Life is a Gumbo

Two main variations of gumbo exist, Creole and Cajun.  Creole uses tomatoes and Cajun is thicker and based on a dark roux, it is also spicier.  Many people think a gumbo has to have okra and seafood.  This isn't true. Tonight I made a Cajun mushroom, chicken and smoked sausage gumbo.

The secret to a great gumbo is the roux and the secret to a great roux is getting it as dark as chocolate without burning it.  It does take practice, but if you are doing it for the first time, be patient and keep the burner on a lower setting.  There is a fine line between a great roux and a burnt roux.  With patience you can make it great.

There are a lot of recipes on the web.  Start with one of Emeril Lagasse's recipes. I really love his duck and andouille sausage gumbo.  Once you cook your first gumbo start experimenting.  Like life, gumbo is about putting good things together and enjoying the results.  Laissez les bon temps roule!

A Little Cuban Influence

I bought shrimp for dinner with no idea how I would prepare it.  As you will discovered, if you don't already know,this is not a strange thing for me.  When it was time to cook, I asked Shirley for suggestions.  When I received none, I began the Bubba Gump shrimp dialog.  At some point I said Cuban shrimp.  So Cuban it was.  Visualize a shrimp picadillo, that's what I did.  I added some Cuban black beans and we had a meal.  It was tasty and beautiful.  I wish we had taken pictures, but eating was the only thing on our minds.

Be Flexible

Tonight was like most nights.  I had no idea what we would have for dinner.  I went to the grocery store and found a good deal on veal.  I didn't know if I had marsala wine so I picked up a lemon.  As it turned out, I didn't have marsala in the cellar, so I made veal piccata.  I had bought mushrooms just in case I had marsala, so instead of pasta, I prepared a mushroom, shallot, garlic and thinly sliced carrot side dish cooked in wine and beef broth.  Not a pretty preparation, but very tasty.  Cooking is about going with what you have and making the best of it.  Some of my best meals happened because I didn't have the ingredients I needed.

A Tail By Any Other Name

Some entrees just sound extravagant, like braised oxtails with olives accompanied by an endive, chervil and French green bean salad.  Oxtail, which is actually steer tail in the U.S., is bony, gelatinous and full of flavor.  I braise or stew it in a number of ways.  Today, I am loosely following a recipe from the Williams Sonoma website.  If you haven’t checked their recipe site out, take a few minutes and explore it.  It is worth your time.

Cooking oxtail is an all-day fare so I only cook it when I am planning a long evening at the table.  Today was going to be one of those days.  Our youngest kids were planning to come over for dinner, but Trisha texted me to let me know that she was sick.  Now we have a pot full of braised oxtail and only the two of us to enjoy it.

We were looking forward to their visit and seeing our new grandchild, but Shirley and I will make the best of it.  I have enjoyed most of my greatest meals with only the two of us at the table.  A family night will become a romantic evening for two.

It did and we followed the dinner with a night of dancing.

Life's Little Spices

Just think about it, most cultures use the same basic ingredients, pork, beef, chicken, lamb, fish, corn, rice, tomatoes, well you get the idea.  So what makes them taste so different? Spices of course.  I love spices and I have worked hard to understand which basic spices are used by different cultures.  Once you know which spices are favored in a particular region or country, you can start really having fun in the kitchen without the need for recipes. You can turn a little chicken and some vegetables into an Italian pasta, Spanish paella, Japanese stir fry, or Ethiopian wat.

The more spices you have the more versatile you can be in the kitchen.  This is why I have so many spices.  The only problem with having a large amount of spices is keeping track of them.  So today I spent the entire afternoon sorting and entering them in a droid app.

 I found unopened spices that I didn't even know I had.  Now that I have them cataloged playing in the kitchen will be more fun and productive.  It's time for me to quit typing, open a bottle of wine and start cooking the next remove.

A Village of Fine Dining

On our first evening in NYC we wandered around the streets of Greenwich Village despite the blistering cold wind.  Two Floridians not properly dressed for the winter weather is an amusing site.  We strolled along the narrow streets of the Village checking out menus of promising restaurants; eventually choosing Yerba Buena.  While I love latin cuisine and Michelle said a friend had recommended this restaurant to her, the main reason I chose the Yerba Buena was to get out of the cold.  The wrong motivation but the right choice as we soon discovered.

Ropa Vieja de Pato

The Yerba Buena is a very inviting and stylish restaurant and bar with blue, green yellow lighted walls and textured mirrors beneath a sea-foam colored ceiling.  The servers were attentive,  friendly and knowledgeable.  We shared rib eye and tuna ceviches. Both preparations and presentations were definitely the chefs interpretation of the classic ceviche.  I liked the rib eye but wouldn't order it again. On the other hand, I highly recommend the tuna.

I ordered the Ropa Vieja de Pato (tamarind glazed duck confit, mangu, and duck egg).  Not your typical  ropa vieja presentation, but very delicious.  The duck was tender with crispy skin and the egg was a nice addition to the overall mixture of flavors. My wife had the suckling pig and was equally impressed and Michelle was reluctant to share her empanadas which she proclaimed were yummy.  Overall a wonderful place to spend an evening with friends on a cold night in the city.

The City of Infinite Possibilities

New York City is truly the city of infinite possibilities especially when it comes to food. New England has chowder and lobster, New Orleans has Creole and Cajun, San Francisco has sour dough bread and dungeness crab, but New York City has it all and more. There are more restaurants within a few blocks than most towns have within a few miles.  If you can dream about eating it, some body is serving it in the Big Apple.  That is one of the two main reasons I get so excited about visiting NYC.  The other I will share with you today.

As I have disclosed, I love to cook and as all good cooks know the difference between preparing a good meal and a great meal is the quality, variety and freshness of the ingredients you are able to find in your local market.  The city is full of wonderful markets and the food you will find in them is as varied as the restaurants. The following is a list of some of the markets I visited on my holiday trip:

• Chelsea Market (I really love the fish market)
• Dean & Deluca (full of specialty items)
• Trader Joe's (good prices and variety of stable items)
• Whole Foods Market (natural and organic foods)
• Westside Market (good cheese and produce selection)
• Zabar's (mind blowing but crowded)
• Numerous Small Ethic Markets (name the country and you will likely find a market)

 While I enjoy just walking around the markets in the city, the most enjoyable part of going to a good market is buying fresh produce and specialty items and going back to the apartment and cooking for love ones.
The dish in the picture, I prepared in Michelle's apartment (the Rabbit Hole) with fresh vegetables, Italian sausage, kalamata olives and gnocchi in a tomato vodka broth topped with caramelized shallots and wild mushrooms.  A simple meal shared with two beautiful ladies and paired with a bottle of red wine before the theater on a blistery Sunday evening in the city of infinite possibilities.

Looking Back

Before I can begin writing about my exploration in the current world of cooking, eating and sharing food with and of others, I wish to look backwards. My mother, God rest her soul, could do many things, but cooking wasn't one of them and my father excelled in the preparation of TV dinners. My best meals were prepared by my grandmother. That lady could cook some good country food.
I grew up in North Carolina and thought all vegetables tasted the same until I moved away from home and ate the first pea that actually tasted like a pea; not pig fat. I also, discovered that, pork, chicken and fish could be cooked in other ways besides being fried in lard. Such began my love affair with discovering new things to eat.
This love affair has slowly grown over the years and blossomed shortly after meeting the true love of my life, my wife Shirley. When we first started living together, she worked longer hours than I so I would prepare dinner for her every night. Preparing meals for her gave a new and greater purpose to my cooking, and as we traveled to other countries my love for creating and eating new foods grew into a passion.
I hope to share this passion for food, cooking and discovering new culinary cultures, menus and recipes. So bring on the next remove. I hope you are hungry for more…

Why I'm Writing

I am a foodie.  I was a foodie long before it had a name.  Some of today's foodie elites may argue that I don’t have the resume’ to be in their club.  I rarely dine at 5 star high priced restaurants; not that I don’t like them, I can’t afford them. I'm not a professional chef, I don't own a restaurant, and I'm not a food critic.  On the plus side I love to cook, and eat all types of foods from all around the world.  Additionally, I produced two local cooking shows, “Florida Style” and “On the Menu” in the 90’s, both lasted about 5 years one aired in the Mobile, Pensacola market and the other on local cable.

Most of the time, my meals are prepared in my kitchen where I enjoy exploring cuisines from around the world and sharing my creations with family and friends.  When my wife and I do go out or travel, I search for exceptional restaurants with affordable pricing and I lean toward ethic menus and chefs that love to prepare bizarre fare.

My wife (Shirley) and I spent the Christmas and New Years holiday with our oldest daughter (my stepdaughter) in NYC.  As I was dragging the two of them to restaurant after restaurant with menus not generally acceptable to the American palette and commenting on my impression of the tasty nasty bits teasing my taste buds, our daughter suggested that I create this blog.  So Michelle here it is…