foodfluency.com

I feel like I’ve been slacking. Sorry ’bout that. It’s a combo of it being a busy time at work, and this damn rain sucking the life out of me (New Yorkers, you feel me, right?). I haven’t exactly been drooling on my coach eating cheetos, but I haven’t been cooking all that much either. That shall change!

In the meantime, I wanted to share this video on knife shopping. The two guys in it are bloggers for my local paper. The expert is Steve Barnes, who writes a weekly restaurant column. And the other guy is Matt Baumgartner, who, despite owning three successful restaurants, seems to be more clueless than me about food. It’s subtly hilarious and informative. I think Steve should have his own TV show. I’d watch it.

For his birthday, I got my bf a Wusthof Santoku knife. He knows what he’s doing and won’t accidentally cut his finger off like I would. He seemed quite pleased.

I don’t have any ridiculously nice knives myself. I got a real bread knife for Christmas though, and a hand-me-down chef’s knife. They made a world of difference to me. But I have to admit, I was terrified of them at first.

Here’s an anecdote for you. 11th grade. Some friends of mine decide to come over and watch a movie. After much debate, they settle upon “Children of the Corn.” Being my friends, they knew I wouldn’t like it. I don’t do scary movies. But being bastards, they brought it over anyway. Like the time they made me watch “Silence of the Lambs.” Heh.

The movie starts. The eerie music is playing. The kids are looking creepy. And then…

“AHHHH!!! THE SILVERWARE!!!!”

I honest to God ran out of the room. The forks and knifes were too shiny and were glinting menacingly. I could put two and two together. I’m no fool.

I am, however, still made fun of for “the silverware incident.” I also still keep my chef’s knife in its plastic covering, tucked deep into the drawer. I’m happy to report that I’m not scared to wash it anymore though. That’s progress.

Stay tuned for a food blog unlike any other.

Perhaps I should explain?

All my life, I’ve been a big failure when it came to food.

Consider the mint cake incident of 2002:

FAIL!

And more recently, the ribbon candy that decided it wanted to crystalize into a cucumber.

FAIL!

I know those are both baking, and not cooking examples, but trust me. The cooking pictures are too horrific to share.

I could blame my family, for not teaching me properly when I was growing up, and for interrupting my serious food concentration with shenanigans.

But that would be petty. And I might have to fess up to how my sister got covered in flour in the first place.

Instead, I have been working towards figuring out this cooking thing, step by step. The process can be painful, but I’m light years beyond where I used to be! Check out how excited I was when presented with my very first non-butter knife! I used it to cut bread dough. Watch out world!!!

Seriously though, for me, food fluency is more than just cooking. It’s understanding everything that has to do with food. How it tastes, how it looks, and, yes, how one makes it. This blog is going to chronicle my learning process. I’m kind of a “poke it and see what happens” kind of learner, so it could be really amusing.

Stay tuned!