Ten or so years ago (damn, I can't believe it was that long ago!) it was woodworking. My step-grandfather #1 (long story) had been in to scroll sawing and I always thought it was cool, so I took it up as a hobby. I became pretty good at it; I created a website, sold exactly nothing, but enjoyed the craft. I was always a little bothered that it was single dimension, so I dabbled in trying to mix media if you will by combining carving with scrolling with mixed results. I'd spend hours out in the garage, cutting away. I sold a pickup truck and used the proceeds to buy every woodworking tool short of a lathe- and dammit I regret not getting a lathe; a guy I work with has one and I feel pangs of jealousy. We moved to Minnesota, I built a nice workshop in the basement, and never used it again. It just didn't feel the same for some reason.
My Mom died seven years ago, and as I was going through/saving her stuff, I found my Dad's record collection. Not her's, which still bothers and perplexes me, although I did find her cassettes including a well worn copy of the We Are The World album, but my Dad's. I snagged them and brought them home with us; I did leave the cassettes behind. I bought an entry level record player, wired it into some cheap speakers, and kissed the sky. Over the years, I accumulated an awesome 1986 Bang Oluffsen player and tower speakers, bought a nice set of Bose bookshelf speakers, and accumulated well over 400 albums. I have a database app that helps me to keep it all organized, which is awesome, except...
We moved from Minnesota to Denver last October. I've not been to a record store since- even Twist and Shout or my childhood mecca Wax Trax. I've not bought a single album and since I painted my office and had trouble with my pre-amp I haven't tried terribly hard to fix it and hence haven't played a record in like six months.
It goes further back than that. I remember deciding I wanted to become a developer and teach myself VB6. I was doing damn well with a Sam's book and a full version of the software that my wife bought me for Christmas, back in probably the early 00's. I was building this cool program that basically inventoried your possessions and backed the inventory up online so if you had a theft or act of God you could easily figure out what you'd lost. And then one day, I stopped. Never picked it up again. No reason, just didn't.
I own five (soon to be six) watches. Why? No idea, just decided to start collecting watches. And then a year or so ago I started working from home and stopped wearing them. In fairness, for much of that time, I've been lucky to be wearing socks, shoes, or even pants most days (you are welcome for that visual), much less accessories like watches. That said, I do have a watch coming on Monday, cause I saw it and thought it was cool. The irony, and indeed likely the reason that I felt that was is that it combines woodworking with a watch:
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| That's straight up bamboo, yo! |
Fast forward to today. The hobby du jour is cooking. This is amusing and interesting for a lot of reasons. First, I definitely did not grow up around good cooking. My Mother tried mightily, but most of the time dinner was frozen beef/chicken patty + boxed starch + canned corn or green beans. My early High School years were comprised of no breakfast or possibly hostess donuts from the vending machine if I'd gotten paid, free Taco Bell for lunch, and ham steak and scalloped potatoes every day before I ran to get to work. My later High School years mostly consisted of me trading leftover cinnamon rolls from the bakery I worked at for Sabarro's pizza from the guys across the hall in the mall. At any given time, the freezer in my house would have 2-3 large pizzas in it, and I literally lived off of those pizzas for a good long while (along with free Taco Bell for lunch quite a bit of the time as well).
Then I met the Valdez family. Suddenly, I'm eating appetizers (cheese sticks? What the fuck are cheese sticks?). I'm eating great home cooked food that I've never tried before (Taquitos? What the fuck are taquitos? And sour cream? Really?). Life is good. I'm going to The Broker and feeling inadequate though. If it's more sophisticated than Bennigan's I felt a bit uncomfortable.
Then I realized that I could walk into a four star restaurant in an Iron Maiden t-shirt and as long as my card didn't get declined no one really cared. As I've gotten older I've also adapted to clothes such as collared shirts and even occasionally sports coats and ties, so the maitre d's of Denver can just relax. I dined at the best of the best in Vegas, in Florida, D.C., Minnesota, Philly, the Virgin Islands, the Keys, San Diego, And my palate and waistline have grown exponentially with my culinary experience. If there was a hot restaurant in the Twin Cities, I probably knew about it.
When my wife was terribly homesick in Minnesota, I made her Amici's. I burnt the calzone, but the sauce was excellent, and the salad was spot on. She cried when she realized I'd made her Amici's and I cried because I had tried something, it had worked, and it had made someone happy.
My zest for food didn't wane, although that's an amusing thought. No, what I found is that I missed the restaurants in Minnesota. That is a sentence that I never ever ever ever thought that I would actually type, but it is true. I've become more sophisticated as I have become older, and there is a set of dishes that I truly love and I decided that I wanted to tackle.
Being a cook started last year likely because there was a void to fill. I like to cook and prefer to work in the kitchen because it keeps my busy during family events- I can't sit still for long. I belong to a family that doesn't really desire to don aprons any longer. So I did. Last Thanksgiving, I cooked a turkey for the first time in years. I was having trouble separating the skin from the breast to put pats of butter in and so finally I said screw it and slammed the bird into the oven. It wasn't until four hours later when I pulled it from the oven and let it rest then went to carve it that I realized that I had cooked it upside down.
Which resulted in the best, most moist bird I have ever eaten and rave reviews all around. If you Google cooking turkey upside down, you'll find it is a new trend that causes the fat from the dark meat to run down into the white meat. I am a trend setter!
Luck aside, I do seem to have a knack for cooking. I should probably start writing stuff down; I make a mean tomato sauce that is created entirely by taste each and every time I make it. Same for pretty much everything else I attempt. I did actually write down my BBQ sauce recipe finally. You can have it if you want it, just ask.
And now I want to take it to the next level. I want a cast iron skillet. I want a better food processor. I want a set of chef knifes. I want a dutch oven, and not the kind you get in bed, you filthy bastards. I want to pan sear a piece of mahi stuffed with pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes, basil, and some sort of cheese in a smoking hot skillet, then throw that pan in the oven to finish it off. I want to toss in some sherry into something and set that shit on fire, man.
Dinnertime is quite challenging at my house. We've learned over the years not to go grocery shopping because evidently scheduling dinner for more than one night in a row is just too damn difficult and we end up wasting a ton of food and a ton of money. If I am going to cook, I stop at the store on my way home from work and buy what I need. Whatever is leftover is what I eat for lunch the next day. If I don't cook, we go out. Simple as that.
What I have come to realize is that cost aside, most of the time, my cooking is better than what we can get going out. Bear in mind, this is a comparison between me and Applebees, not me and Elway's or La Belle Vie in Minneapolis. I can do it better, I can do it cheaper, and I kinda enjoy it.
So I opened my own restaurant this weekend. It is at my house, but it is a way for me to try and figure out what the hell to cook every night, and ideally give my wife something to choose from. Many of these dishes are my interpretations of dishes that we have eaten and loved in Minnesota.
In case you are interested, here's the menu- my fat ass is even trying to go low carb on most of the items:
Here are a few pictures of the dishes themselves, if you are curious.
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| The George And The Dragon. This is actually a pic of the leftovers, so the gravy doesn't really stand out unfortunately. |
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| Making Gnocchi |
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| The Jambalaya. It was fucking excellent, trust me. |
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| The Parma |
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| The Screw Chilis. |
I want to see this through. I want to create a bar and grill where you can walk in in torn jeans and a t-shirt, get great service and excellent food while listening to great music that is loud enough to hear but not loud enough to distract, pay a fair price for the quality of your meal, and walk away feeling good. I want to have a set of regulars where at the end of the night I buy the restaurant a shot and we toast another great day and another great meal. I want a 20 something kid to come in with his girlfriend, pay for a good meal, and feel comfortable doing it.
Next Spring or Summer, I think I will do a tasting. Have folks that are interested meet up and enjoy a sample menu. Tell me what they think, let me know what works and what doesn't. Maybe this will be the next chapter in my ongoing story tentatively titled I don't Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up. I'm excited to buy some new tools, especially the iron skillet, knives, and food processor. I'm ready to continue to hone the craft because I have a lot to learn.
I just hope I don't get bored with it. Because this time, I feel like maybe I might actually be onto something.
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
-Arlo Guthrie
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