Follow Through

Second entry. I'm actually attempting to commit to this. Perhaps writing is good.

Tonight, I made BBQ pulled pork for dinner. As today was my day off, I opted for a lazy way of cooking. One of my favorite things to do is just throw some ingredients in a crock pot and let it cook on low all day. I'm always excited to come home and just see what heat and time have created for me. It's like a surprise, but it shouldn't really be that surprising I guess. To date, I have yet to be disappointed.

It began with a pork roast and a bottle of Stubb's BBQ sauce. I set the crock pot on low, and then I ran a host of errands and spent egregious amounts of money on things I didn't really need. I know that a lot of foodies tend to think that the best foods come from fresh ingredients, and they would be right. However, I do think that there's a great deal to be said for something as simple as bottled condiments like BBQ sauce. It might be because I'm not really much of a foodie. Sometimes, I just want processed, packaged crap food. I don't think there's any harm in embracing that.

Perhaps I'd be more judgmental of the BBQ sauce if it wasn't for the fact that I've been to the source. Stubb's is a great place in Austin, Texas. They're a great music venue, and they have a really wonderful presence in the community. (Austin is a pretty amazing city, and I'm jealous every single day that my twin brother gets to live there.) They've got amazing food, and I love the fact that the modern age provides me with the ability to go to a local supermarket and pick up a little piece of Austin. There's definitely something to be said for that.

At any rate, dinner was fairly simple. The roast was tender enough to be fork-shredded by the time my friends and I came back from shopping. We had green beans and salads with it. Since there's plenty left over, we'll be having it again this week, which will be perfect for our busy lives and occasionally conflicting schedules.

Inauguration

I've been interested in writing ever since I was a child. In fact, I even made the brief foray into the scholastic life of an English major before life itself got in my way, and I had to withdraw from school and get a job. I've made many broken attempts at taking a stab at writing something more meaningful than a shopping list, but I always seem to abandon ship somewhere along the way.

I'd like to set the bar low. I have a little bit of an expectation that this project is a project that I might drop like a smug rapper drops a mic after an epic rap battle. That said, my boyfriend (manfriend?) is constantly encouraging me to write, to be creative, and to embrace the process. Perhaps if I write about something that I have to do every day, like cooking, then I'll be more interested in keeping it up.

Tonight, over a dinner of chicken piccata, we had a conversation that was almost reminiscent of the conversation between Julie Powell and her husband in Julie and Julia. It went something like this:

Me: This is what I should write about. Trying new things in the kitchen.
Him: So write about it.
Me: Maybe I will...

For once, I'm actually exhibiting some follow-through. Let me just explain why this was happening. Tony, my manfriend, had never tried chicken piccata until tonight. He's one of the pickiest eaters I've ever known. (The man doesn't even like cheese, and it isn't a matter of lactose intolerance.) Lately, he's been more adventurous, and when he finds a dish that he's interested in trying, I'll make it for us for dinner. As a result of his recent inspiration to branch out, we've been making a lot of new dishes in the kitchen. I figure since he's been willing to branch out culinarily, I should be willing to branch out artistically. There's balance. We're both putting ourselves out there, perhaps to be grossly disappointed.

I mean to take pictures of the things that I make, but since this blog was a last minute decision, I am lacking in pictures for this entry. However, the chicken piccata was a smashing success. I made it for the first time this evening, following Rachael Ray's recipe (found here--though there's also a modification of the same recipe in this month's issue of her magazine). I used the recipe more as a guide than a religion, and it turned out pretty much perfectly.

Chicken piccata tastes like summer to me. It's has a fresh citrus edge. The parsley, which has always tasted a little like grass to me, gives it a little something extra that reminds me of summer evenings. The capers add the salty, briny bite that really complete it. Plus, it's made with wine, and I find that most things made with wine are exceptionally delicious.

Tony declared it the best thing that I've cooked for him thus far, which makes it a great triumph indeed. It's a recipe that we'll be repeating in our kitchen.