Hi there. This is my personal food journal. I realized that I could jabber on for hours with my friends about cooking and eating and I decided to do something productive with this obsession. These musings are self imposed challenges trying to cook really difficult recipes – or at least ones that are perceived as difficult. It will also serve as a public outlet for a growing obsession that sunk its teeth into me quite awhile ago. I do not intend this place as some kind of ford porn extravaganza. I do not expect that everything I try to make will even taste good, much less look edible. The point is to make a mess. It helps, too, that I am spoiled with a dishwasher.
My dad was a good cook. My grandparents as well, and they almost always included me in the process somewhere. I learned how to make Estonian vorsti with my gramps at 10 years old one year. The next year he asked me if I remembered how to make it. I said I thought so, and he set me up in the kitchen and walked away. Later, I would recreate my grandmother’s spaghetti sauce, a kind of ragu, for her and I recall feeling so nervous. Was she going to notice I had put some of my own ideas into the sauce? Would she notice the paprika? The extra garlic? I simply remember her remarking that it surpassed her own. Whether she was blowing some up my ass or not isn’t clear at the time, but it instilled in me a kind of pride in having some competence in the home kitchen. That cooking was not some kind of magical talent, but truly trial and error. That the enchanting flavors coming from grandma’s kitchen came from her decades of refinement, both to improve the flavor, but also the ease with which to make it. Grandma’s always seem to know this skill. They plan for leftovers to serve the next day at lunch. They waste nothing and can convince even the pickiest of young palates to gobble up whatever vegetable she puts in front of you. I remember her carrots were particularly, and oddly more delicious than anything I got at home.
Eventually, I worked in restaurants as a barista, sandwich slinger, dish washer, prep cook and a busser from the age of 18 to around 26 years old. I never particularly liked the work and I cut my teeth in both chain restaurants and small places with about 4 employees. I got the full range of shitshow Mother’s Days at the corporate chain, as well sneaking hits while taking the garbage out at the Mom and Pop. Friends have asked, as I often will steer a conversation back to food, if I ever wanted to work as a cook, or worse, as a chef, I have always said no way. I am not that much of a masochist. Or sadist, for that matter. I just don’t have the desire to self immolate that passionate chefs seem to possess.
Nonetheless, here is my messy food journal. Bon appetit.