#cooking Archives - Dom the Artist

I’ve been thinking about time. Part of those thoughts are how long it’s been since I’ve posted on this blog and I mean to remedy that. One of the reasons for that is that there are so many things to take up one’s time, such as goats. Two of our goats gave birth this summer. One of our goats, Moon Pie, gave birth to two baby boys (bucklings) right around the Fourth of July. I remember we were worried that the goats might go into early labor because of the frightening nature of the fireworks, but that didn’t happen. Keeping in line with our tradition of naming our goats after superheroes, the two boys were named Starlord and Drax. About four days after that, our other goat, Colleen, gave birth to another pair of bucklings, which we named Apollo and Midnighter.

Four young bucklings are enough to distract anyone, and I certainly have been no exception. They are playful, rambunctious and irresistibly easy to pick up and hold in your arms. And, like many of the best things in life, were only around for a limited time, because we do not have the room for 7 goats. We knew we would have to sell them off, so we had work to do. Their horns needed to be disbudded, they needed shots and, given that they weren’t really breeding stock, they needed to be castrated. We also spent a fair amount of time crafting an ad to put on Craig’s List, because we didn’t want them going to just anyone. We had to emphasize that they were NOT meat goats, that they couldn’t be sold individually, unless as a companion for an already existing goat and, preferably, each pair of brothers would be kept together. Happily, that’s exactly what happened, each pair of brothers going to lovely new homes. One of those homes with llamas, which should be interesting.

I also got to perform a wedding. The second one I’ve ever done. It’s a habit of mine to prepare myself to death and this was no exception. I had to walk a fine line, because one side of the family is ultra-religious and they basically wanted a full on Catholic ceremony, whereas the other side of the family cares not for religion. I met with the couple twice, took notes, watched YouTube videos and studied up on wedding ceremonies in general. Getting ready for that ceremony took hours and hours, but an event like that you want to be just perfect and I think my hard work paid off.

And then there’s the garden, which got me thinking about how glorious it is for something to be ephemeral. Our bumper crop has been tomatoes and we’ve been struggling to keep up with them. My wife canned a ton of them up, which is fantastic, but there’s just nothing like fresh tomatoes from the garden. They’re so good that I don’t really eat any other tomatoes. I don’t care how good a restaurant or grocery store is, if they aren’t in season, it’s just not worth it to me to eat them. And that makes them all the better. The same with berries, the same with apples, the same with corn. Portland has such a bounty of great produce that we are blessed and it makes one realize how good fresh produce is and makes anything out of season taste like crap. If it’s even available at all.

I just watched the Netflix show, Glitch, and one of the characters says, “The beauty of life is that it ends.” This is the glory of time. That’s there’s simply not enough of it. Knowing that there’s an end makes it all that much better.

I love to cook. To be fair, I am a hedonist, with food being a major area of enjoyment. If I had to go out to eat every time I wanted a nice steak, or stir fry or BBQ or anything else, I’d go broke. Not to mention that, there is something special about being able to prepare food “just the way you like it”. Even more hedonistic, I just enjoy the very act of cooking. It is the perfect intersection between science and art, between order and chaos, controlled conditions and crazy randomness.

I credit this love for cooking to my family. I was brought up to believe that a man’s place is in the kitchen. My grandfather was, in addition to being a drill sergeant, a cook in the army. My uncle held a number of food service jobs in his time and their guidance gave me my start in the culinary pursuits. Not to leave out people like my grandmother and my aunt Pat, both have (or had in my grandmother’s case) some mad skills, but, ultimately, I consider cooking to be an essential manly art. Normally, when one talks about food and family, it tends to be a discussion of cultural or ethnic roots, but we just liked food. We were equally happy spending hours layering phillo dough to make baklava as we were wrapping little sausages in Pillsbury croissant rolls out of a tube to make pigs in a blanket. Growing up with the Irish side of my family, we had our share of potatoes and pot roasts and stew, but we made everything from spanakopita to fried chicken to refried beans. When I was a teenager, my aunt Pat married a man from a Lebanese family, and I have made dishes like tabouli, hummus and baba ganoush ever since.

I feel at peace when I am in the kitchen, chopping vegetables or stirring a sauce, just waiting for the moment it takes on the right consistency. My bedtime reading regimen will occasionally include cookbooks and I will often scour the internet for new recipes to try. My favorites are complex, long, drawn out affairs, involving ingredients that must be searched for at specialty shops. Bonus points for ingredients that bring a look of confusion to a shopkeeper’s face when I ask for it. I love toasting and grinding my own chilis for chili powder. There’s something so visceral about touching and smelling and seeing all the different parts that will combine to make something glorious. There have been several times when I don’t even care about eating; the process of creating is the goal unto itself. That being said, I’m usually starving by the time whatever I’m making is finally done.

I’m always surprised that more people don’t cook. I consider it to be an essential life skill. Particularly for anyone with a special diet. I have a friend (I’m looking at you, King Biscuit) who is a strict vegetarian, but does not cook. He is constantly complaining about how hard it is for him to find good food. Of course, it’s going to be hard. There are countless places to get food in most urban areas, but how many of these are actually good? From this group, one must take away any of those that don’t match one’s diet profile, be it vegetarian, vegan, paleo, gluten free, etc. Then, one’s personal tastes must be taken into consideration. For instance, I can (and have) eaten Ethiopian food, but I just don’t like it. I have a thing about texture and I find most Ethiopian food to be too mushy for my tastes. This leaves a very finite number of restaurants to choose from and even these are going to get boring after a while. When one cooks, they are limited by only budget, time and effort.

So, favorite foods. Ceviche, BBQ, almost any meat, sushi. I don’t like sweets, other than a weakness for pie.I love chili, Irish stew, shepherd’s pie. Not a huge pasta fan. Not really into carbs at all mostly, though I do appreciate a good nan. I like heat, spicy food. Not ghost pepper, painful hot, but the complex, numbing type of hot. Kim chee, Sichuan fermented chili-garlic sauce. I love sour. I’ll sip on vinegar, pickle juice and eat limes whole. I hate eggplant, but love baba ganoush. I hate avocado, but love guacamole. Goat is probably my favorite meat, and I’ve had a wide selection. I’ve eaten beef, pork, chicken, rabbit, squirrel, alligator, rattlesnake, bear, elk, venison, boar, buffalo, and those are the ones I can remember. Oh, yes, I’ve even eaten donkey sausage.

Why am I saying all this? Well, I’m hoping to talk about some of the more complex and entertaining recipes I do. I know this is only peripherally related to my work as an artist, but it is such a quintessential part of who I am, that I’m going to be talking about cooking. Figured I might as well lay some groundwork. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and I will come back with some recipes soon.

Tag: #cooking

Time

I Love Cooking