Healthy IS Delicious

A dent in my motivation

2011-06-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

Motivation can be a slippery thing to hold onto. It keeps shifting and altering its nature. Sure, the foundations of it stay the same; health, vitality, energy level, and the granddaddy of them all, if we're to be honest with ourselves, vanity.

All right, I know that word holds some negative connotations for most people. I once even got into a flame war on an online fitness board because I dared to say that “We don't work out to impress other people in the gym; we work out to impress people outside the gym.” Some people took a great deal of offense to me suggesting that most of us are in the gym because we want to look good. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a touch of vanity, at least not in this context.

Hey, if you don't want to admit it publicly, that's fine, but if admiring your progress in the mirror, sucking in your gut to see what you'll look like a few pounds lighter, or God forbid, flexing a little bit in the privacy of your own home, helps you keep going back to the gym and making better dining choices, then I say embrace the phrase that as helped me keep moving when all I wanted to do was sit down & crack open a beer: Vanity is my Sanity.

On top of the foundation motivations, there is usually other factors that help keep a sense of urgency to our goals. It can be seasonal things like swimsuit weather and party season, or can be more event-based, like weddings, reunions, or vacations.
Just about every year, I attend a festival back east with a whole lot of my old friends. In June I step out of the still cool Seattle weather, and enter the usually summary temperatures of rural Maryland in the company of several hundred people, including dozens of friends whom I generally see only once a year. So that means from late winter through spring I have the knowledge that I'm going to be suddenly plunged into a week of swimming and being scantily clad around people who haven't had the benefit (let's call it benefit for the sake of my “vanity”) of seeing any shifts in my physique happening gradually. That means just a few pounds, one way or the other, are very noticeable to all of them. At least that's the way my self-conscious self sees it. That's a big hearty slice of motivation that fills up a full quarter of my year.

This year however, I'm not going to the festival. I have an opportunity take my vacation in Japan, and I couldn't pass that up. So there's been no concern about my friends seeing my belly a little softer, or my arms to little thinner this season.
What do you do when a huge motivating factor is suddenly removed? How do you keep the KFC & video games at bay then?
I suppose I should have some answer for you right here. It would be nice if I can lay out some sage advice, but all I've been able to do is dig deep, and push myself forward on determination alone. It hasn't been easy, and I haven't been perfect, but I keep pushing. It's the best thing come up with right now.

Gone Fishin'

2011-05-25T22:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've been away for a while. I'm just going to have to accept that I'm not one of those weekly blogger types. Aside from my general lack of discipline, part of the problem is that I have too many damned interests that occupy my time.

One that has kept busy lately is fishing. May is the all too brief hailbut fishing season here in Washington state and I've been getting out on the boat whenever I can arrange it, trying to catch one of these elusive beasts.
Last Saturday, I finally succeeded and caught my first hailibut: a 35 pounder.

Anyone who knows me on social media has already seen this photo, because I've been plastering it up everywhere and even now have it as my userpic on both twitter & facebook. Hey, bragging about the fish you caught is one of those things that make life worth living, is it not? ;)
Well, bragging about it, and then eating it. Speaking of which...

Halibut is my absolute favorite fish and the last thing I want to do is cover-up its delicate flavor. But, I still wanted to have some fun and add a little complexity to the dish.

Nice clean citrus flavors really complement halibut without overpowering it. I got my hands on some really beautiful blood oranges and couldn't resist making a salsa out of them.
However I also wanted to add a little decadent richness, so I layered in a charred onion butter sauce.
The result was a fun mixture of flavors & textures that still allowed the halibut to be the star of the show.

Pan Seared Halibut with Charred Onion Buerre Blanc & Blood Orange Salsa

Salsa
3 medium blood oranges, cut into clean segments,
½ of one mango, peeled and diced
¼ red onion, sliced thinly
2 tbs chopped cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded & finely chopped
pinch of salt
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil

Combine all the ingredients for the salsa in a small mixing bowl. You should also squeeze in any excess juice from the oranges membrane. Allow this to rest for at least 20 minutes.
The mango is optional but it adds a degree of hardiness to the salsa that I really like.

Charred Onion Buerre Blanc
1 cup dry white wine
juice & zest of 1 lemon
2 tbs heavy cream
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cubed
½ medium onion, charred over flame or grill, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the white wine and lemon juice in a non-reactive saucepan over high heat and reduce to 2 tablespoons.
Add the cream to the reduction. Reduce it by half then turn the heat to very low. Add the butter, one cube at a time, shaking the pan, adding more butter as the previous one melts. Continue adding butter into the reduction until the mixture is fully emulsified and has reached a rich sauce consistency. Mix in the diced onion and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat but keep warm until ready to serve.

The Fish & the Finish

4 portions of cut halibut filet
2 tbs canola or light olive oil
pinch of salt & pepper

Dab any excess moisture off the outside of the halibut fillets with a paper towel and season them with the salt and pepper.
Heat a heavy bottomed pan, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat. Add in the oil and allow it to heat up, but do not let it get so hot it starts to smoke.
Cook the halibut in the pan so that it's nicely seared on the outside and cooked to your preference within.

Serve the halibut topped with a couple spoonfuls of butter sauce and a liberal portion of the salsa.
As you can see from the picture, I had mine with a little basmati rice pilaf; steam basmati rice with sauteed bell peppers and shiitake mushrooms.
If it looks like there are peppers both on top as well as in the rice, that's because the mango got colored red by the blood orange juice.

Start with yourself

2011-02-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
~Aristotle

Know thyself: it's a core tenet of many spiritual philosophies, self-improvement disciplines and business plans.

It's really a pretty basic concept, if you want to go anywhere you first have to know where you're coming from. Simple right?
When it comes to building a healthier lifestyle, this means knowing just what you need to, and are willing to change. Yeah, yeah, eat better and exercise more; that's probably a given. You're going to want to get a little more specific though.

Take a look at your diet first. You already have some idea of a few of the things that you probably shouldn't be eating, at least in the quantities you may be right now. Plus, you also want to take note of the things you do eat that are good for you. Knowing yourself is about assessing your strengths as well as your weaknesses.
Now you can do this in your head and just sort of make mental notes about what you want to change and improve, but if you want a really clear picture of how you are eating, the best way is to log what you eat and drink and see exactly where all your calories are coming from.
As I said in one of the opening posts of this blog, I am not a fan of calorie counting. That is to say, I'm not one of those people that has the discipline to log everything I they eat on an ongoing basis. If you happen to be one of those people that can do that, well awesome! And more power to you.
For the rest of us, doing it for is short period of time, let's say, one week, is a really good idea to give you an idea of how many calories you are really eating.
Shooting from the hip and trying to guesstimate is usually a pretty bad idea, most people greatly underestimate their caloric intake.
So yeah, I know, it's a pain in the ass, writing down how many ounces of meat on each sandwich, every slice of tomato and everything you have to drink for a week, but look at it this way, at least for that week you don't have to worry about cutting anything out of your diet. In fact, it's important that while you are logging what you eat, you don't try to eat better. You want this week to be an accurate picture of what your average calorie intake has been over recent months.
As far as calculating how many calories are in what you eat, there are plenty of online sources that will do that for you; fitday.com and nutritiondata.com are two I can think of right off the top of my head and a Google search will provide many more. You just have to go through the process of entering everything, and I mean everything you consume for that week into the website you choose. This will give you how many calories you consume in an average day and from what sources. Once you know that, you have a good place to start from.

Whether you count your calories or just take the “horse sense” approach, you then want to start thinking about what changes you are prepared to make. I've known a number of people who have lost a great deal of weight simply by cutting sodas and/or sugary beverages out of their diet. Of course if you do that make sure you replace him with water as opposed to juices, sports drinks, or even diet sodas.

Also, think in terms of what you can add into your diet as well as what you can take away. A great step that a friend of mine made once, was to simply add in a half a cup of brown rice and a cup of vegetables to her dinner plate every night, no matter what she was eating. She didn't really lighten up her main entree, she just ate a little but less of it and added in the healthy side dishes so she still felt satisfied, got more nutrition and ate fewer calories overall: win-win-win.

And maybe, most importantly, think about where you are getting your food. Does your breakfast usually come from Starbucks? Do you often get lunch with your coworkers at what ever chain restaurant the group decides? How often do you prepare your own meals or snacks? Perhaps there is room for improvement in there somewhere?

While working out your plan, think in terms of small changes, baby steps, then you can make one by one. If you are not sure where to start, you can do some of the changes I suggested here, like getting rid of sodas, no more eating in any place that has a drive-through window, or no food that comes purchased in a plastic wrapper. Also be sure to make some changes additive as well as subtractive; like increasing the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables you eat, making yourself a pot of healty, homemade soup every Sunday and having that as a meal a few days during the week, or having fresh fish for dinner at least once a week.
You don't have to make these changes too fast either, say, one change her week? Or do what I often advise, make a diet change one week, and then an exercise change the next, and just keep alternating back and forth. This way you're only making adjustments to your diet into your exercise habits once every other week. The benefit of this is that you not only avoid the shock and awe approach to either your diet or your activity level that can burn some people out, but your body has just about enough time to begin to compensate for the changes you've made when you hand it a new surprise.

I'll have to talk about exercise changes later. For now, what kind of tweaks to you think you might want to make to your diet or lifestyle?

Cold (weather) Comfort

2011-01-30T21:32:00.000-08:00

“As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do.”
~~ Zachary Scott

I have a relatively short list of regrets in life. I probably should regret more of the things I've done but ... meh, why dwell on the past?

However, one regret I do hold on to is that my interest in cooking didn't develop until after my grandmother had passed away. I missed an opportunity to learn some amazing, old-school Southern cooking techniques from her.

Mama, as she was known in my family, was pretty much a stereotypical Southern grandmother who, along with my grandfather and their big brood of kids, moved from the hills of western North Carolina to Delaware back when my mother was still a young girl.
My grandfather and she grew all their own produce. Not only did they have huge garden tracts that grew an amazing array of vegetables but also an apple orchard, pear trees, peach trees, grape arbors, strawberry patches, three colors of raspberries, blueberries, a chestnut tree, two kinds of cherry trees.... I could keep going.
Much of childhood was spent at my grandparent's home. My many cousins and I were granted plenty of play time and going there was always a treat, but we were still expected to do our share of chores and those gardens provided plenty of that. There was hoeing, weeding, picking and hauling. Planting was mostly grown-up or “older kid” work; it was too important to get right to allow younger children to do.

Then there was the time spent “under the trees”. This referred to a cluster of shade maples in their yard that was the official gathering space for socializing, outdoor dining, or just enjoying the breeze with a glass of iced tea in your hand. Of course, this was also the space for the seated chores. During the “picking time”, that glass of iced tea and socializing came with bushel baskets full of produce to work on. There were green beans to snap, limas to hull, corn to shuck, cherries to pit, apples to peel & slice and so on.
Much of that produce was canned. They had a fire pit out behind the “freezer house” that held a large metal wash tub that Papa would pack full over and over again with produce-laden mason jars, boiling away before they were taken to fill the shelves of their cellar. Not only did they store enough vegetables and fruits to feed themselves through the winter, but they had plenty to give away to our considerably large extended family.
Of course, going to Mama & Papa's meant you got to, nay, had to, let her feed you. When I think back, it seems like my grandmother's wood-fired stove/oven was constantly going, turning out amazing food. Pies made from fruits that were picked that morning, biscuits and cornbread (and no Jenifer, there was no sugar in that cornbread). There were roasts and casseroles, fried chicken, fresh veggies with butter, and she made sure that the pot of water was boiling before she sent us kids to go pick the corn for fresh corn on the cob.
If you can think of a classic Southern dish, it was undoubtedly in Mama's repertoire. And never once do I recall seeing a recipe book. She cooked from memory and good old-fashioned know how.

I can still faintly remember some of the smells that came from her kitchen, and to this day, it sets my mouth to watering. I know I was just a kid, but I could kick myself for not taking the time to learn some of what she had to teach.

There a a bunch of different dishes of hers that I dearly loved, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be her chicken & dumplings. It was rich and silky with big chunks of pulled chicken and pillowy yet hearty drop style dumplings. Talk about a happy childhood memory...

Even though I never learned Mama's recipe, chicken & dumplings is still one of my favorite comfort foods. It's one of those foods that sends the winter chill running scared from your body.
The cool thing is that for the most part, chicken & dumplings is a relatively healthy dish. It's basically a light chicken stew. The biggest problem is the dumplings. They are essentially little lumps of white flour, delicious lumps of white flour but still not the best form of carbohydrates to eat in quantity. The tweak here is simple, up the complex carbs, back off on, if not eliminate the white flour and keep the deliciousness. Can do.

First of all, we want to go heavy on the vegetables. That's a good way to lighten up and “healthify” ( I just coined that word. If you use it, you have to send me a check.) many dishes. In fact, it's a very, VERY good idea to increase the amount of vegetables in your life.

Next up are those pesky (if delicious ) dumplings. Clearly we need to replace most, if not all, of that white flour with a more complex carbohydrate. Using a healthier flour like whole wheat, oat, garbanzo or brown rice flour is one option, but you are going to sacrifice some flavor and texture and only gain a small margin of health benefit.
The better option would be to base the dumplings on something other than flour. I chose one of my favorite sources of healthy, complex carbs, sweet potatoes.
Yes, this does create a rather dramatic shift in the flavor profile of the dish, but it's a shift in a very tasty direction.

Chicken & Sweet Potato Dumplings

1 large roasting chicken
6 cups good quality chicken stock or broth
2 bay leaves
1 jumbo yam
3 large carrots peeled & diced
1 medium onion peeled & diced
4 ribs celery diced
2 parsnips peeled & diced
1 cup chopped mushrooms, I used porcini
1 Tbs canola oil
1 cup peas
1 Tbs chopped fresh thyme
2 tsp chopped fresh marjoram
1 egg
4 Tbs whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste

After thoroughly rinsing the chicken with cold water, place it in a sauce pot with the stock & bay leaves. Bring it to a simmer & cook until the chicken is done, approximately 15 minutes.

Remove the pot & place in a colander that is set inside a mixing bowl so the chicken can drain but you catch all that delicious liquid. Skim the fat off the top of the broth.

Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, pick off the meat in large chunks. Save the meat, but discard the skin & bones.

Cook the sweet potato. You can peel it and boil it but, I advise against it; you lose flavor & vitamins and add excess moisture to the dumplings, which will require adding more flour. I recommend baking it or doing what I do, put it on a plate, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and microwave it for 8-10 minutes.
Scoop the flesh of the sweet potato into a mixing bowl and smash it up with a fork.

Place a large pot over medium heat, add in the canola oil (you can also use 1 Tbs of the chicken fat you skimmed from the top of the broth) and the chopped vegetables. Don't add the peas yet.
Season with a pinch of salt & pepper and saute, stirring frequently until the veggies begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the herbs and 1 Tbs of wheat flour and continue to stir & cook for another 90 seconds.

Add in the stock a bit at a time, stirring well to make sure no lumps of flour form. Bring the mixture to a low simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Check seasoning and adjust if needed.

Add the egg to the sweet potato & mix well. Add in the spices, a small pinch of salt & pepper, then the baking soda. Stir in the remaining flour, but be careful. All yams aren't created equal you have to judge how much flour to use. You want the dumpling mixture to be a thick but workable paste, slightly sticky to the touch.

With the liquid still simmering, drop the dumpling mix in round spoonfuls into the stew. Keep adding until all the dumpling mix is used. Stir the pot very gently from time to time, separating the dumplings but not breaking them up.

Once all the dumplings are added & floating, carefully add in the pulled chicken and the peas. Cook for another two minutes.

The January Bump & the Resolution Shuffle

2011-01-11T00:06:00.000-08:00

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
~~ Thomas Edison

I just got home from the gym and it's in full swing: the January gym bump. The annual influx of New Year's resolutioners who this year really are going to lose those extra pounds and get in shape.

I don't mean to sound cynical. I actually like seeing so many new people making the effort to get healthy. It is just sad knowing that by mid-February, most of those new faces will be gone from the gym, their resolutions left in the junk drawer along with their membership cards.

That's the way of it though, isn't it? Everyone breaks their New Year's resolutions, don't they?
It's become so common that it seems like there is practically no stigma attached to abandoning your resolution. In fact, it's pretty much expected.
I just read a friend's blog post today about how they are making changes to the way they eat in accordance with their resolution. Then, in the very next sentence, they say that odds are they will revert back to old habits by mid-February. I'm no psychologist, but I have to think that entering into your resolution with a defeatist attitude like that is a recipe for failure.
Can you say self-fulfilling prophesy?

It's easy to see why we fall into this pattern though. The holidays have just ended, and many of us have spent the last several weeks celebrating and consuming more than usual. Plus, all the partying and general hectic bustle of the holidays have left us no time to exercise.
Now it's January, the holiday treats are gone, the social events are done and I'm so over partying and just want to calm down and get back to normal.
Suddenly, we've got all that time we were spending shopping and socializing to devote getting rid of those extra pounds. We've got the resolve, we have the opportunity, and we're going to seize it!

The problem is that the January slow down only lasts so long. Sooner or later, life starts getting interesting again; social events and other activities start popping up and the next thing you know, the lighter diet and exercise program get left on the side of the road as we drive off towards Spring.

As a Chef, I have seen this pattern reflected in the restaurant and catering business my whole career. The holiday season is crazy time, often the busiest time of the year. Then right after New Year's, the rooms full of customers eating & drinking abruptly vanish and in one day, you've gone from the busiest time of the year to the slowest. Things stay slow through January, and as we head into February, the customers and catering events start to return. By the time Spring is in bloom, the business has often returned to normal levels.

Since I have been serving healthy food for those looking to lose weight and get in shape, I have a reversed business pattern. During the holiday season, my business declines as many of my clients choose to give in to the lure of the festive season and let their diets run wild. In January I get a sharp increase in business, not only from returning clients but new ones looking to make good on those resolutions. I do fairly well keeping clients on track but still, by late winter a percentage of them have gone off our program.

So what's the solution to the resolution/de-resolution dilemma? How do you keep from de-rezzing?
Yep, I just made a Tron reference. :)

If you are really looking to make meaningful changes to your body, maybe what you need is a plan. A plan instead of a resolution is a good idea. A plan to help you achieve your resolution is an even better idea. However, I think the best approach is having a resolution that is a step to help you carry out your plan.

What's the distinction I'm drawing between a resolution and a plan? A resolution is a singular adjustment, one change to how you do things. However, to live a healthier lifestyle, just about all of us will need to make a number of changes to how we eat (most of the time) and stay active. If you can make small changes, little course corrections to your life, you may be surprised how quickly good habits get made and the results begin to add up. That's where the plan comes in.
This post is already getting rather wordy, so we'll talk plan in later entries.

If you are still working out your resolution, there are a few guidelines that might help you keep it.

First off, make it specific. Vague resolutions like “losing weight” or “eating better” are more likely to be broken. A better option would be to swear off eating from any place that has a drive-thru or eat nothing that comes in a plastic wrapper. It's far too easy to abandon a resolution if there is nothing concrete to continue.

At the same time, be careful to not set overly lofty goals for yourself. In fact, it's best not to make a goal your resolution. Better to make your resolution a part of the process.
How about dusting off that bathroom scale & resolving to weigh yourself every morning? That can be a great way to keep yourself on track.
Or if you take frequent, short elevator trips, you can adopt the 2 up/3 down rule. You'll take the stairs if you are going up two floors or fewer, down three floors or fewer: even if the elevator door is open and waiting when you walk by.
That would literally be a little course correction, eh?

Sometimes is helps to tell someone, tell many someones, about your resolution. It might give you a bit more motivation to stick with it if you garnish the resolution with a little social pressure.

There are a number of little tricks to help you keep your resolution. Just remember to start with something you can keep going and transform into a long term habit. Of course to know what works for you, you first have to know yourself, and knowing yourself is the first step in making your plan.
But that's a topic for another blog entry.

Flavor trapped in amber

2010-12-02T00:26:00.000-08:00

One of the common questions that gets posed to foodies across the social media-verse from time to time is, What are your staple food items? What do you always keep on hand in your kitchen?

The answers include a lot of the familiar items like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, various spices, stocks, produce, etc.
Of course we wouldn't be foodies if many of us didn't try distinguish ourselves with less typical responses. Cubes of frozen demi-glaze, jars of duck fat, truffle salt, preserved lemons, chow chow are a few that come to mind.
In my case, I keep two squeeze bottles in easy reach of my stove. One of them contains olive oil (probably the number one answer) and the other contains apple cider reduction.

Mmmm, I love this stuff. Just a little bit adds sweetness and a nice pop of flavor to vegetables, meats, desserts ... so many things.
Try finishing a quick saute of zucchini & onions with a tablespoon of cider reduction or drizzle a little over a piece of pan seared salmon. It makes a great finishing glaze for pork or poultry. Use it to sweeten your breakfast oatmeal. I even like to put a touch into Earl Grey tea.

All of these require just a small amount of the reduction; that's why I keep it in a squeeze bottle. As the sugars and the flavor in the apple cider are concentrated, you want to be able to carefully portion it out in small amounts. A little goes a long way with this stuff.

The recipe is simple:
1 gallon of fresh apple cider
Use only the real, pressed apple cider. If it is kept on an unrefrigerated store shelf, don't use it.
If the ingredient list contains anything other than apples (or pears if you choose to make a pear cider reduction), don't use it.

Measure 2 ¼ cups of cider and place it in a 5 or 6 quart sauce pot. This is so you can see how much liquid should be left in the pot when it is done.
Pour the rest of the gallon of cider in the pot and place it over medium heat. Bring it to low boil & continue to cook until it reduces to 2 ¼ cups.
This is going to take a while, probably a couple hours and you'll need to keep an eye on it, especially as it gets closer to finishing. Don't try to rush it by turning the heat higher.
As the cider begins to get close to desired level of reduction, the bubbles will get smaller & the boil will look somewhat “foamy”. You'll need to reduce the heat slightly at this point so that it doesn't boil up or scorch.
Be careful, hot syrup is dangerous.

Once it is done, allow to cool to room temperature before putting it in a storage container. Ideally it should be the consistency of honey. If it is too runny, it can be reduced more. If it is too thick, it can be gently rewarmed and thinned down with a little more cider.

Like honey, cider reduction is shelf stable, although feel free to keep it in the fridge if you like.
I make a couple batches during the fall when fresh, local cider is available and even with as much as I use it, that's usually enough to last me most of the year.

I used it just recently when I made a pumpkin pasilla bisque topped with caramelized pears & cider reduction.

2 pasilla peppers, sliced (leave in seed & sponge to your taste, that's where most of the heat of the peppers lives)
½ small onion, sliced
2 tablespoons of butter
1 sugar pie pumpkin, peeled, seeded & diced
1 quart good quality chicken stock or broth
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons crushed schezuan peppercorns (or ground black pepper )
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon cider reduction
½ cup heavy cream

Saute the peppers and onions in the butter until soft. Add the remaining ingredients except for the cream and simmer until pumpkin is soft. Remove from heat.
Add in heavy cream & puree in blender. Be careful pureeing hot liquid; do it in small batches and then strain.

Topping:
1 ripe pear, peeled and diced small
cider reduction, to taste

Quickly saute the pear in a very hot pan until it begins to darken in color.

Top the soup with a spoonful of pears and drizzle lightly with cider reduction.

Note: If you are feeling ambitious, a bit of shredded duck confit makes an excellent addition to toppings for this soup.

Gluten Free Holiday Treat

2010-11-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

Shauna, the Gluten Free Girl herself, set up her own holiday gluten free challenge in an attempt to help those with gluten intolerance find options for their holiday meals.
Even though my contribution here is outside my normal vein, not exactly gentle in the calorie department, it's almost Thanksgiving and I can't resist tossing a decadent treat in the mix.

When it comes to feeding my clients who need to keep a gluten free diet, I more often than not go with items that are naturally gluten-less rather than go down the substitute ingredient road.

One of my favorite flour free pastries is a dacquoise: layers of almond or hazelnut meringue usually layered with ganache & chocolate buttercream.
For the holiday I chose to make a pumpkin version with candied cranberries on top to add a tart, acidic counter point to the pumpkin's rich creaminess.

Dacquoise aren't really hard to make but there are a lot of steps involved. Also, they don't have the shelf life of a regular cake. You want to eat them relatively quickly, within a day or two.
That's why I don't make them all too often. For a holiday however, when you are feeding a crew of family & friends, they are a nice, decadent treat.

Pumpkin Dacquoise with Candied Cranberries

Meringue
almond meal (or ground almonds) 1 cup
granulated sugar ½ cup
egg whites 10 (about 1 ½ cups)
cream of tartar 1 tsp
superfine sugar 2 cup
vanilla extract 2 tsp

Toast almond meal in 350 degree oven until golden brown. Remove from oven & allow to cool slightly, 3 – 4 minutes.
Stir nuts & ½ cup granulated sugar together & set aside.
Reduce oven temperature to 225 degrees.
Whip egg whites & cream of tartar in mixer on med-high speed until soft peaks begin to form. Gradually add in superfine sugar and vanilla and continue to whip to stiff, glossy peaks.
Gently fold nut mixture into meringue.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Using the bottom of a 10 inch spring form or cake pan as a guide, draw 4 circles in the paper. Using a piping bag with a wide, plain tip pipe out discs of meringue in a spiral fashion filling in the circles.
Bake meringue in oven at 225 degrees for 1 ½ hours, turn the oven off and continue to dry for another 1 ½ hours. Check to make sure they are completely dry.

Pumpkin Ganache
pumpkin puree 1 cup
heavy cream ½ cup
white chocolate 12 oz chopped
ground cinnamon ½ tsp
ground cloves ¼ tsp
ground ginger ¼ tsp
unsalted butter ¼ cup (½ stick) cut into small pieces

Heat pumpkin puree and cream over med-low heat in a heavy bottomed sauce pan until close to but not quite boiling. Be sure to keep stirring to make sure it doesn't scorch.
Remove from heat and stir in white chocolate until it is melted and blended in. Add in spices then stir in butter one piece at a time until smooth. Cover & refrigerate.

Pumpkin Butter Cream
unsalted butter 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) room temperature
pumpkin puree 1 cup
ground cinnamon 1 tsp
ground allspice ½ tsp
ground ginger ½ tsp
vanilla extract 1 ½ tsp
confectioners sugar 3 cups

Cream together butter, pumpkin and spices in mixer. Add in sugar one cup at a time and beat until smooth.

Candied Cranberries
fresh cranberries 4 oz
sugar 3/4 cup plus more for coating
water 3/4 cup
Bring water and sugar to a boil until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat & pour syrup over cranberries. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Drain cranberries and toss with sugar to coat. Lay berries out on a baking tray to dry for one hour.

Assembly
Lay on meringue round on a flat plate or cake circle. Using a bag with a star tip pipe a ring of buttercream around the outer edge of the meringue. Then pipe a small rosette in the center of the circle the same height as the ring.
Note: I actually forgot that last little part when I made mine. That's why the tip of the the slice of cake sunk down a little when it was cut. The buttercream adds stability as well as richness.
Now spread a layer of ganache inside the buttercream ring.
Place the next meringue circle on top of the first layer and gently press down with light, even pressure being careful not to crack it. Although it's not the end of the world if you do.
Continue the same filling procedure for the next two layers.
Top the final meringue circle and garnish with candied cranberries & toasted sliced almonds.

I used almonds for this recipe but because, I had them on hand. Given my preference and a little less laziness, I'd go with hazelnuts. They have a touch more "woody" nature to their nutty flavor that I bet would lend itself well to this dish.

What do the healthy folks do...

2010-11-11T23:41:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I posted a quote on my livejournal blog from Jeff Ainslie, "If you want to be a thin, healthy person then live lifestyle of a thin, healthy person; your body will follow suit".
I got a little heat for posting that quote because to some people, the phrase "lifestyle of a thin, healthy person" meant being able to eat anything you want and get away without exercising.
I have to say I never saw that reaction coming, probably because it didn't occur to me to think of a fit, healthy person's lifestyle as a life of french fries & leisure. And from being somewhat familiar with Mr. Ainslie's work I can assure you that he didn't mean the quote that way either.

Sure we all of know one or two of those people, the ones that seem to be able to live on cheeseburgers & sundaes, never hit the gym and still keep that waif-y figure. I don't have to tell you that that particular branch of the X-men is the exception not the rule. No one should follow their lifestyle, not even them.
Remember, thin does not necessarily equal fit or healthy. Can you say heroin chic?

So what is the lifestyle of a fit, healthy person? The basic answer of eating right & exercising we all know. However some more specific tips are always helpful.
Well our good friend Jeff Ainslie in his podcast he does with Russ Turley pointed out an article on Diet Channel.com about those who have lost weight and managed to keep the weight off and why they were successful.

The article lays out a few practices and characteristics that can contribute to a healthy lifestyle. They are worth checking out.

* They include regular physical activity for at least 30 minutes, four to five days a week.
* They stay focused on improving health
and energy, with weight loss being a nice accompaniment. Focusing on weight loss as the primary outcome, especially rapid weight loss, usually results in a decreased chance of long-term success.
* Their desire to lose weight and improve health is for themselves and not someone else.
* They replace fatty and sugary foods with more healthy substitutions like fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, and other high-fiber foods.
* They frequently monitor portion sizes and hunger -- this is important in today's world of "super-size" restaurant portions.
* They find ways to make fitness fun. For example, they join a hiking group, a soccer league, or take dance classes. They don't fear trying new activities.
* They eat at least three meals a day and even a few snacks in between and do not skip meals.
* They use problem solving strategies when old behaviors return to haunt them. They succeed at creating and re-assessing goals.
* They recognize that it is a continuous, life-long journey to pursue better health, not a temporary diet.
* They never give up on themselves and don't allow occasional slip-ups to end their progress.
* They accept that no "miracle" weight loss diet or pill exists, and that the time-tested principles of weight loss, while not always exciting, are the only ones that work permanently.
* They separate their body size from their self-worth. They recognize that their value is about a lot more than what they weigh. When their attitude shifts to self-acceptance at any size, weight loss and maintaining it becomes more natural, and much easier.
* They have developed passions, interests, and hobbies to help them focus on things other than food.
* They have found and developed creative ways to manage stress effectively.
* They have banned the words "never" and "always" from their health vocabulary. That is, everything in moderation. It's not realistic to say you'll never eat ice cream again or that you will always exercise every day. In short, they gave up perfection, but they remain focused without it.

How can you resist a deli classic?

2010-10-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

“Once your taste buds get set to reuben, it's not easy to switch them off.”
~ Adam Carolla

Oh brother, truer words were never spoken.
Maybe it comes from my east coast upbringing but just the thought of a good reuben sandwich stirs something primal in the part of me from which my hunger arises.
Some consider it the perfect sandwich and I would have trouble arguing that. A fine corned beef or pastrami, sauerkraut, 1000 island & swiss cheese grilled & melted together on rye bread....
I do declare, is it getting warm in here?

I swear I could have a reuben for lunch 4 days a week and not even begin to tire of them. The problem with that of course is that the traditional reuben isn't exactly shy in the calorie department. This is one of those meals you need to keep as an occasional treat, especially if you are trying to trim away a few extra pounds, like I am now.

So I had a bit of a conundrum before me when one of my sales reps gifted me a beautiful chunk of navel pastrami the other day. As soon as I saw it my mind when back to the days when I lived an easy walk from Katz's Deli in New York City and my tastes buds were instantly set to reuben.
The problem was that this was the middle of the week and my plan now is to eat light on week nights and save the splurging for nights out.

I could have done an open face sandwich, that would have eliminated one slice of bread, tried to find low calorie dressing & fat free cheese …. None of that sounded fun to me though.
So I decided to try to come up with something that hit the same flavor notes as my beloved reuben but was more in keeping with the way I choose to eat most of the time.

Here is what I came up with.

Reuben Style Cabbage Rolls

I wasn't weighing & measuring when I made these, so I'm giving you a procedure rather than an exact recipe.

The meat: as I said, I had pastrami to use but I've always preferred corned beef on my reubens. If I was buying meat for this & trying to keep it light I'd go with corned beef and a round cut rather than brisket. It's simply leaner. As it was, I trimmed off some of the larger sections of external fat.
I can hear my foodie friends groaning about that. Sorry guys but I have a purpose here and it wasn't like there wasn't plenty of fat on there to spare.
I sliced it up nice and thin, across the grain of course and them rough chopped it a little.

The veg: sauerkraut needs to happen, use your favorite kind, just make sure it is well drained. I picked up a head of napa cabbage & broke off several fat outer leaves and set them aside.

The sauce: I needed to avoid 1000 island of course, that's just a mayonnaise based source of fatty calories. The pickle component was easy to replace, I just picked up some nice kosher dills. I split them in half lengthwise and then sliced them thin at an angle.
As far as the tomato/acidic part of it I chose to use a sundried tomato pesto. I made a simple one with sundried tomatoes, garlic, basil, lemon juice, black pepper & a little olive oil pureed together.

The cheese: I considered forgoing the cheese altogether but realized that a little would add a nice pop of flavor without sending the calories through the roof. I choose some Jarlsberg instead of domestic swiss and cut sticks slightly less thick than a pencil out of it.

The procedure: I heated a large saute pan up and seared the meat. The pastrami was fatty enough that I didn't need any added oil in the pan. I kept it moving and cooked it until a good amount of fat had cooked out and some of the pieces had gotten crispy. Then I removed it to a plate covered with paper towels and drained the excess fat out of the pan. (Yeah I know, “groan, groan”)

Next I tossed the sliced pickles into the hot pan that was still coated with the residual pastrami fat and cooked them until they started to brown and then added the sauerkraut and a little crushed caraway seed. Once the kraut had gotten some color I stirred in about a tablespoon of the sundried pesto.

I scooped the sauerkraut mixture into a bowl and then put the cabbage leaves in the pan along with ½ cup of water and covered it with a lid to let the cabbage steam. That only took a couple more minutes.
Then I had my components all cooked and I only dirtied up one pan. Now I just had to roll them.

Assembly: I laid out two cabbage leaves overlapping, side by side for each roll. I smeared them with a little more of the sundried pesto. Then I spread some kraut mixture over the them, them some of the meat and finally one stick of cheese. I rolled them up and set them on a baking sheet.

I popped them into a 350 degree oven. Everything was still a little warm so they only took about 10 minutes to get piping hot inside. I served them over quinoa.

I won't claim that these were as sinfully exquisite as a deli style reuben sandwich (heck, what is?) but it was a delicious dinner that satisfied my very specific craving without sending my calorie average out of whack.

Back from hiatus in time for a snack

2010-10-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.”
- St. Francis de Sales

It's been a while since I posted here; just over five months in fact. I could go into a number of reasons that I've been so negligent: computer troubles, work issues, as much of my summer free time spent on the water as I could manage, etc. They are all just excuses though and those only get in the way.

I like to think that my time away from the blog wasn't totally wasted though. I did have time during the many hours I spent trying, and more often than not failing to catch salmon, to think about what I want to accomplish here and how I want to go about it. Hopefully that will show with future entries.

Right now, I figure my best approach is to handle this the same way I do if I fall off the exercise or proper eating wagon. I don't beat myself up too much, I simply get back on track & move forward.
So without further ado, let's talk about snacking.

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There is phenomenon in catering I call “the crudite effect”. Simply stated it means that although many people don't usually crave raw vegetables, when they are presented in front of them those raw veggies become surprisingly popular. Of course caterers love the crudite effect because having the guests fill up on partially vegetables and not just the more costly hors d'oeuvres, is good business.

However the crudite effect can not only be used to help the bottom line, it can also be used to effect your bottom, and in a good way.
Snacking is a big issue some people struggle with when trying to cut those excess calories from their diets. A helpful solution is to keep some raw vegetables on hand. It can be whatever you like; carrot & celery sticks, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, radishes, whatever.
Sure, when those snack cravings hit it's probably for something else, usually something sweet or salty. However if you can get ahead of those strong cravings & have those veggies already in front of you, you can curb those urges before you reach for a Snickers bar or bag of Doritos.

If you think about it, I bet you know when you tend to get those cravings for a snack. Perhaps during work around 2 or 3 in the afternoon or in the evening while watching Law & Order? Try setting out a small dish of vegetables for yourself before you get the urge to eat something else. When it's in arms reach you're going to find yourself crunching on a radish before the need for sweet overtakes you.
Trust me, it works. :)

Of course the best option would be to buy some nice, organic vegetables preferably at your local farmer's market and cut them up for yourself but if you need something more convenient, there are plenty of pre-cut veggies available at just about every supermarket. Those are fine options.

However, as good as raw vegetables are for you, the is a caloric dark spectre hanging over the crudite effect, the dip issue.
Some people just refuse to snack on raw vegetables unless they have something to dunk them into and one of those fatty, mayonnaise-y, high caloric condiments can quickly turn your healthy vegetable snack into something every bit as fattening a serving of chocolate pudding.

It's OK, if you need some dip to go with your raw veggies then all you need to do is choose which dip carefully and of course, don't over portion.
There are plenty of fine options for healthy dips, here is one that has been a favorite of mine recently.

Roasted Carrot & Harissa Dip

2 lbs carrots, peeled & cut into chunks *
1 tbs light olive or canola oil
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
3 tsp harissa**
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil***
2 tsp sherry vinegar
3 – 4 garlic cloves
salt & pepper – to taste
1 – 2 tbs chopped cilantro : optional

~Toss carrots in light oil & pepper and roast until tender. I did mine in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes. That left them with a nice touch of color and perfectly soft.
~Allow carrots to cool to room temperature & puree in food processor or blender along with harissa, olive oil, vinegar & garlic. Note: you may need to add a little water to get the mixture to puree smoothly.
~Adjust seasoning with salt & pepper and stir in cilantro if desired.

Certainly this recipe is great with crackers and flat breads but I encourage you to enjoy it with vegetables. Some of my personal favorites to have with this dip are cucumbers slices, sticks of jicama and split cherry tomatoes. It's even really good with apple slices.

* Use organic or “fresh from the farm” if possible. Carrots are near the top of my list of vegetables that have a huge flavor difference between organic & the typical supermarket variety.

**I pride myself on not being an extra virgin olive oil snob but this is one of those recipes that really benefits from using a high quality EVOO.

***I used Mustapha's Moroccan Harissa for this recipe. I bought it from The Spanish Table but it can also be ordered from Amazon.com

Finally, keep in mind that this is a dip not an entree. There is a good amount of olive oil in this which is good for you in moderation but you don't want to eat a soup cup full of this in one sitting. Remember to keep the raw vegetables as the bulk of the snack and limit the dip to a condiment portion size.

Red Velvet Pancakes

2010-05-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

I first heard of these from The Kitchy Kitchen Blog. What a great and simple idea, buttermilk pancakes with a light cocoa flavor and that flashy crimson eye appeal.

I could have just tried the recipe off her blog or grabbed one from elsewhere and tried that. However I opted to do that thing I do, take the idea and make my own version of the dish. After trying the food and considering what it may need, how it could be improved and generally tweaking the formula, I'll then look at other recipes and see how they differ.
Sometimes I like my own recipe better, sometimes I like the other. I usually end up with some sort of hybrid.

Of course I'm often looking for ways to make the dish more lighter and more healthy. Odd as it may sound, this luscious disks of flour & sugar are prime candidates for just such a skinny make-over.
First things first though, I had to make an initial test batch or, as called it this morning, breakfast.

I'll put this initial test batch in the category pretty good. Nice flavor & balance of sweetness but they could stand to be a touch lighter. I believe I went too easy on the baking soda and perhaps a teaspoon too light on cocoa powder as well. I included a touch of lemon zest was a nice touch although next time I may try orange just too see what that is like.
Something about the color of wasn't sitting well with me; a little too pink so I'll have to address that next time.
Oh and that chicken basil sausage I had as a side, delicious.

I just want to repeat, this was my breakfast not just a photo shoot prop. I took time out of enjoying it to take pictures.
I may not have mastery of the craft but at least I have some small level of dedication to it. Smiles

Doing it by the book

2010-04-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

My newest mini resolution is to cook one recipe from a cook book each week.

I usually cook from the hip, as it were; putting together what sounds good to me from what I have available at the time.
Oh I love cookbooks, I enjoy reading through them but I tend to take ideas for dishes from them but prepare them in my own way.

For these I want to follow the recipe as written: well, mostly anyway. I can't help but tweak a little.

Last week I made Momofuku pork buns. They were fun to make and came out delicious.
I was having so much fun in fact that I never bothered to pull out my camera.

Tonight I made Molly Stevens Soy Braised Chicken Thighs.

I stayed pretty close to the book on this one although I did add carrots to the braise & served them with a cous cous.

Sweet Respite

2010-04-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

Those who know me are aware that the past few months have been ungodly hectic for me. I don't care to get into details here. Suffice to say that being a small business owner can be demanding.

One of the things I've been missing is cooking at home, cooking for pleasure. The hours I've been keeping have left me far too few opportunities to play in my home kitchen, so when I did get some "me" time I wanted to indulge.

Some weeks back I had a few hours free one evening and I decided I was in the mood for something sweet.

In keeping with the theme of the blog, I should mention my policy on desserts.
You should make your desserts at home when possible and try to never eat store bought sweets from a cellophane wrapper. Also, desserts are a treat they should be enjoyed as such, don't make a daily habit of them.

So, it was treat time for me and I decided to try something from what is quickly becoming one of my favorite recipe sources, Lorna Yee's Cookbook Chronicles blog.
I'm a sucker for a good coconut dessert so I had to try her Triple Layer Coconut Custard Cake.

This is definitely a keeper recipe. It had a rich coconut flavor and a nice, light balance of sweetness. This cake didn't even hint at needing ice cream to prop it up.

One of the things that's nice about this recipe is that it gives you plenty of custard filling and frosting. Too many recipes seem to give you just barely enough frosting and/or filling to assemble the cake. As you can see, this give you plenty of custard to fill between the layers and enough frosting to give the cake a "healthy" coating.

The only change I'll make next time is raising the bake temperature.
A 325 degree bake on my home oven wasn't quite hot enough, next time I'll try 350 on convection setting.
I'm also considering cutting back a little on the cornstarch in the custard and adding a couple egg yolks.
It's not that I think it needs it, I'm just curious how that will effect the product. I enjoying playing with my food and I can't help tweaking recipes sometimes, even when they work.

Not your grandmother's porridge

2010-03-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

Just about everyone knows that a big part of eating properly is to start your day with a healthy breakfast. None the less it's still the meal that people seem to struggle with more than any other.

Hey, we're all busy.
For me mornings are usually about hitting the snooze button one or two too many times, rushing to get ready for work while answering phone calls & questions from my opening crew, purveyors & clients. Taking time out, even if it's only five minutes, to prepare breakfast just doesn't fit in to my typical morning "schedule".
Of course as I'm out buying food & supplies on my way into the kitchen I find myself wanting something to eat.

I'm one of those people for whom the mornings are when I crave something sweet the most. In the days when I used to work in hotels, the aroma wafting off the racks of fresh baked breakfast pastries coming up from the bakeshop would call to me like a siren's song. These days the temptations usually take the form of grab & go coffee shop pastries.

They are quick, convenient and seem to fill the void. However after a night's sleep and usually too much of a delay before eating at all, a bunch of empty calories, sugar & simple carbs is exactly what you do not want to eat.

What you need is solid food with a good, complex fibrous carbohydrate like ... OATMEAL!

Yeah I know, "Oatmeal? Yuck."
To be fair though, have you seen the way most people cook oatmeal? Boiling it in just water or milk and maybe topping it with a little sugar: bor-ing.
How many other grains do you tend to eat that plainly? How often do you sit down to a meal of just plain boiled white rice?

Oatmeal is so good for you though and gives you good, long burning source of energy to get your day going. Can't get yourself started with out that triple grande latte? Try switching to oatmeal for a week. Find yourself running out of gas by late afternoon? Fill your tank with some oatmeal in the morning and see what kind of mileage you get out of your body.

There are a lot of different ways I like to prepare my oatmeal to make a breakfast I really enjoy. A simple tricks is cooking it in apple juice instead of water with a touch of cinnamon and some fruit like diced apple & dried cranberries. Just be sure you use an good, natural, unsweetened apple juice rather than some sugary crap.
Of course I highly recommend adding a source of lean protein into your breakfast as well. Hard boiled eggs are a favorite accompaniment of mine.

As tasty as the apple juice trick is, I often like to jazz up my oatmeal a bit more. Let me show you one of my favorites. It's tasty, healthy, satisfies my need for sweet in morning and made ahead of time it's convenient enough to fit into my hectic mornings.

Chocolate Cherry Banana Oatmeal

Makes 3 to 5 servings

1 1/2 cups Regular Rolled Oats Don't use quick oats.
3 cups water
2 ripe bananas, sliced
1/3 cup dried tart cherries I like the Dried Monterey Cherries they sell at Trader Joes
6 scoops Chocolate whey protein powder This is where it gets a little tricky. All protein powders are not created equal, in fact they are all very different in flavor as well as quality. For this recipe I used 6 scoops (1 1/4 cups) EAS brand. It's sold commonly in a lot of stores from Walgreens to Costco. GNC's "100% Whey" brand is also a good choice.

Combine the oats, water, bananas & cherries in a medium sauce pot.
Put it over medium heat and bring to simmer stirring occasionally.
I like to mash some of the bananas while I'm stirring.
Continue to simmer for 4 to 5 minutes until thick & creamy.
Many recipes tell you to add the oats to boiling liquid but starting it cold & bringing it to a gentle simmer produces a smoother, creamier result.
Remove from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes.
Stir in protein powder.

I like to do all this in the evening or on the weekend when I have time and then immediately divide into microwaveable containers that can be quickly zapped for a fast breakfast.

It's pretty rich and dividing this recipe into five gives you one cup portions that make a decent breakfast: 250 calories, 20 grams of protein, 40 grams of healthy carbs.

If you are particularly active & need a bigger boast in the morning if can be divided into 4 or even three portions.
At three portions it breaks down to 413 calories, 34 grams of protein & 69 grams of carbs. If you are working out regularly, that's a good choice for your morning meal.

I'm never going to claim that chocolate protein powder is as delicious as actual chocolate but with the added richness and sweetness of the fruit, this makes a very enjoyable morning meal.

Ten minutes of cooking yesterday and I have breakfast all set for the next few days and I'm ready to face the week.

New Digs

2010-03-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

I'm about to move my business to a new kitchen facility. Like any move I'm excited about the change but dreading the process. The next two weeks should be rather interesting for me.

I've been in my current kitchen since I started my business, 4 1/2 years ago. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for that space but it has become increasing troublesome in recent months. It's time to move on.

The new place lacks some of the equipment the other kitchen has but it offers plenty of perks that more than make up for it. It has more space, a better layout and an office. Hallelujah!
My days of doing paperwork at my personal version of the Thanksgiving kids table are nearly over.

Here are a couple quick shots of what it looks like at the moment.

As you can see, I've hardly moved anything in yet and that coffee service stuff off to one side is something the former tenant's that they have yet to take out.

Can I get my company moved and settled in two weeks? We'll find out.

Taste of the Irish

2010-03-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

How does an Irish American Chef cook his corned beef for St. Patrick's day?

Sure boiling it, as most people do, is fine but I like to put a little more pop into my corned beef.
My preference is to sear it and braise it with beer.

I cooked off 80 lbs for the holiday. This is one of the three big roasting pans that I used for them. I used my iPhone to take these pictures so apologies if the photo quality is not very good.

As you can see they have a good sear on them and a liberal sprinkling of pickling spice. What you can't see is that they are sitting on a bed of chopped onions and whole peeled garlic cloves.
Into that pot I poured two bottles of Red Hook Copper Ale and about a quart of tomato rich demi-glace. Then I covered it with foil and cooked in a low oven for six hours.

The result was fall apart tender corned beef that not only had the usual perfume-y saltiness but also had a rich, roasted caramel quality that was too delicious to hide with mustard.

Here is a where I cut of a few tasting slices just after it came out of the oven.

If I was doing it at home I would have added cabbage, carrots & potatoes to the pot for the last hour of the braise to allow all the flavors to blend. Working in professional quantities like I did, that wasn't practical.

The saddest part is that I didn't have leftovers as I was hoping to take home and enjoy. Those pesky customers ate it all up on me.
Oh well, I may have to make this again sometime soon just for my own pleasure.

Off I go

2010-03-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

After a bit more delay than I had intended I've started the P90X program.

Right now I'm two days in and frankly, I'm sore.
This morning I did the Plyometrics workout, which is a jumping style of cardio. I hope my downstairs neighbors aren't too mad at me for that.
My legs are really feeling the effects this evening from the morning's workout. I wonder how stiff I'm going to be when I wake up tomorrow.
The first day's workout, chest & back, hasn't left me as sore. That's probably because this is closer to a style of exercise that my body is used to.

One of my first impressions is that, had I only been watching these exercise routines rather than actually doing them I'd think they were far easier than they actually are.
Push ups and pull ups seem so much easier than lifting heavy weights to the observer and jumping up & down in various ways in 30 second spurts doesn't look like lung heaving cardio but this system has me feeling worn out in the first ten minutes of the hour long sessions.

Sticking to the schedule is going to be tricky for me. I've lost my two lead cooks at work & I'm still working or hiring and training their replacements. While that is happening I'm about to move my business from the kitchen I've had since since I started, to a new facility.
In addition I have some non-work thing to take care of as well. All work and no play is not my idea of a healthy lifestyle.
I have a few interesting weeks ahead of me. However I'm going to make my best effort to stick to the P90X program in the midst of everything else.
If I'm really good I may even find time to do some cooking at home and hopefully work on my photography.

Let's see how I do with all this.

Speaking of food & photography, prevailing wisdom in the blogging world is that photos make your posts more interesting.
So turning away from the exercise topic, last weekend was Mobile Chowdown 3 here in Seattle. Below are a few pictures showing a couple of the dishes from the Marination Mobile folks: their wonderful tacos, spam sliders and the delightfully pleasant smile with which your food is served.
If you haven't tried their fare you are missing out.

Worth much more than 1000 Words

2010-02-28T22:49:00.000-08:00

I've been reading the literature for the P90X workout program and learning what they want you to do before you begin working with the DVDs.
There's a basic fitness level test that they want you to take and pass before you start the program. It's nothing outlandish, 3 pull-ups for men, 1 for women, 15 push-ups for men, 3 regular or 15 from the knees for women, etc. There are other tests for strength, flexibility and the like.
It also gives you a place to write down your results so you can chart your progress from before you start the workout routines and then again after 90 days is over.

They also want you to take a photographs of yourself once before you start, again at 30 days, 60 days and finally after 90 days when you've completed the program. You're supposed to take a front view, shirt off picture (or with a sports bra on if you're a woman) with your hands on your hips, another with your arms raised to the side and curled in bicep flexes, two back shots just like the front views and one picture with a side view.
Don't worry I'll spare you posting them here, at least for now.

That got me thinking about how hard that can be, taking body shots of yourself especially when you feel like you're out of shape. I consider myself to be in decent shape and the idea still makes me a little uncomfortable.
That may sound odd to friends of mine who have known me to be, well, not exactly body shy but there's just something especially nerve wracking about having photos taken specifically for evaluation purposes.
However, I've come to realize taking those dreaded "before" photos is a damned good idea and I won't make the mistake again of skipping this step.

I believe I've mentioned on here before that although for much of my life I was the tall lean type, there was a period of time in my mid/late 30s that I started getting heavy and I really put on quite a few pounds. While I never got to the point that one might think of me as a fat guy, I did get quite a gut, pronounced love handles and soft, flabby arms .

Back then I was relatively new to Seattle. I was living with my girlfriend of the time, I had a few work friends but aside from that I didn't have a very large social circle. Even the couple local folks I knew from before I moved to Seattle I had very limited contact with for a couple years. I didn't even travel back home to visit old friends and family for the first couple years I was in Seattle.
Time went by and I managed to shed those excess pounds. My old girlfriend and I have long since parted, I left that job ages ago and have lost contact with just about everyone I knew from there.
It wasn't until after I started getting myself in shape that I started going out more, being more social and I began to meet the people that have become the wonderful circle of friends I now have. I've also since began traveling back east at least once a year to visit old friends.

The point of this long-winded piece of personal history is that when I tell friends I have now that I used to be heavy or at the very least, heavier, I sometimes get remarks to the effect of that's hard for me to picture, if not outright smirks of disbelief.
Last summer a couple of old friends came through Seattle to visit and the two of them went out to dinner with my girlfriend and me. Unprompted by me one of them pointed out to my girlfriend “you wouldn't know this to look at him now but Patrick got got fat there for a while”. The look on my girl's face, I could swear, was a look of Really? I always thought you were full of shit about that.
Of course I would never have to worry about any of these looks of disbelief if I only had some photographs of myself from back then.

There are a few different things that finally woke me up and got me motivated to change my diet and live a more active lifestyle. One that stands out very clearly in my mind is a snapshot my old girlfriend took of me back then. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and believe and I wasn't aware she was taking the picture at the time.
I remember when I first saw that photo, it was almost like I couldn't believe that was me; my stomach was hanging well over where my belt would've been, my arms looked bigger than they ever had before but not in a good way and my face looked puffy. However the thing that really struck me most about that photograph was that I just looked unhealthy.
Seeing myself look like that was startling and depressing.

It was quite a few years later when I went to go searching for photographic evidence of how heavy I had gotten, that I realized that I had no photographs of me from then. Even the photo I just described above I seem to have misplaced somewhere along the line. I swear I did not consciously get rid of that picture but some part of me obviously didn't want it around.

While I didn't have the interest in photography back then than I do now, I've always enjoyed taking pictures and I have photographs from just about every era of my life. During the time that I put on that extra weight though I apparently also put my camera in a drawer and forgot about it for while because I was taking no pictures back then. Again, I never consciously thought to myself that I wanted to avoid having my picture taken because I was out of shape. I think it must have just been some sort of an internal vanity self-preservation instinct that kept me from breaking out my camera.

Whatever it was, it's clear to me now that during that time I didn't want to be social, I dressed to hide my form and I clearly did not want to have my picture taken. I didn't even take pictures when I was joined a gym to mark my starting point. That was probably because I didn't have faith in myself that I stick to my plan and get myself in shape.

It's a shame because now I would really like to have photos of myself from back then. Certainly it might be a good thing to show on this blog. An image of how I looked at 35 compared to how I look at 45 might add a little bit of credibility to what I have to say.
For myself I wish I had pre-fitness pictures just to remind myself where I've been and what I can accomplish when I make the right choices.

So yes, before I start this P90X thing I'm going to take those photos. Even if I don't show them to anyone else, I'll have them for myself as either mementos of what I accomplished or reminders that I need to try harder next time.
None of us like the idea of being the “Before” picture but that is after all part of the process of becoming the “After”.

I'm really proud of Jamie Oliver

2010-02-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jamie from his Naked Chef books & TV show. Let's face it, the guy is simply very marketable as a celebrity chef. He's young, good looking and personable and his approach to cooking has kept with a consistent and accessible theme; keep it simple, fun & delicious.

What you may not know, is that he has also made healthy eating as a pet cause and has been active and effective in promoting it, especially in regards to children.
If you haven't watched his Eat to Save Your Life videos on You Tube I highly recommend taking 45 minutes out of your day to see it.

In 2005 he began a campaign to improve the meals in the British school system and now he has turned his attention to American school meals.

Of course, how do you bring an issue to the attention of the American people? You do it on TV. Take a look.

It premieres Friday March 26th on ABC and you can read more about it on his website.

Lean is flavor too.

2010-02-22T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before the old kitchen mantra Fat is Flavor; I used to hear it, and say it, all the time.
You don't hear it so much anymore. I'm not exactly sure why; it may just being fading from use the way a lot of the old kitchen slang has. I especially miss calling people "shoemaker" if their cooking is not up to par. If I caution my cooks these day to not get "shoe-y" in their work, I have to back up and explain what I meant. Sad to see the traditional insults be lost to history.
But I digress.

I think part of the reason that Fat is Flavor isn't used as much anymore may have something to do with the growing popularity of leaner cuts of meat. Certainly there is still plenty of fat to be found on restaurant menus; the pork belly trend alone is clear evidence of that.
However, the active use of special flap cuts, shoulder "tender", flank & pork tenderloin to name just a few, have made it clear that there is plenty of flavor to be found in the lean cuts as well.

Today I grilled up about sixty pounds of one of my favorite lean cuts for a customer of mine; boneless lamb loin. Hardly a whisper of fat but with lots of that sweet, delicious lamb flavor. If you haven't tried this cut before I highly suggest making a stop at your local butcher and picking some up.

I grilled up the stuff for my client today as you can see.

Even though I'm still sticking to mostly softer foods I couldn't resist sneaking a few thin slices: delicious.

A bump in the road

2010-02-21T21:33:00.000-08:00

The whole blogging thing to some extent is really an experiment for me. I'm trying to figure out if I have the talent to effectively share what I have learned and what I do in practical application each day via the written word.

One of the things I keep hearing as I try to learn more about the blogging process is that I need to "find my voice" and figure out who my audience is and to speak to them.
This all sounds very good and I'm certain is valuable and useful advice. I'm just not sure I fully understand it. I guess at this point I'm trying to find my voice and work out exactly what I want this blog to be. The food/fitness partnership is certainly a big part of it but I also want to include my photography as well. Plus I think it needs to be about me & my life to some extent. That is what any blog truly is, yes?

I want to share what I've experienced in the past, those things that have brought me to where I am today as well as certain things I have observed in working with others who are trying to find the balance of health, fitness and a happy, pleasureful life.

Of course I also need to talk about what's happening with me right now. After all living a healthy life is an ongoing process. It's nearly impossible to strike a perfect equilibrium with our bodies and our lives where we maintain a certain level of health without fluctuation. Our health is constantly in motion and are almost always either getting better or worse, more fit or less healthy, thinner or fatter. For most people this is a pendulum swinging back and forth and the real secret is to do as Scott Smith says "Be more gooder than badder".
It's okay to take that step backwards so long as you make sure to take those two steps forward as well.

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've hit one of those little bumps in the road that happens in all our lives. Nothing major mind you, but enough to throw me off my game as it were. I was thinking that I have nothing to write about because I wasn't working on anything positive that I should share. It occurs to me now that this is the kind of thing that should be shared as well. We all go off track and that should be every much a part of the blog as when I am scoring high on my diet, exercise and motivation points.

This current little bump in the road I've been facing is a dental matter of all things. It seems to have some sort of issue with my jaw in which I've lost bone in one area. Due to that my dentist told me that I had a few lower teeth that I was going to lose; it was only a matter of time. So after much discussion and second opinions it was decided that they were to removed these teeth preemptively before they became too painful and put in a bridge to replace them.
Well as these things tend to go the process hasn't been 100% smooth. Some 10 days after the initial procedure I'm still on pain medication and I still have trouble eating many foods. I don't need to tell you, this is gotten very old very quickly and I really want my mouth to get back in working order again.

The combination of being on constant medication and having a severely restricted diet has left me feeling weak, listless and completely without motivation.
While the reduced calories I've been able to take in have kept me from putting on excess fat, in fact I do believe I've lost some weight, my inability to take in a decent amount of animal protein combined with a lack of resistance training isn't doing much good for my muscle tone. Granted it's not much of a change, it has only been a couple weeks but I can feel the difference.
I miss the gym and I also know that having taken a break for this long starting back up again may require a bit of a push. I just hope that I can get off this medication soon because it's draining my strength and my will and that's not the way I like to live my life.

So what can I do before I doze off early on the couch? I can plan and I can prepare.

I've been thinking about doing some sort of change in my workout regimen. It's good to keep your body challenged by new activities and also I want to try different things just to see how my body reacts.
One of the workout programs has become very popular and I've heard some very good things about is Beach Body's P90X program. If you haven't heard about it or seen the infomercial it's a 90 day home workout program that uses only a pull-up bar, dumbbells (or resistance bands) and a workout mat along with DVDs of various exercises.

I am not a fan of fitness and weight loss products you buy off TV or anywhere else for that matter but from all reports this one does have some merit. If I'm going to keep myself abreast of fitness info and trends and be able to offer informed advice than I should at least investigate this a little bit myself.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Even if I don't feel up to working out at the moment I'm gathering info and planning my next step. I guess I'm trying to do is keep my head in the game and at the very least and keep some sort of momentum while I'm sitting still, if that makes any sense?

Everything I've read about P90X so far has made it seem relatively solid. So as it stands right now I'm thinking I may start this around the beginning of March. If that's what I end up doing I'll write about it here at all as you can keep me accountable.

Right now even though I may have pulled my car over to the side of the road, I still have my eyes focused further down the highway.

Boneless "short ribs"

2010-02-02T22:16:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make this post brief because tonight is after all the season premiere of LOST. Also after tonight Dexter is slotted to be removed from On-Demand and I haven't seen the finale yet. So I have "work" to do tonight. ;-)

The flap meat or "boneless short ribs" were a success, of the sort anyway. They came out tender and delicious although I believe they could've been better. Partially because they were cooked in a crockpot rather than a true braise in the oven but as I said before I was nervous about leaving them unattended in the oven for so long while I was at work. The crockpot was simply a safer choice.

Also next time, along with adding some herbs and other seasonings, I will increase the amount of red wine and let it reduce a bit before adding the meat and I will also decrease the amount of stock I use. Then again, ideally I would make a reduction sauce from the cooking liquid after the meet was finished. I didn't do that this time. I was testing out the quality of the meat first and foremost this time around.

Still, it was a delicious dinner and I look forward to making it again, the right way that time. In fact I think I may cook up some of this for Super Bowl. I'm not sure yet but it's a notion I'm kicking around.
Here's an idea of what the meat looked like when it was done.

Okay, enough of this, time for me to get to "work".

Local Flavor

2010-01-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

Eating more organic, local, sustainable foods has been a steadily growing trend over recent years. This is a very good thing in my opinion, for a number of reasons. Those who are trying to eat more in this fashion do it for reasons of environmental concerns, health concerns, supporting local small farmers or to cut down excess energy consumption among many other reasons.

The one that I'd like to talk about now though is the flavor aspect that foods of this nature bring to the table, literally.

I personally believe that a contributing factor to our food having more fats, more sugars and more salt is that the base ingredients for a lot of the foods we eat have become less flavorful. Large-scale commercial farming quite simply gives us blander food. The same processes that make our vegetables less nutritious; practices such as replanting the same crop on the same land year after year, using chemical fertilizers that replace a fraction of the natural nutrients there should be in the soil, the speeding up of the growth cycle as well as picking fruits and vegetables before they are nearly ripened in order to make them transportable and storable not only deprives them of nutrients, it also deprives them of flavor.
If you doubt this it easily tested, simply go to a local farmers market and by an organic carrot and then go to your local supermarket and buy a commercially farmed one. Cut them both into sticks and taste them side-by-side. I think you'll be surprised by the difference in flavor and quality.

Commercial food producers are forced to add more salt, sweeteners and the like to their products in order to make up for the flavors their ingredients lack.

Simply put if you're eating local and organic you're eating better, you're eating healthier, you're supporting your community and you're supporting the planet. It's a win all around.
Plus, I really like the idea of shaking the hand that grows your food and your local farmers market is one of your best opportunities to do that.
Not everyone has access to year-round farmers markets but even if you don't, spring is coming and with it, for most of us, that means local produce. Here's a resolution you might want to try making for the coming year. As soon as your local farmers market is open resovle to make a shopping trip there at least once a week to stock up on whatever produce you can use. It's a habit you be glad you've gotten yourself into. Besides it's just so much cooler to get food from Rick the lettuce man, Jerry the vegetable guy, Bob the mushroom forager and Mary & Phil the apple growers rather than getting all that from Super-value Mart.

Okay, let's talk some cooking. I went to a local farmers market today, the Ballard market for those of you in Seattle, and picked up some lovely carrots, parsnips, onions, and garlic among other things.
One of my purveyors gave me a sample of flap meat, a cut becomes just above where the short ribs. Being a food service professional free samples like that are one of the perks you get sometimes.
Now a lot of Asian and Mexican places will take us cut and do a hot fast cook on it but I want to try cooking it slowly like I would short ribs. Now normally I would do that at about 200° for about 12 hours and if I was cooking is at work I would do that on a braising pan in the oven. However, I'm making these at home and plan on having for dinner tomorrow night with my lady friend. So I'm going to cook some in my crockpot. I just feel safer doing that than leaving my oven on unattended all day.
I prepped them up tonight and tomorrow when I get up Ill start them on low and by the time I get home from work they will hopefully be tender and delicious.
Since this is the first time I'm testing out this particular cut I'm going to keep the seasoning simple and let the meat and vegetables do the talking. So I just coated the four pieces of meat with kosher salt and cracked black pepper and seared them on all sides in a hot pan. Then took them out of the pan and placed them in the crockpot insert.

Here they are:

It may be hard to tell from the picture but I have a large crock pot and there's enough meat in that pot to easily feed eight or nine people. When it comes to cooking dinner at home that's kind of how I like to roll. When I go to the effort of making a good hearty meal I like having leftovers around to enjoy later in the week. After all, with all the cooking I do at work it's nice being able to come home at night and not have to worry about cooking there as well, at least not every night.

Anyway, getting back to it, while the meat was searing I was dicing up one large onion half dozen of those beautiful carrots and four small but very nice parsnips. I also peeled one whole bulb of garlic.
When the meat was out of the pan I kept the heat on high and I poured off the excess fat. Now I know that that fat is flavor but that little bit is really not needed. This meat has plenty of intramuscular fat, or marbling as it's also called, that will slowly cook out tomorrow the crockpot. I'll be able to skim that off but the meat will still retain a lot of that flavor:
& delicious. *wink*
I then added e onions to the pan and let them start the cook and get a little color to them. I like starting the onions first because I like them to be a little bit more caramelized than the other vegetables. That's just my personal taste.
As soon as they started getting some color I added in the carrots and parsnips and allowed them to start to caramelize as well. I waited until the end before putting the garlic because I wanted to be careful not to let that darken.
Here are the veggies in the pan when they were almost but not quite done getting the color I wanted:

As soon as the veggies got to the color I wanted added about 3 cups of red wine. Now I could've added fresh herbs or more spices but as I said before a want let the meat and veggies do the talking on this one. So I turned off the heat and used my wooden spoon to scrape along the bottom of the pan to free up all this delicious little cooked bits of meat and veggie that were stuck there. Then I poured all this over top of the meat and I'm then letting it cool right now a bit before putting it in the fridge.

Tomorrow morning I'll put the insert into the crock pot and turn on low and I'll add probably about a quart of beef stock. When I put the lid on I'll put it slightly ajar. A fully closed lid even on low with my crockpot could have the mixture coming up to a medium simmer and that's hotter than I want it to get. With the lid slightly ajar the excess it to be for the long, slow braise.

Tune in tomorrow and I'll let you know how it came out.

Pyramid scheme

2010-01-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

We've all heard of the food pyramid. Well check out this activity pyramid courtesy of the University of Missouri. It even has a food bar graph of sorts included for good measure.

Take a look at the web page here.

Talking turkey

2010-01-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick cautionary note about ground turkey and turkey burgers.
I saw an article some time ago in Men's Health magazine, the same people who put out the Eat This, Not That books, about how ground turkey is often no leaner than ground beef. By example Ruby Tuesday's turkey burger, without cheese mind you it is, according to them 1171 calories with 58 g of fat. That folks is a very unhealthy burger. That's significantly worse in fact the many fast food burgers.

I'm assuming many of you know this already but just to be clear, if you're buying ground turkey for yourself at home make sure you buy ground turkey breast. Ground turkey breast is a great source of lean protein but the other varieties of ground turkey while sometimes quite tasty, don't really give you the health benefits that most people are seeking when they buy ground turkey over say ground beef or ground pork.

The real caution to want to give you here though is be careful of ordering turkey burgers or other ground turkey items and restaurants. I use ground turkey breast a lot for my clients; not just for burgers but also for chili, stuffed peppers, enchiladas and taco salads just to name a few examples off the top of my head. Of course, I always buy ground turkey breast because after all, my clients are paying me to give them lower calorie, a more healthful options.

Yesterday however, by purveyors sent me the wrong product and I got just a normal restaurant case of ground turkey. I hadn't seen a product like this in quite a while and one of the first things that jumped at me was reading the label is not only was it not ground turkey breast but they actually added in fat.
That's right, they took the non-lean fattier pieces (well, scraps to be more accurate) of turkey and then added an extra turkey fat, 24% added fat in fact according to the label. Presumably that was done to stretch it so the meat company to get more money per pound.

The point is that this is the kind of product that most restaurants that are serving turkey burgers are selling. Not only is this not as healthful for you as beef they actually go out of their way to make it less healthy & more calorie dense.
So if you're out and you get a hankering for a burger, quite often you would be better off with good old-fashioned ground beef rather than the "healthier" option of a turkey burger.

Sad but I thought you should know.

Staying resolved

2010-01-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

So everyone, how are those New Year's resolutions coming?
We are after all, coming up on the end of that first month. I am of course talking about those of you who have made resolutions to lose weight, shape up, or just live healthier.

This is the time each year that I see people giving in, giving up or just conveniently forgetting about the whole thing. Soon those excess crowds in the gym will start to significantly dwindle and the volume on the workout floor calms down to more normal levels.

It's hard isn't it? Having to deny yourself, avoid the good stuff and and constantly keep putting in the work. Especially when your goals seem so far away sometimes. It seems so long before you can stop all this and just start enjoying yourself again.

Then again, maybe that's the problem. If you're looking at this as a means to an end, if you're thinking that once you lose X amount of weight or get yourself down to a size what ever, then you can give up this diet crap and stop going to the gym, then you're setting yourself up for failure.
Worse yet, you may be setting yourself up for yo-yo dieting. You know, the practice of losing weight on some sort of a diet then gaining it back again then doing the diet or some other diet and losing it again so that your weight is going up and down repeatedly. Many health professionals consider this to be even less healthy than just being consistently overweight. I'm no doctor but at the very least it seems like a waste of effort me.

If you want to get healthy, I mean really get healthy, lose the weight you want to lose and keep it off then you're going to have to get beyond the idea of temporary solutions. To be a healthy person you need to adopt and embrace unhealthy lifestyle. This doesn't mean giving up forever things like pizza and beer and pasta Alfredo and chocolate cake or ice cream or any of the other things you may love to to indulge yourself with.

What it does mean is you're going to have to start living at a calorie deficit, a reasonable calorie deficit, until you get down to the weight you want to maintain. You're going to have to incorporate healthy food into your diet on a regular basis and you're going to have to move your body in order to burn calories and maintain your muscles and support a healthy cardiovascular system. Did you know that as you get older, past the age of 30, your body you will slowly but steadily lose muscle mass year after year unless you stimulate the growth of new muscle tissue through exercise. When you lose muscle mass your body with burns less calories and you are then able to eat less without gaining unwanted weight.

I know, none of this sounds like good news. However if you approach it reasonably and with a positive attitude you'll find that there is a lot and I mean a lot of really delicious food is good for you out there.
Also, there are plenty of ways to burn calories and exercise your body that can be extremely fun. It's all a matter of thinking about what you enjoy doing that active and get your body moving your muscles working and your heart pumping. Do enjoy cycling, hiking, playing volleyball, yard work or swimming? Perhaps there's some game or activity you haven't tried yet or used to enjoy years ago but hadn't done a long time. Fortunately now with the Internet it's easy to find activities and groups around us that might actually be quite fun as well as healthy.
Enjoy volleyball? Then Google volleyball and your town and see if there any groups around you can join. Want to start running but don't want to do it alone? Go to meetup.com and look for running groups in your area. Actually, meetup.com is a great resource for finding groups to help you with all aspects of losing weight, being more active and just getting healthy.

As far as the food part goes, There are tons of books available and recipes on the Internet for lower calorie but quite delicious food. And yes, as I work more on this blog and begin to flesh things out I will be giving you some strategies and tips to help you put together easy and tasty food that also just happens to be good for you; even if you "don't cook". You'll just have to ask you to be patient with me for now and keep in mind that this blog is sort of an experiment for me and I'm just figuring out how I want to do this.

For now, as we near the end of the first month of the new year, I would ask you to reframe in your mind but that resolution you made four short weeks ago. Instead of focusing on all the foods you are not allowing yourself to eat, at least not nearly as much, anymore; think in terms of the wonderful vegetables and fruits that you rarely eat that you want to start incorporating more regularly into your diet.
Instead of dreading having to force yourself to work out, start thinking about active things you can do that might actually be fun for you. After all, people often talk about wishing children would spend more time outside playing; maybe it's time you incorporated some more play in your life as well.

Happy New Year! Are you ready to take a bite out of 2010

2010-01-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

“There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.”
~Mark Burnett

I like this quote a lot. I just heard it the other day and it really struck a chord with me.
If you ever listen to the motivational speaker types you'll occasionally hear the term "limiting beliefs". I not a huge fan of self empowerment buzz terms but there really is something to this idea. We all have notions of what we are and are not capable of accomplishing.
Certainly some of these are just simple reality. For instance, I'm a 45 year old man. I think I can state with confidence that it is beyond my capacity to make the Olympic women's gymnastic team, no matter how much I apply myself. OK, that may be an extreme example but you get my point.

The thing is that far too often we sell ourselves short on just what we can accomplish. And the really insidious part is that sometimes we don't even realize that we are harboring these limiting beliefs. If someone were to ask you if you think you could ever run a marathon or fit into a size 5 again or run your own business you may honestly answer "Sure, if I were to apply myself and remain focused I could get myself there in X amount of time". However there might be that little inside voice, or maybe just a hidden assumption that puts day dreams like that in the same category as dreams of flying like superman or being the first person on Mars. A nice little fantasy but ... come on, let's be real.

A few years ago I took one of those be all you can be weekend seminars. Yeah, yeah, I know but I had just gone through a break up that left my heart in tatters, I hated the job I had and basically I felt directionless. A dear friend of mine who was, and still is, involved with this particular education group talked me into taking the three day seminar.
If I hadn't been at such a low point I never would have done it but in retrospect I'm glad I did.
Yeah the group uses a ton of those buzz terms I dislike so much and the people there can at times be a little on the overly upbeat side but behind all the lectures, exercises and warm fuzzies of a very long weekend there were some valuable core lessons.
Among them was that because you are a human being living in the world you have certain assumptions about yourself, others and life in general. Assumptions that sometimes you don't even realize you've made but still affect how you live and many of the major decisions in your life.
I hadn't realized how many of the options in life that lay before that I had written off as beyond my abilities before I ever knew I wanted them.

A couple months after taking the seminar I gotten past the emotional funk I was in, I quit that awful job and started my own business. This put me on a path that allowed me to get rid of the debt I had lived under for my entire adult life and buy my own home. None of that would have happened if I had not recognized and confronted the deep down, bedrock assumptions I had about myself. Among them were that I just wasn't a business man, that I would always be in debt, that I would always live hand to mouth & never be able to put together a down payment for a home.

I remember when I saw Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor movie; at the end when he had conquered the conflict of the movie, won the heart of the girl of his dreams and had made the decision that he was going to change his life and lose weight he told his girl "I'm going to lose weight but I'll always be big". I thought to myself, really? That's the triumphant moment? I'll take off some of the weight but I'm always going to be a fat guy?
If that's your choice, to be a heavyset person, so be it and Gods bless you. However if your desire is to lose weight and be, well, let's say for now "not fat", then you may want to take a close look inside and see if you've already decided you can't do it.

A lot of people have that mindset. Once you know what to listen for you can often hear it in the way people speak about themselves. Many have reasons they use to fortify their beliefs like genetics or environment or because they have children and still many more just have internally cast themselves in the role of the fat person. The simple self limiting belief that you will always be overweight can sabotage your efforts before you begin.

Right now it's the first week of the new year and just like every year at this time the gyms are full of newcomers. That's a wonderful thing. Alright, it does make parking a pain in the ass but aside from that, it's good.
And just like every year those crowds will have dwindled back down to normal levels by Valentines day. Many of those that give up do so because they have no faith in their own ability to succeed in significantly changing their health & their fitness level.

If getting in shape is one of your goals in 2010 then I challenge you to not be one of those who gives up on it. Losing excess body fat and/or building up some of that muscle you've always wanted is within your control. I want you to believe it, to know it deep down inside.

It's not going to happen overnight and there are no magic bullets for this. You need to alter your lifestyle to a point that you are mostly eating a reasonable, balanced diet that is a bit lower in calories and you are moving your body enough to burn some fat and at least maintain if not increase your muscle mass.
This doesn't have to be done all at once. In fact, the best way, in my opinion, is to keep making little changes in your diet & activity level.

Before you know it those little bites of change you keep chewing on have you accomplishing something that you may have thought you never could and the way that feels, the realization that you can become what you had thought was beyond your grasp, well as Mark Burnett said, there is nothing like it.

A Chef's approach to eating lighter, losing weight, and getting in shape .... Part 3

2009-12-31T08:35:00.000-08:00

This is the conclusion of a three part post.
You'll want to read Part 1 and Part 2 before continuing here.

I discovered that I had already had the tools to eat well but healthier. I even used a related approach to incorporate exercise into my life. Yes that's right, you are going to have exercise in some fashion. Believe me, anyone who tells you that you can lose weight and especially keep the weight off without moving your body is lying to you. Don't stop reading though. Trust me, we are going to make this doable, even fun.

It was later though, after I had decided to merge my love for cooking with my interest in health and started a business specializing in preparing food and menu plans for people seeking to lose weight that I made some really startling discoveries.

First and foremost, I found out that I wasn't unique. I really thought that the situation of my career and associated lifestyle made me a special case when it came to the challenges of losing weight. Or maybe it was because Mama always told me I was special.

The truth is that we are all constantly surrounded by temptation. Whether it is the doughnuts someone brought into the office, the fast food places we pass by every day, the processed foods that litter supermarkets or the commercials on TV. Fattening, unhealthy food is waved in front of all of our faces all the time.

The truth is that most of us live and work with friends and colleagues who don't share our desire to lose weight. It's no secret that carrying a few or even quite a few extra pounds has become very common these days. Weight loss “buddies” can be hard to come by for many of us. In fact, as I'll discuss later, we may even be better off without one.

The truth is that we all have busy lives. Just about everyone has to at least occasionally “eat on the run” or “grab a quick bite” or have a “working lunch.” We often don't have time to seek out healthy choices and tracking the calories we eat just isn't going to happen.

The truth is, the need to eat quick, convenient meals is a primary cause for many people's unwanted weight gain. Fear not, this is another negative we are going to turn into a positive.

As time went on and I worked with more and more people who were trying to lose weight I began to see patterns emerge.
I realized that for many people, weight issues are not always so much about what they eat as much as what they don't eat, how they eat, where they get their food and how they schedule their meals.
If you are willing to be a bit more conscious about your eating habits you may just find that you are able to better food and often more food and begin to lose some of those unwanted pounds.

It may be as easy as doing a little fine tuning to your lifestyle to put yourself on the path of feeling better, looking better and living in a healthier body.

The question you need to ask yourself, are you ready and willing to give yourself a tune up?

I've been a busy boy

2009-12-17T23:05:00.000-08:00

Such is the life of a chef during the holiday season. Although to be fair not all my time has been filled with work. I have had my own share of holiday events and celebrations that I've been attending as a guest instead of as the caterer.

Still, the holidays offer so much to talk about on the subjects of food & fitness, I feel bad for neglecting the blog.
Bad blogger, Patrick, bad blogger!!

I know many of us are concerned about the effect the holiday season has on our waistlines. All the celebrations, all the wonderful seasonal foods and worst of all is that most of us are running around with too much to do. When we have to "grab something quick" is when we tend to make the worst dietary choices. While home cooked dinners and party food may seem especially fattening, it's more often than not the fast food, convenience food and chain restaurants that account for most of the excess baggage we wish we weren't carrying around.

So during this hectic season, try to start your day with a healthy breakfast, try to keep good food around for the times when you have to grab a quick bite and above all enjoy the holidays. Savor the flavors of the season at holiday events and don't beat yourself up about it. While it's good to pay attention to how you eat between Thaksgiving and New Year; it's much more important to eat wisely between New Year and Thanksgiving.

Once the season calms down I'll have more to say and more pictures to post. I'm just barely getting started here after all. Until then, I hope you are enjoying the season, eating well and feeling great.

For now here is a sweet image for your holidays, Trophy Cupcakes' Candied Yam variety.

Spooning

2009-12-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy week with all the work, fun & deliciousness of Thanksgiving. Which of course was followed by the recovery, cleaning up, enjoying of leftovers and then hitting the gym hard to work off those extra Thanksgiving calories.

So I haven't posted in over a week, I need to get cracking on this. I still have the third and final installment of "A Chef's Approach..." to write. It's an introduction of sorts I want to complete before addressing various specific topics individually.

I intend to have that finished later this week.

Right now though the topic is photography. I've been looking at some of my shots that use spoons to add a little pizzaz (I'm throwing jazz hands when I say that) to the picture.
Here are three that I've taken recently in which I chosen a spoon shot to the the pic for that dish.

The one of a Masala Spiced Chicken Stew that I made is probably my favorite of the three. This was simmering on my stove when I took the shot and I had to hold the camera and shoot with my left hand while holding the spoon with my right. That was tricky.
There was a slight bit of pour coming off the spoon but I think what it really added was some depth to the basically flat surface of the stew and the shadow beneath it added some nice bit of contrast & texture.

This is an OK shot of some apple crisp I made. It's nice but doesn't wow me.
The focus in on the spoonful of crisp and it's really needed here to show the apples in the dish. In this one I had my lovely assistant hold the spoon for me. That was much easier.

This is my newest shot of the Quince-Cherry Cookies I made the other night. I used the spoon in this one to try to create an active sense of preparation with the Cider Glaze. I think I was marginally successful with that but what really makes the shot, in my opinion, is the red plate against the featureless black backdrop. Amazing what a macro lens can do with a dark wood table and the night sky outside the window behind it.

This was a new cookie recipe I worked out the other night. Since you have been so patient as to read all the way through this, I'll give you the recipe if you wish to have it. I hope you relish it as much as I. :)

Quince-Cherry Cookies with Cider Glaze

Ingredients
1 cup dried tart cherries
½ cup bourbon
½ cup butter or margarine
1 1/3 cups packed light brown sugar
1 egg
¼ cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon allspice
2 cups finely diced peeled quince

CIDER GLAZE:
1 ½ cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon butter, melted
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons 1/6th apple cider reduction

Directions
1.Plump cherries in the bourbon over low heat until liquid is mostly gone.
2.In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and brown sugar. Beat in egg, milk and any remaining bourbon. Combine the flour, baking soda, and spices; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in quince and cherries.
3.Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-10 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Remove to wire racks.
4.In a small bowl, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, salt and enough cider reduction to achieve drizzling consistency. Drizzle over cooled cookies.

Thanksgiving week begins

2009-11-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

As we enter the holiday week my thoughts turn (even more) to delicious things.
I thought this photo I took a few weeks ago of Apple Pie with Whipped Cream & Caramel Sauce taken in front of the fire would be a nice way to start the week.

I can see a few things about this photo I'd like to improve but I still like if overall.

A Chef's approach to eating lighter, losing weight, and getting in shape .... Part 2

2009-11-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

This is the continuation of an earlier post.
You'll want to read Part 1 before continuing here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, I embarked on my own mission to find a way to not only lose weight but also put on some muscle and get healthy. You do know that losing weight and improving your health do not necessarily go hand in hand, right?
I decided I would find a way to achieve my fitness & health goals without ripping all the decadent pleasures from my life.
The really weird thing is that I actually did it. I lost the all the excess weight I had put on and then some. I toned up and put on more muscle mass by far than I had ever had in my life before and I entered into my 40's in the best shape of my life.

Of course, it wasn't simple. It could have been much easier had I known then what I know now. However I took a much less direct path, filled with plenty of trial and error on my way to a healthier, trimmer body. There was the aforementioned bad advice fom those trying to sell products and gimmicks. There were the diet plans that work for a short period of time if they work at all and usually left me feeling hungry and deprived.
Then there were the various processed diet foods and weight loss supplements. Now those actually worked. My wallet lost a bunch of weight from buying them. My belly may have been hanging over my belt but my wallet had six pack abs.

It took a little while for me to realize that what I thought was my greatest obstacle in losing weight, my career and passion for fine food, was actually my greatest stength. I understood food and how to work with and create flavor. I also knew which products and cooking techniques were fattening and which were healthy. I could make healthy, lighter food taste good.
Correction, I could make it taste GREAT.

I also realized that when you have been working in my profession long enough you develop and understanding of how people eat and relate to food. Simply stated, people often don't realize what they are hungry for. I know that sounds a little odd but I'm going to ask you to trust me about this for now.

What we do as restaurant and catering chefs is not as simple as make delicious food and the people will come. There are techniques we use to gently nudge the way you eat this way and that.
Sometimes we use such methods so that you feel full and satisfied at the end of your meal while not having to give you too much of the “center of the plate” item which is generally the most costly item for us to serve.
We also do little things to encourage you to order more food from us than you may have done without our nudging.
If we are serving a buffet or catering event where we are paid a set price no matter how much the guests eat, it's in our best interests to guide you to eat less or eat the items that don't cost us as much to serve while still making everyone feel like they have gotten their money's worth. Let's face it though; if you were really getting your money's worth then we wouldn't have a very profitable business model, would we?

The unfortunate part of this is that whether we are trying to get you to eat less or eat more, we are pretty much never trying to get you to eat healthy. When it comes to making you feel sated while keeping costs low, salt, fats, sugar and simple carbohydrates are an easy out for many professional kitchens.

However I realized that these very same techniques that are all to often used to get us to make poor dietary choices can also be used to guide us toward eating better. In essence I found that I could use my powers for good as well as evil.
So that is what I did, even if just on myself at first. I was able to eat well, that is, really enjoy the food I had and in portions that didn't leave me hungry all the time. I was able to do it conveniently because even I, a cooking professional, don't have time to spend making involved meals for myself all the time.
I was still able to go out and treat myself to fine food and drinks without having to ask the waiter for steamed vegetables and sauce on the side. Not that either of those is a bad thing, but when I go out for dinner, I like to experience the food the way the Chef intended. In fact for me, that's often the point of going to a restaurant. Besides, as much as I believe in delicious yet healthy food, I can assure you that there is no such thing as a decent, low-calorie crème brulee. And to me, a world without crème brulee just isn't a world in which I want to live.

------------ To be concluded -------------------

Citrus Caviar?

2009-11-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

It's always fun when my produce gal brings me something I've never seen before. Yesterday she had a mixed box of exotic citrus including the Australian Finger Limes. Very cool little things. You break them in half and squeeze the bottom and these little caviar-like nodules of citrus deliciousness come oozing out.
Just a few of these will add a nice like pop of tartness on top of an hors d'oeurve or any style of dish really.

And yes, that's a dime behind it to give perspective.

You belong on your journey

2009-11-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

I've been making a conscious effort to be more outgoing in the gym.
I don't ever intend to become one of those guys who uses the gym as a pickup place or even someone who spends half their time leaning on equipment chatting away. However perhaps keeping the iPod turned up and staying lost in a workout fugue state isn't exactly model gym behavior either.

That point struck me when I ran into a fellow gym rat on the street some time ago and realized that I've been around this person a few times a week for literally years and I don't know their name, I've never spoken with them or even exchanged a courtesy "hello".
There's being focused on my workouts and then there is just being weirdly antisocial. Don't misunderstand me. I do on occasion have conversations with fellow gym members. I'm just concerned that being too focused on myself might make me come across as unfriendly. And as those of you who know me are aware, I'm delightfully charming. ;)

So now, while I still mostly keep to myself and stay "in the zone", if I happen to catch someone's eye I make a point of offering a friendly greeting or at least a smile and a nod.

Today I came upon a woman by the water fountain who I have seen a number of times recently and have said hello to at least once before. She's a rather heavyset woman but I've noticed that she is certainly trying.
I asked her "How's it going?" and she gave me a small smile and replied "OK, I guess". Then she shook her a little and added "I sometimes wonder what I'm doing here. Everyone else is so fit and I feel like the big girl that everyone comments about."

I've heard this kind of remark before but never actually in the gym and never directly to me. It's a topic I've given some thought so I laid out my thoughts to her.
Rather than try to remember my exact phrasing, I'll just write them like any other blog post. I hope my words were of help to her.

I've been a regular member of a number of gyms over the years and while, as I mentioned above, I've never been Mr. Fitness Club Social Networker; I have been around enough to know the attitudes of regular gym goers.
I have never heard anyone make negative comments about any other gym member's size or fitness level. While I'm not going to say it never happens I do know that for the vast majority of gym goers, a remark like that would be reprehensible.

There is an understanding and respect for anyone who walks through those doors, anyone who is making the effort. Every one of us in there is on a journey. We all started at different places, we all are at different points along the way and we all are headed someplace different. However we all know what it is like to start, to feel out of place and to wonder how long and how much work it will take to make any progress.

And as far comparing ourselves to other people in the gym; just like the newbies, everyone is looking at those who appear to be in better shape than they are. Because no matter how fit you are, there is someone else in the gym who is thinner, fitter, more muscular, better toned and/or has more endurance than you do. And every one of us is thinking "I wish I had their .

If you are on the journey, if you are willing to walk through that door and try, then you belong there .... and you are one of us.

A Chef's approach to eating lighter, losing weight, and getting in shape .... Part 1

2009-11-17T21:40:00.000-08:00

Right from the start, I'll acknowledge that when one starts thinking about whose advice to seek out in order to help them lose weight, shape up, and live a healthier lifestyle, a chef probably isn't the first person most people think of. After all, the classic image of a chef in most people's minds isn't exactly the lean, fit, athletic type. Usually when we think of a chef, the image that comes to mind is a portly, somewhat effete gentleman, often with an accent, an over sized mustache and, of course, holding a large plate of tempting, but hardly healthy, food. The kind of guy you'd love to have cook you dinner but not exactly your first pick to be on your team in a game of softball.
Granted, with the rise in popularity of food TV and celebrity chefs, the image in many people's minds of what a chef looks like has expanded in recent years. Yet, still to this day, when I meet someone and tell them what I do for a living, it's not uncommon for them to respond “Really? You don't look like a Chef!” Understanding what they mean by this I usually respond “Thank you.”

Some years ago there was a slogan that you could find printed on novelty cook's aprons, hats, t-shirts and even bumper stickers, “Never Trust a Skinny Cook.” Since in my younger days I was rather thin, that saying got tossed in my direction fairly often. Always with a sense of good natured teasing of course, but still something about that saying always bugged me. I think it was because that what it said to me at the time was that if I didn't clearly over indulge in my own craft, that I obviously wasn't very good at it.

I learned a response to that phrase from a co-worker of mine. “Yeah, well a fat cook is like a drunk bartender.”
OK, it's probably not a very good analogy but it was a gentle way to snap back without going into a soliloquy about long hours, hot kitchens, no time to actually eat what I was cooking, etc.
However, I didn't have to worry about responding to that remark for very long because the time soon came that the term “skinny cook” no longer applied to me. And it was then that I realized what was probably the real underlying meaning of that slogan. Yeah, I'm overweight, but I have a passion for fine food and cooking and an unhealthy, overweight body is that price of that passion. And that meaning bothered me even more.

So that was it? Since I lived in the world of cooking and dining, I was doomed to be out of shape, overweight and probably in poor health? Talking to my colleagues at the time about it seemed to reinforce that idea. It seemed like everyone I spoke with about how I was getting heavier, came back with a response like “Yeah, what are you gonna do? That's just the way it is with us.” Or “Sure you can lose weight if you want to give up eating anything good.”
Then, when I decided to look outside the culinary world to find out what I needed to do in order to reverse the direction in which my body and health were headed, it seemed like all the standard advice from the diet experts wouldn't work for me.

How was I to remove temptation from around me when I worked with and around non-diet food, some of it extremely non-diet, on a daily basis?
How was I to avoid snacking between meals when it was part of my job to taste test the food my crew was creating?
And keeping count of calories in that situation? Are you kidding me?
As far as finding a diet/accountability partner with whom to share the effort; I don't know how much you know about the culture of the restaurant world. Suffice to say that my colleagues and peer group wasn't exactly full of people interested in living a healthy lifestyle.
Speaking of lifestyle, I didn't exactly live the life of Jack la Lane myself. I worked long, erratic hours. My social life consisted of late night drinks with friends and dining at the most decadent restaurants I could afford. And when I wasn't going out I was, and quite frankly still am, a bit of a couch potato. What can I say? I'm a child of the TV generation.
Was I going to have to give up my social life and my beloved TV?

However, my biggest concern was having to give up eating the foods that I so dearly loved. I lived in a world where sauces were started and finished with butter, cream was its own food group, and we lived by the words “fat is flavor.”

So I finally concluded that if I really wanted to do this, I was going to have to find my own way. I could do that couldn't I? After all, we all pretty much know what we need to do in order in order to eat a more healthy diet and lose those extra pounds, don't we? It's not like there are scores of “experts” out there bombarding us with false claims and conflicting reports after all.
Oh wait....

Don't worry, if you care to follow along I'm going show you my method for navigating through all that mess.

---- To be continued ---------

ART @ the Four Seasons Hotel

2009-11-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

Dinner tonight at ART.
I like the menu style. It had comfort food inspired dishes that are done with upscale style. Delicious dinner with excellent service to boot.

The only halfway decent photo I was able to get of anything with my iPhone was of one of my cocktails; a Pisco Sour.

Sometimes I'm just itching to bring my SLR with me when I eat at a place like that. So many of the dishes were photo worthy but I just can't bring myself to be that tacky.
Is there some trick/technique/move that I'm missing that other food photography enthusiasts use to get pictures at fine dining restaurants?

Culinary win, photography fail, good friends make it all worthwhile

2009-11-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

Last night I hosted a birthday cocktail party in my home for my dear friend Jennifer. It's been a little while since I've entertained a large group here and I can't think of a more appropriate occasion to kick off what is for me, the entertaining at home season.

I love cooking professionally but there is something, dare I say magical?, about cooking for friends. Of course cooking for those you love is extra special and then there is the added dimension of sharing the meal and the event with those for whom you've cooked.

Jennifer had, after much prompting and badgering from me for her preferences, asked for small bites and finger food. She said she loves things in pastry, and mentioned baked brie en croute specifically. She also expressed a liking for traditional shrimp cocktail.

It had been a while since I made and enjoyed just a regular shrimp cocktail. Sometimes I think I might get too wrapped up in trying new things and experimenting with ideas. It's good to keep in mind that many classics are classics for a reason. I was really enjoying those shrimp and judging by the way the bowl got emptied, our guests were too.
They are also rather healthy and protein rich app. Just try to avoid the sugary, high calorie cocktail Go with a spicier recipe and keep it thin. You don't want to get a tablespoon of sauce on each shrimp anyway. The goal is to taste the shrimp, not just the sauce.

I made a baked brie in puff pastry. I topped the brie with spiced, roasted quince to add some sweetness & depth of flavor. It worked. :)
This is one of those hors d'oeurves you want to reserve for special occasions because it will catch up with you.

The menu also included ahi tuna bruschetta, phyllo bundles of duck & crisp vegetables, a peanut noodle salad with scallops and my friend Julian brought chorizo stuffed calamari. He cooked them on the grill and the result were these two bite explosions of smokey, spicy flavor.

The item I was most personally pleased with, because it was and experiment, was my lamb wellington. I pastry wrapped lamb loin and instead of mushroom I made a chestnut duxelle for it. I was really pleased with the flavor and how well the silver dollar sized held together when sliced and plattered. Along with a dish of red wine demi to drizzle over it I thought it made a really nice hors d'oeurve. And again, it's a nice lean protein with a little bit of pastry and the chestnut duxelle was very light.

Of course, I would have had photos of all this to share with you but I somehow managed to accidentally change a setting on my flash and it suddenly wasn't working. Since I was busy hosting and to be fair, drinking, I wasn't going to fool with the thing mid-party and try to figure out what I did wrong. So, no photos of all the wonderful food I mentioned. :(

The one thing I did make a point to get some photos of was the cake.
Jennifer and I enjoy watching the Food Network cake sculpting competitions together. Hey, we're food geeks after all. ;)
And if you are familiar with those shows at all you probably know that Redmond's own Mike's Amazing Cakes is one of the best cake sculptors in the country. So it seemed only appropriate to get her cake from there.

Important things to know about Jennifer is that among her many interests, she loves her shoes and has an amazing shoe collection. She is an avid reader and has an impressive book collection. She also collects Disney snow globes.

So here is the cake as delivered.

Here is a closeup of the work. Hard to believe it's a cake, huh?

And finally here is the complete cake including the snow globe topper.

Tooting my own horn.

2009-11-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

The good folks at MyChefbyRequest.com, a wonderful company for whom I prepare food, were kind enough to put put a profile of me in this month's Seattle Magazine.
So tonight, rather than actually write a post or put up a photo I took, I'm just going to cop out and show that article.
Calling me their Executive Chef is appropriate since I proudly make all of their food. Although I'm actually my own catering company and sell to them. Just thought I'd mention that to clarify for any who might be confused by what I have said else where and what is in the article.

It happens every year.

2009-11-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

Something about the "fall back" change of clocks always seems derail my workout routine. It probably has something to do with transitioning from leaving work in daylight to facing darkness as I exit the kitchen door. It adds to that feeling of "it's late and I need to get home".
Of course it probably doesn't help that it happens around now when summer has truly departed and autumn events are ramping into full swing.

This week for example was the Whole Beast dinner on Monday, I had a massage appointment last evening and coming up I have to prepare for hosting the lovely Ms. J's birthday party this weekend.

Add to that I just had to let one of my employees go. So that requires me working later than I had been.

Of course all these things are excuses. I have my workout routine and I'm pretty dedicated to it. Still, it's amazing how easily little things can derail that routine.
That's ok though. It's not bad to get derailed every once in a while. Just so long as you recognize it for what it is and you get yourself back on the rails quickly.

I haven't taken any photos since the start of the week. Bad Patrick.
I want to keep images flowing on here, so here is a pic of a Dragon Roll I had a Mashiko last Saturday. If you live in Seattle and haven't been to Mashiko yet, you should make a point of going. Absolutely delicious sushi an they serve 100% sustainable seafood.

Whole Beast

2009-11-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Whole Beast dinner at Lark. The (mostly) annual dinner is focused on often lesser used parts of the animal. This one was also a game dinner and that is what really drew me in.

We dined on elk liver, bison heart, duck feet and trotter fritters to mention just a few items on the 18 course menu. There were a couple items that didn't wow me but most of the dishes were wonderful.
They served a pheasant pie that was very much in the style of the game pie I wanted to make when I made my ill fated trip in search of exotic meats some weeks ago. I'm not giving up on that yet though. I still have a couple weeks until Thanksgiving.
But I digress ....

I had a bottle of the Terra d'Oro Zinfandel with dinner. It's a reasonably priced wine but is a delicious accompaniment to a rich, autumn diner. Oh and I mean I had The Bottle. My lovely date doesn't drink. It's ok though. I behave myself most of the time so I can afford to indulge in extra calories like that without doing undo damage to my waistline. Or more simply put, I work out so I can go out.

It was nice to make it out to a food event like that. I miss far too many of them because I only hear about them at the last minute if not after the fact. I have my head too buried in my own cooking and running the business. I'm making an effort to be more "out there" and enjoy some of the more social aspects of the Seattle food scene. Not that there is anything wrong with enjoying a quiet, elegant dinner out with a beautiful companion. I intend to keep up that past time for sure. :) In fact I have a date to go out to ART in the Four Seasons next Monday evening. I haven't been there yet and I'm really looking forward to it.
I just also what to start expanding my dining out to include events and group oriented dining. Let's see how I do at that.

One thing I've been noticing lately is that the more I've been exploring food photography the more tempted I am to bring my camera into the dining room and grab images of the food. Of course one generally doesn't want to do that in a nice restaurant. It's usually a tacky move. Still I would have loved to have gotten a shot of that pheasant pie.
I love my iPhone but the camera on there doesn't quite compare to my SLR with a macro lens on it. *sigh*

I did get an image of the menu from Whole Beast to share with you. Check it out.

I've got a theory

2009-11-08T17:57:00.001-08:00

"Have your ever heard of cooking theory?

Way back when I was a young, apprentice in the kitchen, the sous chef of the Florida Keys resort to which I was indentured asked me that question on one of my first days there.
"If you understand cooking theory", he explained in response to the shake of my head, "you can cook anything without a recipe because it means you understand food and flavor and how to make them work."

It's a simple enough statement but it's always stuck with me. Especially when I write online about food I've been preparing or when I post food photos. I always get requests for the recipe and I can't begin to count the number of times I've had to respond with "I'm sorry, I don't work with recipes, I just cook".
Don't get me wrong, I do on occasion use recipes and of I course I write them as well. I do this for a living after all. But in general when I'm cooking, especially when at home, I'm making it up as I go. I guess I understand cooking theory. ;)
This is what I hope to pass on to others because when it comes to taking control of your diet and creating healthy, delicious whole foods for yourself; the ability to create meals out of what you have on hand or what is otherwise easily available, is key. That involves stepping away from recipes and embracing techniques and some basic cooking concepts.

Don't get me wrong, I love cook books. I own many and will continue to purchase more in the future. Trying out a new recipe can be a lot of fun. Although to be honest I rarely measure or follow amounts listed in a recipe unless I'm baking and that is a topic for a later time. I usually get the concept of what the dish is from the recipe and go with that. In fact I often make changes and adjustments along the way. True, I should probably try the recipe as written first and then alter again on a later attempt but what can I say? I love to play with my food. :)
There are a ton of cook books out there and many of them are great, even many of the healthy or "diet" cook books. Although, I do have some opinions about the approach many of them take. However, that is another topic for later.

I want to do something different than just collection of recipes. I want convey an understanding of how to cook what the reader likes. I want to share an appreciation for whole, healthy foods.
I want to teach cooking theory.

Tonight's dinner:
I had a few duck legs I brought home from work. I'm braising them with some yukon gold potatoes, onions and bolete mushrooms. I had a little red wine left over from last night and some black garlic so I used those as well. I keep chicken broth in the fridge and poured about a cup of that in too.
Why this combination? Because it's what I had on hand. And it's going to be delicious.