There is nothing more dangerous than a writer with no edits.

I feel bad sometimes as I look at my blog and wonder where the posts have gone.  I feel a bit nostalgic as I wonder where my passion for writing a blog 2-3 times a week has gone.  Have I lost a love and passion for real food?  Have I lost a need for finding and tasting interesting things?  Have I lost a feeling of allowing writing to be so easy as my own thoughts on paper (or on a keyboard)?  No, I think the main reason that I don't do so much now is actually because of time.  I do not own a TARDIS.

I have never owned a time machine nor been able to travel and contain time.  So, the possibility of myself to be able to be a full time father, a full time sales and accounting person as well as do my new hobby and still have time to go out and about and write about some restaurant that St. Louis is told to follow like sheep, is just not on my mind right now.

Contrary to what some may think, I am not paid to eat out.  I am not under the salary force of any magazine, website or institution so no one is paying me to write about certain things.  In that same sense, no one is paying me to not write about certain things.  There has always been this loyalty to the truth, which I write by that very little other writers in the metropolitan area live by.  The truth being what a restaurant really is like.  I want every person who reads my reviews to be able to feel as though they had been there in my same circumstance.  I do not want to read about how someone was specially greeted by the manager and sat at the best table where they were given the best food and then everything was on the house because their arrival was predetermined and arranged.  I don't want to hear about how someone called and called and had whole conversations with a group of chefs about where their favorite places are and then make sure they have advertisements with my company before they have their reviews posted.  The fact remains, as it does in any city, that if you wish to be paid for writing about a restaurant or item, you cannot piss off the sponsors.  It seems like a very simple idea.  The sponsor pays the company, the company pays you to eat at the sponsor's location, and you need to write something good about the sponsor so they are happy and maybe pay more.  It makes complete sense and if I was a sell-out, I would ask for advertising and then write post after post about those sponsors and make them out to be the best in the world.  The problem with this concept is: I have too much integrity for the truth to sell-out.

I have read online reviews of restaurants which rave and rave about how perfect everything is only to go there and have a horrible dining experience.  Why did this restaurant get such good reviews?  Well first of all, in the online version of the magazine, they have links, banners and ads on the site.  In the tangible magazine, they have 1/2 to full page ads, which can be as much as $1,000 a run.  Like any good business, the site would not dare say anything about someone who just paid them $1,000 to promote their restaurant as that would be completely the opposite of the original intention.  Also, the online negative reviews were hidden and removed.  There are a lot of online reviewing sites but most of them give the reviewed location or company a chance to remove the negative ones, making them in the best possible light even though they are not.

In this case, as you read above, the restaurant I was thinking of is always listed as one of the best 'burger' places in town.  It is hailed as also being a great LGBT friendly location as well.  They have ads in almost ever St. Louis magazine and on their sites.  The problems is though, the food is so-so and the service is difficult.  In my mind, if the service is horrible but the food is good, then I'd be happy to come back.  If the food is bad and the service is amazing, I'd even come back to be pampered.  But if the service and food is bad and the only savings grace you have as a unique restaurant is the fact that your mascot is a cross dresser, then I don't count that as saving your ass.  This isn't an anti LGBT post or sexist or chauvinistic or anything having to do with people, but only food.  I have been in a local bar where the female staff wear costumes like Tinkerbell and even serve customers in bikinis. You could have the best looking staff wearing next to nothing but if it has nothing to do with your food and your food and service still suck, it will not save you from me.

It may save you from the droves of men that fit that demographic.  About a year ago I was picked up as the first ever food writer for a website which normally only did sports and sports news.  They wanted to try having a food writer and so I started writing about places that I go to.  I don't go to super fancy locations but the places I go to require you to wear a bit more than a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and a hat.  During the year which I had submitted articles for this site, it was becoming more and more clear to me, from the trolls as well, that the majority of readers of my articles were actually men looking for the best place in St. Louis that served the best food, for the cheapest price, the cheapest beer, and the best looking girls.  And you know what?  That doesn't fill what I write about.  I like beer, and I like to get great food for a low price, and having a wait staff that is clean-cut, nice-looking and in a uniform certainly helps, but usually the places that have great food don't have half-naked girls running around.  (Although the last time I did eat the food in the VIP section of the Penthouse Club in Sauget, the food was pretty decent and there were half-naked girls running around.)  The owner of the site told me that they were moving in a different direction after a year, which is code for "the readers don't want to spend more than $10 for a meal".  But as a food writer who actually has some restaurant experience, I don't want to stick to the $10 beer and hot wings every day for every meal.  I want to explore and taste new things and that often means that I need to go to new places and try the food, even if it is more than $10.


But food writing is also a large editorial and is entirely opinion based.  Traditionally it is, at least.  I like to add a bit more though.  I know that from my dark days working on that cook's line at Home Town Buffet, making cheap food for old people to push down their throats, I know that if you have a frier full of grease and set at 385 degrees, you can drop and cook 2 whole chickens in about 13 minutes.  I know that you can cook chicken strips in a frier for about 3 minutes.  I know that French fries take about as long and I know that you can cook a whole sheet tray of baked chicken in an oven at roughly the same temperature in less than an hour.  I have some basic education and know how long a steak should take.  I know how a sous vide machine works and how some basic molecular gastronomy techniques are used.  I can't be fooled easily because I still experiement and cook food at home.  So, me going to a bar or restaurant, that specializes in chicken wings, and having to wait for 50 minutes to get them delivered to my table, cold, is not an excuse.

Here is a fun fact for you:  While working 8 and 1/2 years for Buffets, Inc.  I developed some basic understanding of the Spanish language.  I did take Spanish for two years in high school but didn't really full grasp it until I worked at the restaurants, where most of the staff was illegal Mexicans.  Am I calling them out, will I cause a scandal?  I doubt it.  Were they really illegal?  Well, let's say this:  one instance had the general manager asking two employees who were related about their SS card because they had the exact same number.  Secondly, about once a year, we would get tipped off that there was an INS agent coming in and on those days, half of our staff called in sick. So, when you speak Mexican Spanish, drive a car with a temporary license plate for 2 years, live in an apartment with 10 other people in St. Louis, can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English and call in sick when the manager has a meeting with a representative from Immigration,  I would call you an illegal immigrant. But I digress...  I learned Spanish from them.  So, while I was dating my now wife and even after we married, anytime I would go to a Mexican restaurant, and my family asked for a table, I would listen to the banter, I would hear what they were saying about us.  I would also make suggestions.  For instance at one restaurant they claimed that they could not seat my group of 6, and we had to wait 20-30 minutes.  Well, in Spanish, I suggested that we could take those two tables if they turned them and pushed them together.  I will never forget the look on the face of the hostess, because right there she realized that I A: knew what I was talking about and B: knew what she was saying.  It would be like if you want to the local nail salon and could understand the language that the Vietnamese women use.  You could understand all of their banter and you could find out if they were saying anything about you.  Imagine how honest they would become, all of a sudden, if you said something in their language.

So, back to my point, going to a place that says they have great burgers and getting an okay burger is not a good thing.  The best part of my hobby, is that I can write about it as it is.  The restaurant I went to was called Hamburger Mary's.  Sorry, I don't have pictures.  In fact, the place was so dimly lit that I bet it helped the food look better than it actually was.  My wife and I entered, and were sat upstairs, surrounded by tables full of women.  The bar which was about 6 feet away from us, had one bartender who came over and was also our server.  After greeting us, we told him that we were actually stopping in for a quick bite and had a show in an hour at the FOX.  Ordering a coke, a burger and fries and a grilled piece of chicken, didn't seem like it would take forever or should take forever, but it did.  The restaurant had two levels.  The top level, by us, was where the bathrooms, bar, and 4 televisions on the wall were located.  There was 4 different movies playing at the same time.  There was music and talking and it was a very loud place.  My wife and I waited for almost 45 minutes before our food arrived.  It was the most boring burger I have ever had.  The burger tasted like you took regular ground 85/15 beef from the supermarket and cooked it.  It didn't even have salt or pepper.  My poor wife, ordered some grilled chicken sandwich and the chicken had nothing on it as well.  I know people, even health nuts, like their grilled chicken to have some flavor so it doesn't taste like you are eating a piece of cardboard.  This had no salt, no sauce of any kind, and no pepper.  Here is the thing, my wife and I were starving, attempting to fill our bellies before a two show at the FOX.  So, we wanted to eat the food, but it was so bad that we didn't.  We didn't even take it to go!  It was just bad.  How does that rate?  Well, in my book that is a 0 out of 5 stars.

What does that mean for you?  Well, if I was paid to write by any of the St. Louis magazines, websites or organizations, you would not know how bad the food is there, until after you got ripped off as well.  This also means, that I can help relate the truths that the restaurants who DO NOT pay out for ads are like.  One of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis is called Basso and they are by the Cheshire.  They have all of the makings of a restaurant that is highly praised by the news and media outlets, yet they are not.  Instead, the magazines, websites and news shows seek instead to draw attention to Niche and Sydney Street.  Now those two restaurants are good, I'm not saying they are not, but what everyone else fails to understand is that Basso is here as well.  There has been a lot of press recently because the head chefs of Niche and Sydney Street are nominated for a James Beard Award, which is like the Emmy of the food world.  Every news outlet, every magazine and website are talking about how great this is to have these two chefs represent St. Louis and bring home a James Beard Award for this city.  They say things like "this is awesome", "we deserve this", and people saying they have a life-long dream of eating at a James Beard Award recipient's restaurant.  But, we have a James Beard Award winning Chef at a restaurant in St. Louis already.  I have just honestly mentioned this to all of these posts and my mention gets ignored.  What does the chefs of these other two restaurants have over these magazines and website?  I bet you that if these two chefs didn't win this award, the above sources would be depressed suggesting that St. Louis will never be recognized for their food.  Yet we have an award winning chef here already!  I don't understand, but maybe it has to do with politics.  Maybe Basso is so good of a restaurant that they don't feel that they need to give food away to the owners of those magazines and site to get good reviews.  It is amazing how the mediocre restaurants, like Hamburger Mary's or Brazikat, get pushed and represented as the best in the area because they paid the most for the biggest ad. 

I know that the restaurant scene in St. Louis is highly political.  I was reassured of that truth upon my first conversation with Chef John Johnson, but at the same time, that political correct view of which restaurants are allowed to be on top and which ones stay on the bottom does not work well with the same concept turned to reflect actual quality.

(And this is why I am dangerous.) 

Overall though, as work and time permits, I do wish to write about more things, like new food ideas and new restaurants.  I feel that you can always come to me for the real story of some of these restaurants and not the controlled suggestions that these outlets claim to be the truth.  Although, maybe you can't handle the truth.

10 things I am for sure sure about food.

Last Saturday night, as Alton Brown took the stage at the Fox, in St. Louis, he gave us his redone rendition of 10 things he was sure about food.  He complained about the list because he first made it 23 years ago and every day, he thinks of something where he changes it and so, it is never the same list twice.  That list, his ten, have been replaying over and over in my mind as I think of different ones that apply to me and my life.  Some of my 10 things, are the same as one of his and and such, I bet the same as many other chefs around the world.  So, my list, of 10 things that I am for sure sure about food, here we are:

1.  Just a pinch of salt.  Salt is and was always the most important item on Earth.  Wars in Ancient times were fought over salt.  Salt when added to a hot bath can make it hotter before it gets hotter. I know that I have added salt to a humidifier in my children's room, so it can get a hotter point and create steam easier.  When people didn't have salt, or refrigerators, they had to bury their food in the ground, in order to save it.  Salt, allowed people to save and preserve their food without keeping it in a cellar.  Salt is a natural enemy of bacteria.  Salt is used in mouthwashes after dental visits and is even used as an aid in cleaning wounds.  It even was considered to be such a pure thing that Lot's wife was turned to a pillar of salt in the Bible.  Salt is added to baked goods as it helps to retard the yeast and slow it down.  Salt has a chemical makeup that enables it with the power to pull water.  Chef's add salt to a pan of vegetables in order to pull moisture out and "Sweat" them.  Have you ever salted a driveway before a snow storm?  Have you seen the moisture around each piece of salt?  The salt pulls moisture out of the concrete or blacktop of a driveway.  When salt is added to food, it allows the food to taste more like itself by concentrating the flavor.  This is why salt is added to everything.  Furthermore, salt SHOULD be added to everything.  Remember, just a pinch of salt or even a light sprinkling will do.

2. Taste your food.  You may think or be the best chef in the world, but if you do not taste your food and properly season it (see number 1), then no one will like or even take a second bite of your food.  Taste is often tied to memories and those memories replay when the edible item triggers them.  People would most surely have different memories on whether they had a good hamburger seasoned with salt and pepper versus a bad hamburger that just had ground beef.  Furthermore, a person is more likely to remember when they had that good food that tasted good versus one that tasted bad.  People think of these fond memories and it comforts them: comfort food.  Those nice feelings and memories and most often tied to good tasting food.  No one talks about how they had fond memories of eating hamburgers that tasted like dog food and smelled like manure.  If you prepare any type of food, make sure you taste it at least once.  Anyone, from a professional chef to a home cook needs to know what to change or add to a dish in order to make it the way they want.  If you own a restaurant, make sure that everything you send out is from something you tasted so you know that you are serving only the very best.

3. Food is fun.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that cooking is hard work, alone.  Yes, peeling 20 potatoes and cooking them, ricing them, mixing them with other things to make mashed potatoes is work, but the end result is so much better than the work. Think of it this way: Do you like money?  Does having money enable you to have fun?  Do you work for your money?  Is work fun? (maybe not)  Therefore: the reward from work, lets you have fun.  The same applies to cooking.  No matter how much work you are doing for the food, even if you grow everything and cook it all yourself, it is work.  However, whether it is the joy of tasting and eating or the joy from watching others taste and eat, that work should give you fun.  I like food, I love to eat food.  But even more so, I have fun doing things to food.  I like to try to cook new things and place new combinations together.  I think that is fun.  I like to cook tasty things and give them to people and watch them enjoy the food.  Good food should fill your heart, soul and stomach.  It should make you feel like doing a happy dance.  Food is fun.
  
4. The best cook in the world is....  When Alton Brown came up on stage to explain a statement, he suggested that "your wife is the best cook in the world".  The idea being that within 6 months of his marriage, he mentioned that his wife might need to add some oregano into some pasta sauce and she was so flustered that she left the kitchen and "didn't come back for 6 months".  Now, while I understand that husbands always tell their wives that they are the best cook in the world, this example doesn't work for me and my wife.  My story is this:  I have been an avid cook, huge fan of cooking, ever since I was a kid.  I was sad when I went to school because they stopped the "home-ec" courses and there wasn't a cooking school to be found in the area.  So, I self taught and learned on my job.  Now, while me wife and I were engaged, she did cook food for me, but when I went to her house, she wasn't allowed to cook, only her mom was.  Now, when we were married, she cooked almost all of the time, as every once in a while I was allowed to cook.  She made a really good pasta sauce and everything she made was honestly really good.  But, when she became pregnant the first time, she obviously didn't cook.  (I personally believe any husband who makes his pregnant wife cook is just being a ;%#.)  So, I took up the reigns and started cooking every night.  I cooked foods for dinner and lunch to take to work.  When my wife had our first child and she was home with him, I still cooked so she could recoop.  Then when she was pregnant again, I kept cooking.  I like to cook and can take criticism about my food if someone doesn't like it or if they do.  That being said, I do believe that the best cook in the world still isn't me.  I think for anyone and all of us, the best cook in the world who is someone who cooks with love.  The last thing you want, as a husband, is the competitiveness by telling your wife that she is the best cook in the world, thus making your mom and mother-in-law and any other females in the family, go complete Cutthroat Kitchen on each other to be better.  

5. Breaking bread is the best welcome ever.  What I mean by that, is that the best way to welcome someone into your family or just your house, is to feed them.  I have been in houses where you enter and stand there, literally, standing around, or sitting around and talking.  I have even been to family events from my past like this.  Nothing lets people relax like the addition of food.  I think the best example of this, is when my family went to Lebanon.  (Going to Ireland was a close second.) In Lebanon, we visited people who were cousins of cousins, didn't speak a lick of English and the only one in our group that spoke Arabic, was my father-in-law, who was from Lebanon.  So, here we are in people's houses, in the middle of no where, not another house as far as the eye can see in either direction and out of no where, someone come sin with a small platter of food.  The hospitality of people in Lebanon simply astounds me.  When Andrew Zimmern goes to Middle East countries on his Bizarre Foods show and you see him go to a random tent in Ethiopia and get treated like a king with a pillow to sit and food to eat, that is how it is in real life.  People know that giving food or at least offering food is a great way to open up and start discussion as well as tell the person who is being offered "I don't know you, but I care enough about your health that you should have a bite," I think.  Think of it as if you ever had one of those grandmothers whom every time you visited would offer you a bite of something or a something to eat.  Always offering in a good natured grandmotherly sort of way.  From as far back as ancient times to stories in the Bible, breaking bread is always something that people do, to bring them together.  Alton Brown suggested that the greatest tool in the kitchen is a kitchen table.  It is that table that brings families together.  I change my statement as such because while a kitchen table is important to bring families together, if you don't have a table, or are without your family, any sharing of food will bring people together.  

6. Organic, gmo, vegan friendly and gluten free are all just names of B.S..  Here are some fun things to know.  First of all, to be labeled by the organic food club, you have to become certified.  That cost will run you anywhere from $200 to over $1,500.  That certification also has to be done every year.  So, you may be a farmer, who has used the same seeds for generations, never used chemical pesticides and even talks nicely to your plants.  But, if you don't pay to be certified, you cannot be organic.  There are many other producers who make food as healthy and even more healthy than "Organic" labeled ones, but they just didn't get the label. The term "GMO" refers to a "genetically modified organism".  The term has lately been considered a derogatory term for Monsanto products.  I have a friend who works at Monsanto and some of the things that he is proud of, that the company has done, is making a seed of rice, that will grow and yield in less water.  What about corn plants that will produce the same amount of corn, no matter the type of climate?  Imagine how famine in the world could disappear.  It isn't a conspiracy, but from what I have seen in science sites, articles and journals, there hasn't been any real proof that a GMO corn kernel, from a GMO grown corn seed and plant, can harm or kill a human being.  If a corn plant has been genetically modified so that it will grow into a mature and vegetable bearing plant with half of the water of a normal one, how will that affect a human?  Will the human be able to drink and survive only on half of the water than a normal person?  Also, in regards to GMO pesticides, most plants have a natural pesticide develop in them, that does harm some insects and not humans.  Vegans are a variety of people of whom I have no understanding.  If you are staying away from ALL animal products because of the harming or injuring of animals, then are you wearing vegan friendly items or using vegan friendly items?  Is your shower soap vegan friendly?  Do you wear or use anything plastic?  Plastic comes from oil, which in turn comes from animals.  What type of car do you drive?  Gasoline comes from animals as well.  Do you wear jewelry?  Is there any shells, elastic or plastic in that as well?  Gluten-free is not an allergy.  There is a real condition where some people who cannot digest Gluten can become sick from it.  But that condition is rare and most likely the people who claim to be gluten free could have something else wrong with them, like diabetes.     

7. Kids will eat what you eat.  My kids do not eat.  We sometimes joke that they grow from photosynthesis.  Yeah, if we go to St. Louis Bread Co. or over to Noodles & Company, they will eat large amounts of food, but it seems everywhere else, that they mostly pick and complain about their food. When I would go out of my way and make extra nutritious things for my wife and she would sit near the kids and eat them, we are always amazed at how my kids will ask if they can have a bite and then sometimes finish off her whole plate.  I never before saw a child so eager to eat some mushrooms or brussel sprouts.  Kids watch what you eat as well.  So, when you give your kids some healthy sandwiches from Quiznos and you are eating a a double quarter-pounder with fries, then they start to wonder why they have to eat healthy and you do not. Like the above example, I have seen that if you want your kids to eat or eat healthy, then you should too.

8. Anyone Can Cook  It not only was the name of a fictional book in the Disney movie :Ratatouille, but it is a motto that I truly believe.  I have seen all manner of people who can cook and you always hear stories about people thrust into situations and then in order to survive, they had to cook.  I think that cooking is the easiest thing to do, now.  When I first started at a restaurant, several years ago, I avoided the cooks line because I was afraid that I was going to screw up something with food.  Well, my manager threw me back there one day to cover a cook who called in and when I started to panic he pulled me aside and showed me a recipe.  We had all of the recipes laminated so they wouldn't get messed up on the line.  He explained it to me straight "you look at what the recipe calls for and put it in and do as it says; an idiot can do it.  Its not rocket science," he said.

So, as simple as it seemed, it just didn't hit until then.  If a recipe calls for a cup of this and 1/8th cup of that, as long as you put the right amounts in, then it will turn out just fine.  That instantly set off a switch and since that day, I have been able to look at about any recipe and make the food.  Because of this, I believe that if you can follow instructions, exactly, you can cook.

9. Always try new foods.  My wife and I have been pushing this ideology since my oldest could eat food.  I grew up in a household in St. Louis which had the same thing for breakfast every day and then the same meal for lunch for school every day and then dinner followed a schedule.  So my mom would cook pot roast for dinner on Monday and then on Tuesday it would be spaghetti and so on, ending with fish sticks on Friday.  It was never real fish and the only idea I ever had of seafood was from Red Lobster.  So, my family, which oddly enough came from a German/Austrian side and a German/Scottish side, didn't do that much in terms of food experimentation or new foods to us, for that matter.  You would probably guess that with those 3 cultures, we would have something new, but no.  My parents were stuck in a cuisine rut and had no interest in trying new foods.  This made it difficult for me, as I was willing to expand my thoughts and palette and I was trying everything I could.  I was trying real seafood, different cultural foods and even strange ingredients.  I tried everything and just like Andrew Zimmern, I will try anything at least twice.  Just as number 7 shows, your kids will be more apt to try new foods, if they watch you try new foods.  If you try something and you do not like it, don't say things like "ewww" or "yuck", because that will give others the predisposition that it is how you describe it; nullifying any want to try it themselves.

10. Foods are holistic.  I took some classes back in 2008, for a degree in Holistic Nutrition.  While it may have seemed like a questionable course and much less a not accredited college, the theory and that little bit of proof and research shows that something that are wrong with us can in fact be treated and cured with food.  It is called holistic nutrition or holistic healing and it is an idea or theory that food can be supplanted for medicine when it comes to healing the body.  Think of the #1 cold remedy: chicken soup.  If you go to a doctor over a cold, they will tell you that there is nothing they can give you.  You can always go to a pharmacy and take some decongestant or ibuprofen or something to help ease pressure if any.  But, people always say to take chicken soup.  The fact is that lately scientists have done the testing and found out that chicken soup, when homemade, is filled with an amino acid that is found in chicken, which helps the body loosen mucus.  Not to mention all of the antioxidants and all sorts of vitamins in the vegetables that are in the soup as well.  What is important to look for and watch, is that every year scientists make a discovery where they find some plant somewhere, which has been shown to help with [blank].  It could be a plant extract that helps treat AIDS or a type of legume that helps fight cancer or something like that.    

So, that is my 10 things.  It took me a week to come up with.

Off to the Science Center to eat bugs

A trip with my kids to the St. Louis Science Center proved something cool: bugs are yummy, except crickets.  They had a special exhibit called Harry's World, which was an exhibit filled with bugs.  It had cockroach races, a house where children pretended to be a Terminix representative and search for bugs, butterflies, and even some edible bugs.  And that was the most important spot.  An entomoligist, every day, prepares bugs for the people to try and taste.  So, I had to give a try.  Even more so, Andrew Zimmern, this is for you.

So, there was a bowl of crickets and two bowls of waxworms.  There was one waxworm that had a spicy hot pepper and Southwest flavor to it.  The other waxworm had a sugar and cinnamon seasoning.

So, my review of the bugs is this: the cinnamon and sugar waxworms tasted just like dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  I could eat a bowl of them.  As long as they don't get soggy in milk.  The Southwest style waxworms were a bit spicy and the spices worked well also.  As for the crickets, the taste was okay, but a wing got caught in the neck of my throat and reminded me of the same feeling as when you eat popcorn and get a slip of kernel on your throat.  It took me several minutes till I got a drink to wash it down.

Still, the most amazing thing that made this experience even more amazing was doing it with my two boys.  I held out my hand with the Cinnamon and Sugar Waxworms and offered one to both of my kids after trying one.  My oldest, who normally is very grossed out about bugs and slimy things, immediately and without hesitation, reached into my hand, picked one up and ate it.  My other son, who loves things of the macabre, loves bugs and the strange and odd, was afraid to eat the bugs and took a few steps back from me.

I think that experience is likened to that of Andrew Zimmern's first experience with strange food.  I think that kids will do and try anything, provided that a positive role model does the same.