Fat in Cleveland

For me, to mention the city of Cleveland always conjures almost biblical images of rivers on fire. It's cold, it's gray, it's industrial and quite frankly there isn't a hell of a lot there. So, you might imagine when I learned that I'd be spending three weeks in Cleveland for work, I was less than thrilled. I'm presently on day 3. I'm going to be working 12 hour days and I'll only get one day off while I'm here. Sure, it'll be a decent amount of extra money, but it's also going to be a lot of alone time. 

I started out by eating fast food. I figured that if I was going to eat alone, then I'd just grab something and bring it back to the hotel. I didn't want to be the weird guy by himself in the restaurant. I felt too self-conscious. But, I think it was the Chik-fil-A on Day 2 that did me in. I suddenly had awful visions of eating fast food every night for the next month. The thought of grease and not so tasty food was almost enough to make me want to give up the extra cash and come back home, nevermind the 15 pounds I was going to gain. 

Then, last night I made a decision. If I was going to be fat and gain the 15 pounds while I was here, I may as well eat decent food. So, instead of having crappy drive-thru, I went out. Proper going out. I decided not to feel weird about eating out alone and find myself some good food. So, I followed the call of my ancestry and decided I was going to Little Italy. I did a quick internet search and decided on the first place I came to, La Dolce Vita. After 15 minutes looking for a parking space, I finally got in, found a spot at the bar and had a delicious meal. I started with a glass of chianti (my favorite) and the mastroianni salad. It was roasted red pepper, goat cheese, arugula, and black olives over a bed of romaine with a light drizzle of olive oil.  I actually let out a bit of a moan when I dug into it. I don't even like black olives, but their saltiness with the peppery arugula and creamy goat cheese was a near spiritual moment. 

For my entree, I had gnocchi. The menu said I got to choose the sauce, so I asked the bartender, my waitress, what my options were. After her long sigh and while she launched into the exhaustive list, I interrupted to ask if they could just do a vodka cream sauce. She said they didn't usually, but she'd ask the chef if he would. I continued on with my salad and after what seemed like an obscenely long time (I'd almost finished my glass of wine...but maybe I just drank it a bit too quickly), she came back and said he'd be happy to. She then poured a cup full of vodka and ran it back to the kitchen. Before I could even ask for a refill on my wine glass, the smell of tomato cream and basil hit me. A giant bowl of delicious was sat down in front me. Round 2 of chianti was poured and I tucked into a made fresh (not in house, but in a pasta company in town) gnocchi in a made just for me vodka cream sauce. My little part-Italian heart nearly exploded. I finished with a house made tiramisu and a glass of port. 

Yes, I have boxes of leftovers. 

I thought I was going to have those for dinner tonight. However, a co-worker reminded me that Iron Chef Michael Symon is from Cleveland and has a few restaurants across town. Just one street up and a few blocks over from my hotel is his burger joint called B-Spot. Being a fan of just about any kind of burger, I decided this was going to be my culinary conquest for the night. So, on a busy Saturday night, I found a spot at the corner of the bar and enjoyed 2 very different and very good beers and a "smack yo' mama so hard yo' grandmammy can feel it" bacon cheeseburger. And this says nothing of the onion rings fried in lard. Yes. Lard. 

I'm now back in the hotel room about to go to bed. I'll probably find food that's a bit lighter for the next couple of days, but contrary to what the Chik-Fil-A cows encourage, for the next 2 and a half weeks, I'm not going to eat more chikn.

If I Can Do It...

This post really was inevitable. I made the big deal about how I couldn’t cook. I think I even mentioned that I really didn’t care to learn how to cook. I’ve gone damned near 30 years now and people have been kind enough to cook for me. When they haven’t, I’ve let the miracle of processed food do the work (see my ever expanding stomach for proof).

So, I bothered to write about how I can’t cook and how my little shopping trip for the boyfriend stressed me out. I really thought that’d be about the end of it. Instead, I got lots of encouragement (which was appreciated) and aversion therapy.

You see, the boyfriend is kind of fantastic. He’s been/is a source of face your shit, deal with it and come out the other side a better person. When I’m inclined to be stagnant, he’s a motivator and just generally makes me a better person. So, he starts to give me a little prodding with comments like “Ya know, you ARE off today and I’m at work.” And so, at 11:33am today, I decided that I was going to make dinner.

This is not a decision that I came to lightly.

I then sat around wondering what in the world I would make. I thought about lots of things that were basically frozen food. I thought about going to Fresh Market and getting one of their prepared things that you just heat. I also thought about doing the Bisquick “Oven Fried Chicken”. However, none of those felt “special”. After running out to do a couple of other errands, I came back and continued to stress out and peruse the internet.

It was at 3:42pm (note the time I spent stressing about this) that I decided to leave it all up to fate. I decided that I was going to turn on the Rachel Ray talk show and whatever she was making, that’s what I was going to make for dinner. I figured that her recipes were for the causal home cook and if she could do it, then by God I could too.

It turns out that Rachel was featuring her best of 2009 recipes and was doing a spin on one of them for 2010 (always up with the times, that Rachel). And so, she was making a Spinach, Artichoke and Chicken Penne dish. I watched her make it and for the first time in my life had an “I can do that” moment while watching food television. I promptly found the recipe, printed and set off to DiscoKroger.

I will spare you lots of detail, but here’s what I’ve learned: Rachel does NOT make stuff in 30 minutes. If I had a whole team of people to chop, pour, stir and generally keep an eye on stuff, then great. I could make Thanksgiving dinner in 30 minutes. Her pasta dish, not so much. Those spices that she calls for just a pinch of...yeah...those are expensive. I spent $20 today on bay leaves and fresh nutmeg and I’m pretty sure that they didn’t add anything to the dish.

However, on a non-cynical note: I cooked. I for real, took some stuff and made it into food. How frickin’ cool is that? I didn’t know it, but the boyfriend tells me that I poached, made a roux, turned that into a beschamel and then combined all of that into a pretty tasty dish. So hot damn!!!

I recognize that none of this is earth shattering or “gourmet”. However, it’s a decent first step for a total novice. I will also say, it was kinda tasty. The best part? While we were cleaning up, the boyfriend said “No one’s ever cooked for me before”. That moment when I melted just a little, made the 5 hours of stress totally worth it.

Good Eats

I am not a food gay. Let me repeat that, I am NOT a food gay.

That’s not to say that I don’t like to eat. You can look at me and tell that isn’t quite the case; it’s just that food confuses and frustrates me.

I grew up with a working, single mom who still managed to get dinner on the table every night. However, that dinner might have came in a box or it might have been Shake and Bake, but I never helped. I just never picked up how to turn ingredients into food.

Cooking is a skill and an art that I have yet to and will never master. Part of that is an innate desire to want to please people, so having a “test kitchen” run at making people dinner is not an option. I will not serve people bad food. The stress of just thinking about cooking for a group of friends (who I know love me and would only judge me a little) completely blocks me from being able to get started cooking.

It’s also SO daunting. I hang around with people who talk about cooking and food as though it’s as natural as signing your name or knowing the alphabet. They all know the difference between various kinds of cuts and how best to prepare this or that and what spices provide what flavor. I can tell you that the V8 soup in the box isn’t as good as the Campbell’s soup in the box and which Lean Cuisine is the tastiest. I always feel so out of place when we talk about food (which is often), because I just have no frame of reference. I have nothing intelligent to say and no stories of “well the last time I roasted a ....”

I”ll also say that I’m not ashamed to admit that I like Stouffer’s Lasagna and I’m not opposed to having pasta sauce out of a jar, and my “I”ve had a bad day dinner is a frozen pizza and a bottle of cheap shiraz”. (Shout out to The Little Penguin wine). I assume this is heresy to some.

This leads me to where I found myself earlier today. I was in Kroger with a shopping list sent to me by e-mail by the boyfriend. I’m walking around a foreign Kroger (on Chinoe) and staring at my BlackBerry experiencing actual make-me-shake-a-little stress. The list said things like “asparagus OR broccoli”. How do I decide which? How much? How do I tell which looks better? What is a good price for either? Then, “1 Onion”. Did y’all know there are like 4 kinds of onion? Red, yellow, white, vidalia and then those all over again, but organic. I was then told to buy steak. I’ve never bought steak in my life. This was it’s own stress and involved a conversation with a guy behind a counter. This made the situation worse, because I had to announce my ignorance to another.

Nevertheless, dinner was purchased and it was tasty. It was also NOT prepared by me. I did my usual make sure everyone’s glass of wine was full and manned the DVR as we watched trash TV. This is what I’m good at. I can keep people happy and entertain, I just can’t possibly feed them without assistance, not even Shake and Bake.