Feeling Venturous

It seems that creativity is often inspired by exhaustion, and late the other night, I was struck by an idea that seemed like a particularly good one. It was after writing the rough draft of the cover story for the Spring Restaurant Guide edition of Where Y'at magazine (which, I'd like to point out with a grumpy face on, I was given a total of TWO DAYS to organize, compose, and submit ... not long at all for a feature story, even less for a cover piece, and a shorter time frame still for someone who still holds a day job and writes in the precious hours between dinner and passing out) that I came up with this, partly thanks to The Boy. As he was urging me to "hurry up" so we could get the burrito I promised him for cleaning the house, I was trying somewhat unsuccessfully to rush through edits.

Editing down my own work is always such a struggle. I tend to be kind of longwinded when I write, as I'm sure you noticed, with many asides and dips into the adjective pool to find just the right way to describe a feeling, a taste, a flavor, or anything at all, for that matter. 1500 words is just not a whole lot when you spend two hours with somebody extremely interesting, and I felt that to cut too much of what we discussed would be an injustice to Tommy Cvitanovitch, that imposing and authoritative managing owner of Drago's here in New Orleans. I didn't want to leave out anything, and was already forced to cut down on my introduction and unable to find the room to describe the utter deliciousness of their famous charbroiled oysters.

I thought, 'well, what if I had total creative control over an outlet and were given the license to fluff and butter as I pleased?'

Fine; I thought it a little less eloquently, but you get the idea.

Thus was TheVicariousFoodWhore.com born.

Basically, the premise of this site is to allow me to "wax poetic and rhapsodize about the food I crave, the dishes I dream of, and the snacks I obsess over, in drool-worthy detail." I mean, I do that on this blog, but to have one unified theme in a central location? Brillz!

So here we go: on this new web site, I discuss the taste, texture, feel, similarities, comparisons, details, nutrition, recipes, and preferences of whatever food item or dish I feel like (including restaurant recommendations), and do it so graphically that the reader is essentially eating vicariously through my description of the finer points of the experience. I plan to write about high end food and comfort food; exotic gourmet and common stock; supermarket brand products and specialty items, and everything in between. High-quality images, including regular photos I take of "Gratuitous Sexiness," which is particularly delicious looking food, further illustrate my points and activate your salivary glands, and I tackle the types of questions that I often research for my own personal edification. For example, future topics include the differences between the cheapo turkey roll cold cuts and oven-roasted twice-the-price meat; the naked steak versus the sauce-enrobed version; and advantage of using lump crabmeat instead of claw, and exactly where it comes from.

The style? Informational, fun, and above all, sensory. The purpose? To inform, share, and reawaken excitement and passion for food and eating, with topics in a spectrum as wide as my experience, which continues to expand.

I hope you subscribe, pass it on, become an official "follower," or just plain like it. Enjoy eating vicariously.

- www.TheVicariousFoodWhore.com

O, to Eat in Peace

So we all know that my life revolves, unequivocally, around food. Food, food, food all the time. I wonder what I'm eating for dinner as I pour my morning bowl of cereal (if it's a weekday); create grocery lists for fun with ambitions of making something from any one of my dozens of cookbooks (which I then don't follow through on, opting instead for a tried-and-true crave-worthy favorite); I chart out my meals for the week, planning calorie- and indulgence-wise what makes the cut for what day, based on what else I eat that day in question. Everything food, 24/7.

It then pretty much goes without saying that to me, eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences one can possibly go through. A good meal is tantamount to pretty near anything. A cracked peppercorn-encrusted, dry-aged New York strip steak, with a rosy-tinted juice running in rivulets onto a sizzling plate with snapping clarified butter beats the hell out of having sex, and cutting it into small pieces guarantees it lasts longer, too. Roast duck in a fragrant, dried shallot-infused broth with fresh wonton noodles cooked al dente is a powerful bargaining chip if someone ever seeks to bribe me, as my father used to do to get me to the dentist. Even something as simple as my grandma's sweet and puffy battered fried shrimp with a side of garlicky sauteed spinach and brown rice has the power to turn a shitty day into a wonderful one. And a well-crafted whole-wheat burrito with coconut and cilantro rice, fresh pico de gallo, moist steak, ooey, gooey cheese, and slightly charred onions and peppers, flavored with chipotle pepper? The things I'll do for a trayful of those.

And so on, and so on. You get the picture. I secretly ate a really, really fat kid in my past, and continue to harbor those tendencies. There is no satiating the compulsive eater in me. And having an endless appetite? Well, honestly, I kind of love it. The more room I can make in my belly, the more I get to just taste things, one of the most hedonistic senses to awaken. Oh, yum. *Shivers.*

With all that info in mind, I will now launch into my tale of woe and sorrow.

My favorite things to do consist of this:

1. Get in bed with my book of the day, and a good meal, and eat and read simultaneously in clothes I keep aside just for getting messy.
2. Get in bed, flip on one of my favorite sitcoms, and eat a good meal as I watch mindless television programming. This is also done in my "eating clothes."

Therefore, it's all the more tragic to me that I never get a single meal of peaceful eating anymore.

Case in point: Because I'm a fan of the snooze button (it tells me how long I can cuddle my dog for before I have to get up) and have thick, "spirited" hair, I don't have a whole lot of time to get breakfast together in the morning. Usually, bites of Wheaties ('cause I'm a champion) with juicy raisins or Rice Krispies in 1% are taken between packing my lunch, feeding the Lil' B (the puppy), and making sure he pees and doesn't eat his own poo. There is no relaxation time there, and it's go, go, go until I sit down at my desk at the office. This, my friends, sucks. Back in the golden years, during college, I would sit in the sun with my full breakfast and contemplate my textbooks until I had to get dressed for class at 11 AM. The good old days.

Exhibit B: at work, because I like to read and eat at the same time, I hide out in my office with a novel and munch. However, because I'm in my office, people don't seem to realize that I am, in fact, taking my hour lunch. Everyone else plays video games for an hour and a half in the conference room, so it seems completely reasonable that I take a mere 60 minutes to enjoy a break in the day and do something I love. Right? Apparently, WRONG. Since we have yet to replace our receptionist, I--as the lowest-paid non-new minion and general lackey (it seems)--get the unspeakable pleasure of dealing with pissed off orthopedic surgeons and their wives/assistants, who are so tech-savvy that they often attempt to email our web site or call to yell at me for their content-less site not showing up on Google's first page for something as generic as "knee."

Anyhoo, because I take my lunch at my desk, I'm often asked to schedule meetings (ironically, between the person asking that I schedule a meeting ... ironic because it's that person is usually on the phone with the person they are to meet with), answer questions ("What's a browser and where do I buy one?"), or other random things. So then, that meal is quickly shot to hell for enjoying in leisure, as I drip chicken cutlet sandwich all over my keyboard, chomp as discreetly as possible into my phone, and greasify my mouse. Wonderful.

Exhibit C: Now that I live with my fiance, we don't see each other very much. I know--what a paradox. But the thing is, you stop putting time aside to hang out, you each have your own lives to live (his is school; mine is work), and when you do get home, you just want some alone time. Unfortunately, his alone time is during the day and spent in relative leisure, compared to my forced social interaction of the workday. So when I get home, he wants to have the TV blasting on something utterly inane or grisly (The Boy is a sports fan, and also enjoys his TruTV [aka CourtTV]), and tell me completely irrelevant things about himself before I even get a chance to settle down and let the tension in my neck unravel. Before my plate hits the table, and before I even get one paragraph into the book I'm trying to read amidst all the din of that night's football game.

Although I love The Boy dearly, when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is spend any time with any other person in close quarters. I'm partial to long, brisk walks for decompressing conversation, but the tinny treble of the television set and artificial lighting indoors is not exactly conducive to any kind of significant interaction ... so why bother? If I'm in an environment like that, all I want to do is eat something extremely unhealthy and read a book that may kill as many brain cells as it engages (enter Tweenage Fangirl), going straight to my happy place. No, I don't care about your day. I'm EATING.

For Chrissakes, dear Lord, give me one meal a day that I can indulge in peace my biggest vice: gluttony. For without simple pleasures, what is life?

A Little Piece of Home

It's funny how when you grow up eating something, whether it's good or bad, it becomes forever associated with a comfortable feeling. It doesn't necessarily have to be delicious, made a certain way, or by a certain person, but remembered flavors can bring you back to a simpler time, where eating the item in question was a highlight and a treat.

When you grow older and move away, you start to truly appreciate the way things were done "back when" or "at home," regardless of the fact that the said "home" hasn't actually been "home" for quite some time. It becomes something to get really excited about when you're able to replicate a recipe that smacks of familiarity or find a restaurant that is able to do the same.

Here in New Orleans, I've had my fair share of amazing food. Actually, more than fair, since as a food editor, I'm privileged and honored to have been a guest at many of the world-famous dining destinations this amazing city has to offer. But sometimes, when times are rough and you're feeling down, it's not a medium-rare ribeye in a red wine reduction or a seared duck breast with pecans and an orange au jus that you want. It's the comfort food of your childhood that you crave--a paper container of chicken and broccoli in a brown sauce, greasy pizza with a sweet marinara, a moist-in-the-middle bagel, liberally covered in dehydrated onion pieces, poppy and sesame seeds.

It took me five years to find suitable substitutes for the tastes of "home" here (since a few places were good for one thing or another, but not for everything overall) ... but it has been done. Unfortunately, we may only be able to enjoy these substitutes for one more year before having to embark on the same mission elsewhere, no thanks to the tanking economy and job shortages, but the point is, that for the time being, those warm/safe/fuzzy feelings in the belly are available to us.

When Boy's friend unfolded a long, white menu with red and black print on it in front of us, our hearts jumped into our throats with excitement and nervous anticipation. Where did this foreign-looking object come from? Why were there pint and quart options on a New Orleans menu? Why was the layout exactly the same as what we grew up with? These were all questions that flew through our heads at rapid speed when we saw the New York style menu of Chinese take-out Green Tea on Louisiana and Magazine, in the little shopping center that Blockbuster's in.

This little restaurant didn't disappoint. Authentic bastardized (or, "Westernized" -- but the irony is intended, since there is an extreme disconnect between the true and American versions) Chinese food, made Long Island style! What glory! What wonder of wonders! Fried rice -- yellow! Shrimp with lobster sauce -- white, eggy, and with no pesky vegetables! Brown sauce -- sauce, and not just watered down thin soy! Egg rolls in thick, crispy wraps with cabbage and pork! And lo mein was lo mein and chow mein was chow mein!

This was a happy day.

Another great day was the one that I found New York style pizza, thin crust, sweet sauce, stringy cheese and all. This was an experience long coming, since in my stubborn obstinancy, I refused to eat pizza during my undergraduate years at Tulane, believing that I'd only be setting myself up for disappointment. Therefore, I boycotted all things pizza that didn't have TM after the place name (i.e. Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and the like ilk).

But I grew curious. As I became more a part of real life with office pizza thrust upon me, I became more interested in finding quality pizza even as the other shops let me down. Finally, due to some urging from the more open-minded Boy, I checked out the pizza place down the block from where I used to live, right on the edge of campus: The Dough Bowl; or, affectionately known as Boot pizza, due to its proximity and affiliation with the notorious bar of under-21 popularity.

The slices were generous, the grease provided a lovely thin sheen of golden gloss, the crust was crisp but foldable without breaking, and the cheese came off in thin strands. Heaven.

Now, I know it sounds silly after all of my experiences at culinary heavyweights like August, Cochon, Commander's Palace, and Brennan's, but when I'm wading around "in the Doldrums" (ahh, The Phantom Tollbooth, my old friend), it's cheapo Italian and Chinese I crave. To me, it's not that my tastes are still yet unrefined, but it's essentially that the pleasure these flavors and textures provide for me will never be ruined for me the way cheap steak has, since they're connected to memories so deep inside me that whatever the taste in my mouth is, it will be enhanced with memory like so many granules of MSG.