Cooking for Your Family

Once again, Bob del Grosso has written something that I wish I had. He compares cooking for his family with cooking for strangers (aka “paying customers”). Whether it’s the delays of your family getting to the table, bickering carrying over to mealtime, or the inherent pickiness of each family member, he starts to believe that cooking for strangers is more rewarding. This paragraph really nailed it for me:

Cooking for the same people every day is even tougher if you like to cook a wide variety of things. It seems that everybody besides you has a laundry list of ingredients that they don’t like and arcane, but perfectly valid, reasons to dislike them. The net result of years of not cooking all of the things that my family collectively does not like to eat, is that my repertoire of dishes is about as sparse as the hair on my head.

Yes, I do enjoy cooking for my family, but I’ve nearly lost it several times when, after I’ve worked hard to cook something that I believe everyone will enjoy, I get that “What the hell is this crap” look from one or more of the kids. Or when they ask me to make a particular dish and then they only eat a bite or two.

A Chef’s Blog

Bill Smith, the chef at Crook’s Corner, is a very good friend and one of the more interesting people you’ll ever meet. He rides his bicycle to work everyday. He travels to Quebec every year to celebrate his birthday. He has gotten so close to his Mexican kitchen staff that he now takes at least one trip to Mexico each year. He keeps a notebook of just about everything he’s ever done. He co-founded the Cat’s Cradle (and still loves to go hear live music). He’s really a great cook and wrote one of the best cookbooks in the past year, Seasoned in the South. Bill and I traveled the Mississippi Delta back in October, looking for great hot tamales. He was a great travel companion, full of fantastic stories. Recently, he’s started something new: he’s a blogger! His blog, A Year in the Kitchen, gives a great perspective of his world — not just the ins and outs of running a restaurant, but the world around him — his staff, his family and his friends.

So check out Bill’s blog. And don’t be afraid to comment there, either.

Shedding the Holiday Pounds

I gained 7 pounds over the holidays. Wow! That’s easily the most weight I ever gained over such a short period of time. Those palmiers, pound cakes and rib roasts sure do hurt a waistline. So I’m taking control again by training for another half marathon. I ran (OK, slowly jogged) the Mardi Gras Half Marathon back in February, and at the time, I was in pretty good shape. My weight had dropped from an all time high of 240 down to 210. I plodded along the streets of New Orleans at a snail-like pace of 11:20 per mile, but I ran the whole damn thing. I then developed plantar fasciitis soon afterwards, stopped running, and started eating poorly again. My wait jumped up, but only to about 220 pounds. That was until the holidays hit, and I ballooned up to 227 pounds. Oink, oink, oink.

I’m always going to eat, so the only realistic solution is to exercise. So, I’m officially training for the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon on April 5, 2008. I’m announcing this on my blog simply to ensure that I actually do this, as I don’t want to embarrass myself by wimping out.

Also, we foodies are known to be a bit — ah, er, well, out of shape. Particularly those of us who write or read food blogs, as we sit on our butts in front of a computer all day. So I challenge any other food blogger or any of our readers to commit to running this race. Or walking it. Just do something! And commit publicly, as that WILL motivate you.

I promise I’m not turning this blog into a health advice center. But if I don’t run this thing, y’all are free to chastise me as long as you want.