Catholic Foodie Readers on TV Cooking vs. Real Cooking

Last week I posted this article on The Catholic Foodie page on Facebook: TV Cooking vs. Real Cooking. The article generated some good discussion, so I figured I would share it here.

These are the thoughts of those who commented on the Facebook page:

Christie Martin:
On television, the audience sits politely on chairs, in mine the audience of children, husband, and friends are involved in the act, tasting, kibbutzing, and peeking. I guess the dog might be like the camera: always watching, in the way a little, and hoping for a dramatic spill!

Daniel Burns:
The foodnetwork kitchens always have the most wonderful bowls, plates, glasses, etc. We don't. A foodnetwork kitchen is always clean. Our's isn't. A Foodnetwork kitchen always has all their ingredients pre-prepared. Our's doesn't. And have you noticed that in a foodnetwork "trinity" or mir poi everything is precisely the same size and exactly cubical...heck, you would have thought Picasso did the chopping.

The Catholic Foodie:
Yes, Danny. My kitchen is nothing like FoodNetwork. Definitely not as clean. Not as posh. The chef isn't as good (me), and THERE IS NO SOUS CHEF. The most tedious part of cooking is the prep. Now, thankfully, I love cooking, so it is not much of a burden to me... unless I am in a hurry.

Karin Coll:
Oh, it may not be as fancy or well stocked but I can put out meals that make my family happy....and ironically, not many come from FN...so yes, there is a big difference! We have kids that have to like what they are eating...just a little bit! And about the divine in meals... Amen, amen I say. Jesus was always at the table. I find it interesting that families that eat together have better lasting relationships...there was some study years ago about this...we eat dinner together about 5 out of 7 days. I always sit with the kids when dad is not in town! community is in all we do!

Daniel Burns:
The foodnetwork is pretty awesome. It is virtually all we watch. I wonder if some study has been done to see if and how it has revolutionized cooking in the standard American home.

Christi and I are lucky in that we both come from families that are very proud of our culinary tradition (both of us are some mixture of Acadian and Italian), but the Foodnetwork has exposed us to other ethnic cuisines that we may have otherwise been either ignorant of or only tried in a resturant.

Roy Petitfils:
Thanks for sharing that Jeff. I'd never heard of him. I read Andrew Knowlton and Michael Ruhlman's blogs, but I like Bittman and Bittens. As to the point of his blot.

I tend to agree-to an extent. Actually, in the early days of the network they filmed episodes with plenty of imperfections. Bobby Flay messed up as did Mario Batali. That's all gone now, and so seems to be Batali. Emeril was probably one of the worst with the prep stuff on his live show. A team of people making his food come together. I always wonder how good it really tastes.

That being said, most of them have actually spent years in commercial Kitchens slugging it out. Nowadays there's a bunch of pretty newcomers whose ears are still wet from culinary school wanting the celeb status that has found the Flays, Emerils and Batali's.

Have you read any of Michael Ruhlman's books? "The Soul of a Chef", "The Making of a Chef" and "The Reach of a Chef"? The making of a chef was my favorite since I really did want to go to culinary school. One of my life's only regrets. He spends a year at the CIA and chronicles his journey. Great read, by a great writer. "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain is rather profane, but interesting. Again, a good writer.

So, what about you? How does your kitchen measure up to Food Network?

Are You Like Me?

I love to cook. Some people garden to "get away from it all" and relax. For me, it's the kitchen, not the garden. The kitchen is a magical place where my troubles recede and the joy of cooking and living takes center stage. If it was up to me, I would spend the majority of the day in the kitchen. But I know that most people are not like me.

I like to take my time cooking. I tend to take the scenic route. Sometimes that unnerves my family. The kids are impatient and Char would like to eat early. I'm a night owl and I like to eat late. Try as I might, I can't seem to speed things up.

When I bake bread, I knead by hand. When I cook a gumbo, I chop the onions, bell peppers, and celery with care and attention. And, of course, the roux takes a good 35 minutes.

No one taught me how to cook. I taught myself with practice. When I was in the seminary in Mexico, I was put in charge of a cooking team that rotated weekends with three other teams: the Italians, the French, and the Mexicans. Why? Because I was from Louisiana and, surely, I must have been a culinary sophisticate. True, I excelled in the kitchen, and I often joined in on the other weekends... just because. And I learned.

Everything about the kitchen fascinates me. The tools and gadgets, the pots and pans, the cutting boards and wooden salad bowl, my wooden spoons... and my mortar and pestle. I have a particular love for my mortar and pestle. Wood. Darkened by olive oil and years of beating garlic.

And then there are the smells. The feel of the food in my hands. I become an alchemist in the kitchen, striving to make the magic with simple ingredients. Eating is secondary. Lagniappe. A bonus.

What about eating? The dinner table is another matter for another post. But, after cooking, eating is not that important. Meals with the family and seeing them enjoy my creation... that is the fulfillment, the culmination of the process.

Yes, I love to cook.

How about you?

[This post was inspired by a post on The Copywriters' Kitchen. Check out Lorraine's post - 10 Good Reasons to Start Cooking From Scratch.]

Social Media: Are You Part of the Conversation?

I am a social media evangelist. Yes, I have caught the bug. And I believe that every Catholic should catch it too.

Why?

Because it's all about community.

The Church, the Body of Christ, is the community to which we are all called. In Matthew 28, Jesus gave the Great Commission to the apostles: Go, and preach the gospel to all the world....

We do not all have to be theologians to spread the gospel! The Church is calling all Catholics to engage society by means of modern communication. Not necessarily by directly evangelizing or catechizing, but by living their faith and being actively involved in society, which is increasingly being shaped by social media. We are all called to "indirect evangelization."

As followers of Jesus, our very presence can benefit society and spread the gospel. Blessed Mother Teresa called this the "ministry of presence." And St. Francis of Assisi once told his friars, "Preach the gospel everywhere you go. And, when necessary, use words."

Take Fr. Roderick's Daily Breakfast as an example. "It's breakfast with a priest." But Fr. Roderick doesn't limit himself to talking about the Catholic Faith. He also talks about technology, health, movies and TV, and more. His show appeals to a wide audience, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. And many listeners who haven't been to church in a long time are touched by his casual discussion of life... and faith. Some have even returned to the sacraments.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, Blogger, WordPress, Seesmic, iTunes/podcasts... What do they have in common?

Community.

Social media are revolutionizing our experience of community. Are you part of the conversation?

Love to Cook? Got a Mac? You need SousChef!

More than just a way to organize recipes, SousChef actually helps you cook. This handy Mac app, developed by Acacia Tree Software, can do it all: organize and search, share via email and blog post, import from just about anywhere, and read your recipes to you while you cook. It will even make a grocery list for you!

SousChef is a community app. Unlike other recipe apps that help you organize your own recipes in isolation, SousChef plugs you into a larger community. You can search not only your recipes, but also those of thousands of other SousChef users. How is this possible? SousChef provides access to a database called the "cloud." At the time of this post, there are 55,799 recipes on the cloud, all accessible by you. True, there is always Recipezaar and Foodista (and I love them both!). But, as you will see, SousChef takes using recipes a bit further. SousChef actually helps you cook those recipes.

One of the coolest features of SousChef is what they call the 10-foot mode. With the 10-foot mode, you can actually bring your laptop into the kitchen. Now, I am very cautious with my electronics. Well, okay, I am more than a bit cautious. I don't want my laptop too close to the stove or to the counter where I am mixing ingredients. I think 10 feet is a safe distance.

So how does the 10-foot mode work? In 10-foot mode SousChef goes full-screen with a black background and white text. Large white text, easily visible from 10 feet away. The app will walk you step-by-step through the recipe. It can scroll through automatically, or you can set it to respond to voice commands or use an Apple remote. And if that's not cool enough, you can also have the app read the recipe to you! That's right. SousChef can read. [By the way, you can now use your iPhone or iTouch as an Apple remote!]

SousChef not only allows you to catalog your own recipes, but it also gives you access to thousands of recipes by other users via the "cloud." You can search the cloud in many different ways: by recipe title or by different ingredients. Let's say you want to cook chicken tonight, but you can't decide how you would like to prepare it. Simply type "chicken" in the ingredient field and the cloud provides a list of all the recipes containing chicken. To narrow down your search, you can list several ingredients, like whatever you happen to have in your fridge today, and the cloud will tell you which recipes you can make. It will even search for common substitutions.

You can "favorite" the recipes you like. Whether you want to track your most recently imported recipes, or the ones you have already cooked, you can create folders to store your recipes. I have a Cajun / Creole folder, and folders for Italian, Mexican, Mediterranean and Thai. I also have a folder for family recipes. But what about those "secret" family recipes? I can tell SousChef not to publish those to the cloud. I've gotta keep my secrets!

Not only can you search the recipes of other SousChef users, but you can import your own too. That notebook you keep in your pantry, the one with all the recipes you have collected over the years... you can put all of those in SousChef. Now, the ones that you don't already have in digital format will have to be entered manually. But, SousChef makes that process rather painless. You can also import recipes you have on your Mac or those you find online. Simply copy the text and SousChef does the rest.

Isn't it nice to be able to share your recipes with others? With SousChef, in addition to the cloud, you can share recipes with friends and family via email. You can also post it to your blog, as I have done with my grape leaves / cabbage rolls recipe.

SousChef is compatible with Macs running Tiger 10.4.9 or higher. It is distributed as a universal binary. An internet connection is necessary to take advantage of all the features. Cost is $30. A license can be purchased within the application once you have downloaded the demo.

From start to finish, SousChef is designed to make you a fabulous cook!

Bon appetit!


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Catholic Sushi

My son loves sushi. It really is his favorite food. And yes, this is the son who started eating raw oysters at the age of three. He is something else!

Christopher wanted to write a post for The Catholic Foodie. Of course, sushi was the first topic that popped into his head. He suggested we call it "Catholic Sushi." So, this short post is from Christopher. He wrote it, I typed it. Enjoy!

Hello, my name is Christopher Young. And I will be telling you about my favorite food, sushi! Sushi is very tasty. I made tuna sushi before. My favorite type is salmon. It's just... well, good! For those of you who like sushi, good for you. Those who don't, I feel sorry. I hope you liked what I have said. And until next time, Bone Appitite!

Summer Steaks

Do certain smells ever bring you back to your childhood? Sometimes that happens to me.

As a matter of fact, that happened to me Saturday evening. I fired up the grill, and I seasoned four thick steaks with kosher salt, coarse-ground black pepper, a dash of cayenne, oregano, rosemary, basil, and crushed red pepper. Yum.

When steaks hit the grill, I was a kid again, riding my bike all over the neighborhood. I used to love riding my bike. I rode every day after school (and all day in the summer). I knew every crack and crevice in the sidewalks and streets of my neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I owned the roads in my neighborhood, or, at least if felt like I did. But at dusk I would set my sights on home. It wasn't the dark that drove me home, it was hunger.

Friday night was steak night at our house. Before I even hit the driveway, I could smell it: meat on the grill. It wasn't one of those fancy grills you see today... stainless steel with propane. No, this was charcoal. I still remember the charcoal lighter. It was an electric ring shoved down into the coals. When it got hot, it would glow a dangerous bright red.

Sausage went on the grill first. I remember stabbing sausage slices with toothpicks and dipping them in yellow mustard as I watched the steak cook. It was the perfect appetizer.

After the sausage came the rib-eyes. Dad made a marinade/basting sauce out of Lea & Perrins Worchestershire Sauce and butter. It smelled tangy and thick. Dad always cooked the rib-eyes well-done. I wouldn't grow to appreciate steaks medium-rare until I was old enough to buy and grill them myself.

Now, while dad was outside grilling, mom was inside washing iceberg lettuce and cutting and prepping potatoes. Iceberg lettuce salads with Wishbone Italian Dressing always accompanied the steaks, as did Sandy Fries. The fries were named after my mother, Sandy. In my mind those fries were magical. I don't know who started calling them Sandy Fries, but I know that the name stuck and they were a household favorite.

Mom would peel the potatoes and cut them up just like you would for regular french fries. She would rinse them with water and then let them sit in a colander. When everything else was almost done, she would season the potatoes with salt and pepper, shaking them around and repeating until all were seasoned. Then she would add a scoop of flour and shake, shake, shake until all the potatoes were coated. She would continue to shake until all the loose flour was out of the colander. Then she fried them in hot oil (back then she used Crisco) until they were golden brown. You talk about good, yeah!

And all those thoughts came to me because I put steaks on the grill. The smell and sizzle did it. True, it was a Saturday, not a Friday. But the afternoon was perfect. Not hot like June. Not hot and sticky like July. The sun was bright, but the air was cool. Perfect grilling weather.

The rib-eyes were great, by the way. That's not coming just from me. Char and the kids said so. Best steaks I had ever grilled, they said.

So, when was the last time you grilled steaks? How did you grill them? Medium-rare?

Funny Blog Stats

As a podcaster and blogger, I like to check my stats to see how I am doing. You know, how many people visiting the site, how many podcast downloads, etc. Well, there is one aspect of stat-checking that always makes me laugh: Google's list of the top 20 search queries in which my site comes up.

Here's a baker's dozen of those top search queries for The Catholic Foodie (the list is in no particular order):

1. green onion pancake
2. the listener episode 6
3. marhaba habibi
4. kings episode 6
5. alton brown catholic
6. pleasure p if you were my
7. orthodox easter music
8. lebanese songs 2009
9. maronite liturgy
10. didi habiby
11. make up libanese
12. beautiful sunday line dance
13. arabic girlfriend

If you have been reading / listening for a while, you'll know why I think this list is so funny. So much of this stuff appears nowhere in my show or on the site. Go figure.

I don't know which is the funniest... "alton brown catholic" or "beautiful sunday line dancing"?

The only ones that would pertain to this site are "marhaba habibi," "alton brown," "orthodox easter," "lebanese," and perhaps "arabic." I have no idea where the rest of it came from.

Okay, I think I've decided. "alton brown catholic" is my favorite.

Which one is your favorite?