Hello, and welcome! I'm Ross Donaldson; this is my blog. These statements are obvious.
I love a lot of things -- cycling, information theory, opera singing, straight razor shaving, fire dancing, and really good books, to name but a few. Maybe food isn't the thing I love the most, but I think I know it the best. I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm better at Eating.
I learned how to cook from my mother, from whom dinner really means I Love You. Eating I taught myself, and I wasn't aware of doing it. Flavors, like Surrealist French Poetry, just make sense to me. Just out of college, a realization struck me: I cook well because I'm very clear minded about just what I want to be eating when I'm done. Everything else is time -- time spent learning techniques, time spent reading food books, time spent eating four meals per day. Most importantly, I spend all the time I'm eating paying attention to my own reaction to the food I eat. I'm the best person for me to learn what I like from; I study at my own feet.
My life, while maybe not very long so far, has taught me a few good lessons. This blog is here to share my passionate belief that a day full of wonderful food raises the quality of your life. You can eat anything you want to during a day -- so why don't you? Sure, limits and restrictions and provisos about. Maybe you're trying to shed weight, or lower blood pressure, or cut budgetary corners. Maybe you would rather put your time elsewhere. It doesn't change my point. There are foods out there that are perfect for you, delicious in every way and appropriate for your diet. I'm a firm believer in working to enable gratification; gorging yourself 'cause you want to is dumb, but eating tofu and green salads so you can enjoy a good brie? Freaking brilliant. That said: I've met an amazing number of people who don't know what they actually like in a food. Only you can tell you. The next time you bite into something, spend a little more time wondering. "It's crunchy -- do I like that? Is it salty enough? Do I even enjoy salt?" And remember: there are no wrong answers in taste, only what you like or don't.
I'm going to try to help you learn a little bit about food and eating and how to do both a little better. I went to a liberal arts college; I'd like to give you a liberal education in food. I'm going to try and share how I think about and do things. I'm not doing this so you can mimic my execution; this is not a recipe blog. To be honest, my how-to section might irritate you. I'm fuzzy on quantities, use ratios a lot, and spend more time saying things like "fry it until you think it's been fried enough" than giving you precise amounts of time or exact temperatures. Likely, it will be more like cooking with your grandmother than cooking from a book. I'm trying to make you think -- even if you think "I don't care for that," that's valuable for you to know!
And backing up a step: I actually think recipes are pretty great, even though I use them fairly little. I'm going to try to reference good cook books and recipe blogs as frequently as I possibly can. No, I wont always succeed -- but the intention is there.
A few more things to know: me personally, I love peasant cooking. Whenever possible, I prefer to let the quality of the ingredient do all the talking. At unguarded moments I'll admit that I think food is always better for you the less processing its endured -- a philosophy that helps rationalize my rather excessive consumption of the worlds best fats (cheese, bacon fat, lard, avocados, etc.). Let's be honest: remember that bit about working to enable gratification? I bike, run, and do Russian Kettlebells more or less explicitly to allow me to eat like I do. Many of the recipes and techniques I'll talk about on here are for things like roast chicken, gravy, and pizza. Write about what you know, eh? But, again: I'm not telling you what to eat. Food, eating well, cooking well: these things take time. They don't have to take much -- but some.
So look around! For my generaly writings on food, try the Chronicles. Want to get cooking, sort of? The How To section was made for you. (Kind of.) I post not-food-at-all things in here. I'm open to questions, comments, requests, and general exchanges. This thing is on the Internet, hey? I'm sorta asking for it.
Go forth. Food awaits!