- 27 Nov 2018 13:21
#14967103
I regard myself as a foodie.
I go by the mantra that "I will eat anything if it is prepared correctly or I am starving; preferably the former."
I have started cooking once a month, typically the Cuisine-Bourgeois subset of the Haute school.
I likewise enjoy cooking traditional Japanese and Korean dishes as well and have for awhile, my favorite, super-easy, Japanese dish is a cold soba noodles with the traditional garnishes and dipping sauces, which are incredibly refreshing after working hard outside in the summer heat.
This being said, the only dessert I have learned to cook, or care to cook, are custards like Creme Brulee or Caramel Flan, and I wouldn't even know how to make breads or cakes etc (my wife bakes several loaves of bread and makes several pizza pies EVERY Friday night)
My wife has likewise been entrusted with the family recipes, which are the typical and traditional western Pennsylvania dishes usually of Slavic, German, or British origin, along with classic American home-style dishes. She also makes the classic New-Orleans and Cajun Cuisine that I was also raised with from my mother's side which is from Central and Southern Louisiana.
As for me, since I have picked up the hobby (fairly recently);
I have made the following:
1. Beef Wellington.
2. Lemon-Caper Schnitzel A La Florentine.
3. Froie Gras A La Terrine with Rasberry Preserve.
4. Classic Venison Bourguignon with Pommes Aligot
Upcoming Dishes that I intend to make are a (1) Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Liver Pate Loaf Au Jus and (2) Lievre A La Royale.
I also want to prepare (3) Homard à la parisienne and (4)Duck à l'orange, the latter because I never had it.
For Christmas this year, I intend to order a Caviar sampler with Blinis and Creme Fraiche included as well as Quick-Ship Raw Oysters as a "shared-gift" for my parents and brother, who are likewise amateur foodies and they have not had either of those items.
I have also become a foodie regarding spirits and have fallen in love with high quality Rums, Brandies, Gins, and Single-Malt Scotch, but have yet to take the dive into a quality vintage wines; though that is next on my list and as I sought out Potemkin as my guide in Scotch, I intend to sit under the guidance of @Drlee in the area of wines.
I also used to be pretty active in brewing my own beer, and still grow my own hops and several different grains, but have not brewed in a little while now, but hope to pick it up again.
Regarding other pleasures in life, tobacco rates pretty highly for me as well, I enjoy quality tobaccos, aromatics and English blends, typically smoked from my 100 year old Meerschaum pipe.
My general philosophy to food though, with some exceptions, is that food should be local, organic, and humanely raised;
Obviously, seafood is not local where I live, but all of my poultry consumption, beef consumption, pork consumption, and game consumption is either farmed by me or my relatives or hunted by me or my relatives. Indeed, every single meat item I have eaten in the last 6 months was killed with a 30 minute drive of my house. Likewise, almost all of my produce and condiments were grown in our family gardens and either canned or frozen by me and my wife or my parents.
This gives a great deal of satisfaction that the mere pleasures of its taste could not convey alone.
Being a foodie is merely an aspect of my philosophy of life; stemming from a my variant of the Christian worldview, that a man should enjoy the "wine of his vinyard" the "fruit of his labor" and "the wife of his youth."
"It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals... is incompatible with freedom."- Patrick Henry