garage, retrieve the roach of the sea and lay everything out - here are the before pictures.





and the final meal:





All in all, I think I spent under $35 for dinner for two that included oysters, lobster, and filet mignon. The sides were potatoes fondant and spinach with nutmeg. I was a fun meal to make and to share. It definitely made me feel like a little kid who was trying to act all posh and grown up.

Food is a great way for me to recreate some of the very special times I had growing up when things like going out to dinner were certainly a luxury. Plus I'm now getting very good at muscling my way in at the fish counter at the Asian market so I can fight the little old ladies and little old men who are loading up on $1.99 a pound live blue crab or these lobsters. The fish at some of these markets, really are superior to the ones sold at twice the price at Whole Foods.

Next food related post will probably be related to the Julia Child party that keeps getting postponed. All guests will bring something that is published in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Crazy people scare me

Washington DC is a strange place. I, like others I'm sure, assumed that this was probably one of the most sophisticated and intellectual towns in the country growing up. I think, to some degree, it is - you have a wide array of academics, lobbyists, politicians obviously, think tanks, and really smart policy people (like really smart health policy folks....guess what I do for a living?), but it's also home to some really weird people. I'm not talking quirky, I can deal with quirky - Hell, I'm quirky. I'm talking flat out weird, and not in the endearing sense.

Case in point - yesterday I'm leaving an appointment I had out in the 'burbs and am approached by a woman who asks me if I know how to fill a tire. I figure, she's older, looks distressed, sure, I'll help her. As we are walking throught he wooded area between the office buildings I'm envisioning cadaver dogs finding my body sometime next week, so I decide to let her lead.

We walk up to her beater Dodge pickup truck and as she is dragging over this rusty ass air tank she got from God knows where I'm thinking it's probably the dry rot on these tires that is causing the air to leak, not a vandal as she is so adamantly claiming. Short story - tires barely hold air and as I'm trying to explain that she probably should invest in new tires, she blurts out "well, either it's a bad tank or you didn't do it right. Thanks anyway, I guess." Wait..what? Really lady?

As you can tell from my initial post, I'm two-thirds of the way through a mandatory separation period before my wife and I can file for divorce. During this period we agreed that we could date if we wished. I posted a profile on a popular free dating site on the urging of a friend and started really getting a lot of interest after a few weeks. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Yes, there were the random people that creeped me out a bit, but I was, for the most part, getting some interesting women contacting me. Not being in the dating scene for 16 years, I figured, hey, this is encouraging. I decided that I would go out on a few dates. Worst case, I get a friend out of it right?

First date...the woman tells me she's a single mother. No problem. I'm a single dad. I didn't realize she meant she was a single mother AS OF THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE DATE! She shows up with a 3 week old infant...to the date.

Second date...woman shows up drunk...to a lunch date...during the work week. Date over.

Third date...woman is older, 42, I think and proceeds to explain to me ever terrible thing her ex did and how she likes to go out on double dates with her 20 year old son. Ummm.....yeah...no.

And there were plenty others. I really figured I'd have a good time with this one girl on June 20th, but that it really wouldn't go much further. She seemed cool and I figured she's an outdoorsy kinda person, we could totally do stuff like that as friends.

....we've been together 4 months now and it keeps getting better.