Most people who know me know that I have an
enormous love for food. Any food. Most food. All kinds of foods. I love fine
restaurants with a items on the menu that you couldn't pronounce even if you had "hooked on phonics". I love going to Jimmy Dean's and getting fried
zucchini, I love going to foster freeze and getting two corn dogs and a chocolate chip shake. I love it all......well except liver. (Parents tried to pull a fast one on me when I was 8 and get me to eat it, I wasn't about to eat it then I am refuse to eat it now.) Although, I do enjoy a good goose liver
pattie.......I know, seems hypocritical. And except for green peppers. I call them the selfish
vegetable cause no matter what you put them in when you have finished all you can taste is the green pepper.
And it is this love for food that has grown my love for cooking food. At first it was just a fun thing to do and to be perfectly honest I think I loved the attention it got me. Come on, who doesn't make a big deal about a single guy who can cook well...it is rather rare. But for whatever reason I started down the cooking path the end result is that I love it. I spend my free time reading cook books (Jamie Oliver is my new favorite) I find myself in
conversations with people about different ways to cook certain meats, how to spice things just right. I love planning the meal so everything comes out at the correct time and hot and ready to eat.
God gifted me with a sensitive palate. And like the mouse in
Ratatouille I love paring flavours together. Over Christmas break God really put on my heart to be more hospitable and have people over. So now I have once again started up my hospitality night and it is a great adventure. When I present the menu for the evening to my guests I always end with this disclaimer "I have not cooked this dish before so the meal could end up being pizza or
taquitos from the freezer" But
therein lay the adventure.
I must relate one near disaster a few weeks ago. I had left work an hour early so I didn't have to rush like usual. I had all the side dishes done and ready for the oven, the appetizers were in the fridge waiting for company to arrive. My last step was to pull out the pork loin, roll it in the herbs and stick it in the oven. So I opened the fridge to grab the pork and realized that the pork was in the freezer still. So with 30 min before the guest arrived I was at the grocery store buying a second pork roast. Yeah that was fun. Fortunately the guests were running 15 min behind that night so they would have been none the wiser had I not had to relate the humour of it all to everyone.
Anyway, all this to say that in the blogs to come I will be sure to relate many of the adventures in cooking of this
amateur Gourmet.
You know those people who live in a place where are the tourist go and never see the sights themself. Well, when it comes to Venice Beach......that was me. I have lived here in Sun Southern California for 11 years and never set foot on Venice Beach. I had heard it was a place where there were a bunch of weird people, cheap t-shirts and sun glass, and tattoo parlors. Though an interesting sight to see I thought not a place I cared to go.
That is until my best friend and his wife came into town last week. They were both appalled, being ex-So Californians, that I had never been to Venice Beach. So Friday I took the day off work and we headed to Venice Beach. I was promised a show of strange individuals, cheap souvenirs, and funnell cake. I must admit I was most excited about the possibility of Funnel Cake. 
My mom would be so proud. 