Technique...

When it comes to preparing food, it's all in the technique. I've spent the last 13 years of my life trying to seek out the best techniques in regards to cooking. Between culinary school and the badass chefs I've gotten to work for I've seen a lot. They say there's a million ways to skin a cat, but I have noticed a symmetry in the method of the masters. Which led me to believe that yes, there are a million ways to skin a cat, but only one of those is the right way. So I want you to look at this picture:

I could launch into a 3 hour long debate with myself about how and why I took these 3 simple ingredients: a hamlin orange, turkish un-sulphured apricots and fresh mint, and left them alone... until it was time to eat them. Here's the issue, and this is something that I am consistently confronted with as I try to make my own decisions about how I feel about food: All my training tells me that the orange segments you looked at should have been supremes, meaning that the pithe (the white flesh) should have been removed. Here's a great example of one:

The reason is because it has a slight bitterness to it. It's a valid point. And I have to admit, I take a lot of pride in the fact that I can correctly supreme citrus, because most young cooks out there do a really shitty job at it. It takes finesse and attention to detail. I really enjoy a job well done, and I appreciate the merits of having good knife skills. It makes me sad to find that someone was proud enough of this terrible supreme to publish it online:

But what's best for the citrus, the salad, and more importantly, my health? While standing in my kitchen tonight I had nothing but the ghost of my previous employers poofing onto my shoulder, telling me to cut the damn fruit and do it well. But I am in my kitchen now, and I have to decide what I want to do. And I want the pithe. First of all, that's where most of the nutrients lie. Second of all, I like the slight bitterness. I have matured beyond the palate of a four year old, and I enjoy the slightly bitter flavors of some foods. I also find that it helps balance the acid in citrus. And the apricots are as close to candy as you can get without eating sugar, so a little bitterness isn't going to hurt.

But what about presentation? It does count for a lot in life. My answer to that is that I love the way the whole segment of orange looks. It's complete, whole, un-manipulated for the most part. I even like the fact that one of the mint leaves has a blemish on it. It's nature. It happens.

I think the only way to become great is to learn from the best and then define your own opinion about things. Learn everything you can, and then make an informed decision. It's not that what I learned was wrong. It's just that I'm viewing the same thing from a different set of eyes, that have different priorities, a different viewpoint. The orange is really the tip of the iceberg here. I care way more about nutrition in regards to cooking than any good chef does or probably should. But here's the thing: it's my own idea, and it isn't what everybody else is doing; and as far as I know, those are two essential ingredients when it comes to being a future leader in your field, a trendsetter.

Mess Free Pomegranate!

I haven't posted anything lately because I'm reading The House of Mirth, and Edith Wharton is so eloquent it makes me feel inadequate about my own writing skills. I haven't had the audacity to even write down a recipe! But I've wanted to share my tip for preparing pomegranates, and I realized how fitting a subject it is considering my literary taste du jour. Wharton said, "Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well dressed till we drop…" And nothing will make you dingy and poorly dressed quicker than cleaning a pomegranate. But I've got a simple technique that will save your clothes. Say goodbye to juice-speckled shirts!

How To Clean A Pomegranate:

1 pomegranate
1 bowl of water
1 small container
1 knife
1 cutting board

Cut the pomegranate in quarters.

Submerge the quarters in the water.

Pick the seeds away from the flesh, keeping the pomegranate under water.

Put cleaned seeds in the container and enjoy!

Wild Salad

Here's a short post about a really delicious salad I made today from some great stuff I had in the fridge. It took about 2 minutes to make, and it was delicious and creative enough to serve to guests, but I enjoyed eating it all by myself before taking a hike up Stone Mountain.

About a handful of baby organic arugula
About a handful of organic dandelion greens
1/2 avocado
1 sheet Nori seaweed
1 raw brazil nut
parmesano-reggiano
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 lemon

Wash all greens, tear dandelion leaves.
Dice avocado and mix with greens.
Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, and add salt and fresh cracked pepper.
Tear sheets of nori and sprinkle on top of salad.
Grate parmesan and brazil nut on top (I used a microplane).
Enjoy!



This salad is packed full of nutrients. I'm going to break it down by ingredient to tell you some of the nutritional benefits that can be gained from eating this salad.

• Dandelion greens (especially raw) do wonders for your liver because it helps you detoxify. All greens are high in fiber which helps regulate blood pressure and blood sugar, and is also an aid in weight loss.
• I think of Nori as a sort of delicious vitamin, it's packed full of valuable trace minerals and I love to just eat it plain for a snack. Don't forget to toast the Nori if it get's a little soft!
• Brazil nuts are considered a "super-food," packed full of minerals including selenium, manganese and copper.
• Avocado is great for supporting eye health and has a great amount of potassium and folate.
• Parmesan has tons of calcium and protein in it making it a great addition to any salad.
• Lemons are very high in vitamin C, helping to ward off those wintertime chills; in addition, because it's antibacterial it can help make raw foods even safer.
• Monounsaturated fats such as olive oil are crucial for proper brain function. Olive oil also helps to regulate blood sugar levels!

I hope you enjoy this salad, and I'd love to answer any questions or read your comments! Thanks for reading!

Supper Clubbing

Sometimes your best work comes right after your worst. After I shuttered my chicken stand a mere 4 months after it opened I had the feeling that whatever I do next better be damn near perfect. I didn't feel like laboring over another restaurant, though. I've been having a great time just cooking at home, feeling very inspired by the intimacy of only cooking for people I know and care about. It's great because no one harps on me about the profit margin, and when I am not bound to a budget I can actually source the ingredients that I want to cook with. I'm not talking about white Alba truffles or Iranian caviar (although, the latter of the two I certainly wouldn't mind getting my hands on), I'm talking about ingredients like foraged greens and flowers from A Crack In the Sidewalk, goat cheese from Decimal Place Farms, and pork loins from Riverview Farms. The cost of these products makes them unattainable when trying to design a 4.95 dinner for your walk-up chicken stand. That's why in the end we failed, because I couldn't keep my values and be successful in that venture. I rather die a pauper with my ideals than die a rich man with no soul. Therefor, I'm on to the next venture in my life, the supper club.

The creative energy that has to get poured into a successful supper club is enthralling. When I come up with a theme I find myself becoming totally submerged in the night several weeks before it takes place. I listen to the music playlist incessantly until I know it's perfect. I scour the city looking for the right ingredients, usually running me far and wide like Jacques Cartier looking for new waters to fish out of. My to-do lists have lists that have lists that have lists. It takes well-planned out timing, tons of help from friends, and certain scrappiness that can only be attributed to my years growing up in the Georgia woods. When I want burlap for a table runner I can't go spend $6 a yard on the stuff, so I have to find a place to get it for free. Fortunately, when I needed it was right around the time Home Depot had a ton of it draped over the christmas trees they were shipping. A $5 tip got me all the burlap I could fit in my car! And when I wanted place mats for a Moroccan themed room, fabric samples from a Last Chance thrift store worked perfectly, at about a dollar per 20 pieces!

It takes fluidity, flexibility and inspiration to pull it all together. I can't think of a time I've had more fun. By the time the big night arrives I already feel like I've gotten such a huge reward out of the work that I've done, feeding my guests is just the icing on the cake. Not to say it isn't slightly scary though. It feels just like that moment when you're about to go on stage. The moment where you're in too deep to back down and you wonder why you ever agreed to do this, or even worse, why you ever came up with the idea in the first place. But then you realize that things are going right and you find yourself having a good time. When the last guests have left you forget how scared you were and you find yourself announcing plans to do another party a couple weeks later. Why? Because 3 weeks of planning and fun shouldn't be dwarfed by 20 minutes of self doubt. Next thing I know, the invitation is made, the announcement has been posted, and I'm on the phone with my farmer buddies, figuring out the menu.