But guess what? Despite what the melodramatic intro would suggest, this is a cooking blog! Surprise!
Why?
Because food, cooking, and the dream of owning a restaurant of my own one day (among other things) is helping me survive. Food is saving my life.
And this is a chronicle of my journey towards my dream.
To begin with I'm a typical suburban kid, raised on a solid diet of McDonalds, frozen meals, and big box restaurant food. My family was a splintered one who ate whatever meals in our rooms, apart from each other and in front of the t.v. I never gave a second thought to what I was eating all the way from childhood to my college years. Food wasn't important to me. Food just was.
Until I moved out on my own. No more mom to cook me dinner. No extra money to go out and buy dinner. I was stuck either eating Frosted Flakes every night or nothing at all. So I began to think about my food. I began to cook for myself.
It started off kinda shaky, I'll admit. Some of my better quotes:
"Defrost the meat before you cook it? Nah, that seems like too much work."
"Oh you have to mix milk with eggs to scramble them? Learn something new everyday."
"What do you mean Frosted Flakes aren't one of the major food groups????"
And so on.
I began to challenge my upbringing. I started to cultivate a small garden that is coming along pretty well now, something I never would of done before because plants bored me out of my skull as a kid. I stopped making things from mixes and boxes and began to yearn and desire for fresh ingredients and new ideas. Someone made me stop eating cereal and began taking me out for sushi and Afghan food (thanks!), expanding my palette and opening my mind to a world of taste I never knew existed. Food was no longer just there. Food was exciting. Food was a good time. Food was fun.
And then somebody happened to toss me a book one day because I needed something to read. That book was "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and it changed my life. Like them or not, Pollan's views on today's food culture really opened my eyes to where my food is coming from and what I was eating. I began to actively search out quality ingredients and go to farmer's markets.
Around that time I got fired from a job I had poured myself into. I suddenly had all this time and nothing to do. So I cooked. And I baked. And I began to think about my relationship with food. See, I dropped out of college because I didn't know what I wanted to do or who I was. Was I a writer? Was I an artist? Or was I a worker bee with a respectable paying day job? Was I anything worthwhile at all? I was pretty lost as to where my life was going. I didn't feel strongly about any of those things, even though I'm fairly good at them. And then one day, in the midst of all of my life's crises. I figured something out. I am all those things. I just am not applying them correctly or in the right medium.
Because cooking brings all of the arts together and is a practical skill to boot. It's the only art that can satisfy both the mental and physical palette simultaneously. It is the way for me. Learning to cook and see it as an art and a skill has hyper focused me in a way that nothing has before.
So now I have some goals to accomplish.
The first being learn how to cook and bake very well. The second to finish a degree in business management.
and ultimately I will own a restaurant that serves food that people will walk away from and never be able to forget the food they got there as long as they live.
And could that restaurant be called anything other than:
On The Way.
Cheers,
M
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