How To Fall In Love With Cooking….

I don’t watch much TV. We don’t own one, it broke a few years ago, and we decided we would rather spend money and time on things we can use our brain on. Don’t get me wrong, we still binge watch something on the computer every once and a while, but for the most part we don’t get a lot of movie watching done.

My brother in law suggested the documentary “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi” to me. Luckily it was on Netflix.

This movie… makes you want to be better. It’s a good two hour look at a man who has given everything to be his personal best. If you watch the whole thing, and don’t feel inadaqute at what you do for work or passion, you didn’t really watch close enough.

Jiro’s tradition and lifestyle comes from a different world. It’s a valuable lesson in wordly knowledge, and to become a shokunin is defeintely not for everyone, if it were easy, there would be masters of every discipline at easy reach,

The thing that really gets me though, is Jiro loves to make sushi. He never hated his job and he would rather do that than anything else. He takes comfort in the strict standards he set for himself, and his work has paid off both in terms of success and passing his legacy to his sons.

Growing up in South Texas, no one has ever made me work my way up to egg sushi. Learning to cook was something I picked up on my own, making my journey very different but the joy of cooking holds up.

When I cook, it’s almost a different feeling than the obession that Jiro has, for me it’s a chance to get away from everything else. It’s sort of theraputic. There is also the freedom of abandonment that I will never be a world class master chef.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what I make however. It’s not an excuse to make shitty food or not care what I am serving. The concept of constant improvement and striving to be better everytime definitely holds true. Unlike many world class chefs though, myself and many of the artists and musicians who share their recipes on this site don’t have the option to go to a fish market everyday and spend money and time on dishes and ingredients. While fresh and expensive ingredients go a long way, there is definitely more to it than discipline and money.

I started this blog to share recipes with the concept that anyone can cook. I believe it. There are all different levels of it. You can start by boiling water and go from there. That’s the key to striving to be better. Always try new things. It doesn’t matter if it’s learning how to chop vegetables by hand, sharpening your knives or improving your barbecue or baking skills when the seasons change. It’s perfectly ok to start making meals with the aid of dried seasonings and pre packaged indredients and working your way up to fresh made from scratch dishes. The key is to get in there are crank up the stove.

Jiro may make the best sushi in the world, but when it comes to things like Mexican food, I’ve tasted it from the best grandmas in the world. I think back to my own grandmother in a tiny warm kitchen, the clanging of pots and pans with those wonderful mouth watering smells. The chaos of a big poor family gathering under a tiny roof to eat homeade toritillas and any sort of taco she made is about as far away as you can get from the traditional Japenese craftsmanship that is portrayed in this movie, but the end result is just the same.

And that’s just it isnt’ it?

Cooking is a journey. There are different roads to take to greatness but the end the same if you are true to yourself. In the end, a clean kitchen, aspiring to improve yourself, patience in the things you aren’t good at, stubborness to make yourself better at those things, and a passion for cooking are going to be what pushes you no matter what your background is.

Sweet & Spicy BBQ Sauce

Last Memorial Day, Brea and I went to a BBQ and in my infinite wisdom I decided to be a great guest and make something to bring. Then I decided to make a BBQ sauce to eat with random grilled meats. Of course I decided this when I was three sheets to the wind drunk and my wife and I went to prepping the sauce at one in the morning.

Life is full of pour choices I guess, but it really is a testimony to how wasy this was to make.

What you need:

1/2 cup of chopped onion

2 garlic cloves minced

1 jalepeno seeded and minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 32oz bottle of ketchup

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup apple juice

1/2 cup honey

1 tablespoon worscesteshire sauce

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon celery seeds

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Boss Sauce Sucka…

Saute onion, garlic, and jalepeno in hot olive oil in large saucepan over medium high heat 4 to 5 mins or until tender

Stir in ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, apple juice, honey, worscesteshire sauce, kosher salt, pepper, celery seeds, and red pepper

Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, reduce heat to low, simmer stirring occasionally. 30 minutes.

Use immediately or refrigirate in airtight container for up to a month.

Honestly? I refrigirated it over night and brought it to the BBQ the next day and heated it back up, the flavors set in better and this was the bomb, totally sweet AND spicy it is the perfect compliment to a variety of things from hamburgers to pork steaks.

Cooking In A Small Kitchen

This is my bass. It’s a beat up Squire that has layers of stickers on it from bands, shows, and various other run ins with life. I’m gainfully employed with a decent job and I’ve been playing in bands long enough to know that I won’t be quitting anytime soon. I could certainly go out and get a more expensive bass. Maybe even a better bass. There is a perfectly good Fender P sitting next to me in a guitar rack as I type this that many consider to be superior.

Truth be told, I like that one. It’s exactly what I need. There are sometimes we go play a show and are taken aback by some band’s set up. Some bands have so much gear, it takes almost one of our set lengths to set it all up. Being in a punk band though, sometimes you have to play in less than ideal situations, often times with a pieced together sound system, bands used to top knotch equipment are often lost when they have no monitors and can’t hear their other members. For bands like TSS, which were born in a skeleton equipment life, not having monitors just means we are more in sync…

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I play bass in a band. To do that, I dont need a million dollar bass, I just need my bass. To be a band, you don’t need trailers full of equipment, you just need your equipment.

And to cook in a kitchen, you don’t need a huge spacious room with every convenience, (although that would be nice) you just need a stove, a sink, a fridge, and some pots and pans.

I’ve been cooking in small kitchens for years. It’s part of the life I have for not settling down in my twenties and then not growing up in my thirties. I always seem to be in these tiny apartments with tiny kitchens. It’s cool though, because like I said before “If I can boil water, I can cook.”

So this is what I’m working with now.

It’s narrow. Its hard for two people (my wife and I) to stand butt to butt in this thing (I cook and prep and she’s washing dishes or getting stuff out of the fridge… it happens) It’s not long either, where the counter ends is all the space you get.

Counter one… Notice the flour and sugar containers my wife made with some DIY labels, also she was pretty crafty with the knife block.

Counter two… Houses my two most used appliances, the micro wave (I’m not always cooking, sometimes I nuke like everyone else) and a blender because I make green shakes every day to counterbalance all the shit I eat for dinner when I blog here. Also on top of the microwave is a spider web food bowl, the red thing is a chopping board that looks like a splatter (rad) and another custom jar my wife did and a rolling rock mason jar houses our used beer bottle caps for an upcoming project.

Nothing fancy about the sink. The bottle is actually just filled with dish soap, and the nozzle is used to shake it out like a fancy olive oil spout (that’s where the idea came from)

Nothing really special about my stove either. Just that it is my best friend. Yeah, I said it… BEST FRIEND

The pots and pans are stored in the cabinet underneath counter one. We used a hanging rod and hooks bought at a dollar store to hang them. Damn pinterest… you won that round.

Finally the spices are stored in the pantry next to the stove. To save space I have a rotating spice rack and Brea made more fancy labels to give it a matching custom look, also note the other spices on the top row… those are spices used not as often, so on the top to give me quicker access to my favorites.

When we first moved here, it didn’t look like this. But it didn’t matter. The kitchen is not the problem. If I get too drunk and can’t play, I can’t blame the club sound system. If I don’t practice my instrument, I can’t blame my pawn shop style bass. If I suck at cooking, I can get better. But if i use my kitchen as an excuse, I can’t really call myself a cook either.

Damn, now I don’t know if I want to play music or make something to eat.