May 09, 03 02:10 am — Food has always held a keen interest with me. I owe it to my Mother, who, as many others who came from the farmlands, was a fantastic cook. An instinctive cook who was never content with written recipes, and had to put her own spin on whatever she was making. It rubbed off on both my sister and me. The love of cooking is what inspired me to leave the corporate world and dive into culinary school. One of the best decisions I ever made. I was lucky enough to assist a class with French chef Madeleine Kamman, who is quite revered in culinary circles, has many books (“Making of a Cook”, and others), and had her own PBS series in the 80’s. One of the questions she asked the class was “what aspect of the culinary world inspired you to be in this business”? She looked at me, and after little thought, I responded “the eating aspect”. This drew a few chuckles from the group, and Madeleine looked at me for a moment, then smiled and said “Ah, very good”….

I mean really, who doesn’t like to eat. I like to think that over the years, my palette has matured, as I have come to really appreciate fine cuisine. I will no longer settle for crappy, half-assed canned, packaged, ill-prepared dreck that is unfortunately too common in chain restaurants these days. How hard is it to use fresh ingredients? And please, just keep an eye on that nice piece of fish on the grill before it forms into roofing material. I am finding it hard to go to many cookie-cutter restaurants, as most slop out mediocre-at-best food that is hardly worth your hard earned dollars. Many people are intimidated, but cooking not only is pretty darn easy once you get the hang of it, you actually control what goes into your food. And please, stay away from the frozen entrees, the “meals in a box”, and anything that has more than ten letters that needs a chemist’s dictionary in the ingredient list. Go to your local farmer’s market this season, and try some great veggies straight from the earth. Antibiotic free meats, local cheeses, fresh herbs, stuff that still has dirt on it, dammit….

Cook real food, fresh food, good food.

Ah, now that I am done with that little rant, time for me to fess up. I have…shall we say…some food quirks. Hey, we all do, admit it. We all eat some really strange crap, and you know what? Good. If you like it, why stick to the norm? It may make someone else sneer and turn up their nsse, others may think to themselves “Hey…. Sounds kinda GOOD!”

One of my guilty pleasures is microwave popcorn……but burnt. That’s right, burnt. Not to cinders, but just so some of the kernel parts are nice and black. It took trial and error to get it just right. If I ever have to buy another microwave, I get to experiment all over again. Another is saltine crackers and butter. I just have to have this as a side to red chili. I don’t really know why. As a child, I used to love to dip my potato chips in peanut butter, My sister liked to dip hers into Miracle Whip. I sometimes slip crackers or potato chips into my bologna sandwiches too. I could go on, but probably shouldn’t. Discretion the better part of valor and all…

So, time to find out what your little food quirkies are. What strange or bizarre stuff do you enjoy in the dark recesses where you hope no one will find out? There’s gotta be some pretty interesting combos to be had out there…..