Excuse Me But I Ordered the Chef Boyardee

I need to stop watching TV. Truth be told, I only turn it on when I don’t want to think for a while, but I always end up just thinking anyway. Today it was a commercial in which people at an Italian restaurant are enjoying pasta only to have some guy walk in an announce that the pasta, that they all believed to be restaurant grade food, was actually provided by Dominos Pizza as something to the effect of “these are not actors” scrolled across the bottom of the screen. This is where my mind kicked back in and I was forced to turn off the idiot box so that I could think.

Could people really be convinced that pasta from a pizza delivery chain could somehow equal the quality and taste from a nice restaurant that specialized in Italian food?

The answer came to me at lunch at a new café that just opened down the street. My rating system for all restaurants is the same: I could do this better at home, Not worth the price, and I would order this again. This new establishment came in at I could do this better at home - which is what I rate most restaurants. Now it’s not that I’m a world class cook, because I’m not. I am a good amateur cook with excellent cookbooks and a discriminating palate - and I think that there are a lot of people like me out there.

On the other side of the culinary landscape are people who almost always eat out, even though they have a kitchen that is the envy of 3/4 of the world. I have yet to meet an American who didn’t have a full size fridge, four burner stove, large oven, microwave, pots and pans, and a couple kitchen gadgets (KitchenAid, Cuisinart…) and some decent knives.

But these people have chosen to eat out due to either convenience or a lack of will to cook. Either way, they are missing what food can taste like when it is prepared at home, by you, for you. When you get to choose the quality of ingredients, make it to exactly how you like, and sit down still smelling of the kitchen, the enjoyment of what is on your plate will almost always beat something created in a most restaurants.

Don’t believe me? Think of something that you cook well. Do you cook that thing better than just about anyone on the planet? Why is that? Do you think that you could cook anything that good if you just put forth the effort? Why don’t you? Is it because it’s easier just to settle for something that is okay done by someone else? What does that say about the rest of your life?

Food is more than what keeps us going. It is our cultural differences, our heritage, our way of life, and primary source of connection to the world around us. Treat it well, get involved, and for Mike’s sake, start eating at better Italian restaurants.

Mordor's Kitchen

As we prepare to move away from our small two-story apartment in Saginaw, I am moved by how the worst kitchen that I have ever had the displeasure of working in has been the one that has turned me into an excellent amateur cook. I can differentiate between four different levels of roux (I’m still learning what to do with them), can taste the difference between the quality of ingredients, and am comfortable making a full four-course meal by myself. I am, by my own admission, a completely different person in the kitchen. It is the only place on the planet that I lose my temper. I am a man possessed. Mordor-bent on perfection. Every recipe guarded, researched, and reworked. I am proud enough to say that most of my regular menu trumps most restaurants and the biggest compliment that I’ve heard came from a friend a couple weeks ago, when at an extremely nice restaurant exclaimed, "I think you make this better". In short, I am a damn good cook and I got so working in the shitty kitchen ever.

What’s wrong with the kitchen? It is four feet from counter to counter and eight feet long. There is an electric stove with uncorrectable crooked burners, an oven that cannot hold a temperature and whose door cannot be opened all the way, small cabinets, a dishwasher that can be heard from the front yard, and a refrigerator from the bargain bin at Goodwill. The counters are inadequate in every definition of the word and the kitchen itself can only handle two people if they are working in perfect unison. Add to that the insufficient lighting, laughable ventilation, and substandard storage for anyone who does not wish to exist only on soup and rice, and you have a cook’s worst nightmare. This kitchen is where I learned technique, where I made recipe after recipe trying to perfect dishes, and where I feel the most comfortable cooking. I will deeply miss this shit-hole.