What type of food person are you?

I love many types of food, but nothing beats a great sandwich complete with chili, pan-seared chicken, avocados, bread that's lightly covered with basil-infused olive oil before being lightly toasted, olives, and hot sauce.


I know, I didn't include bacon. I do love bacon like anyone else, but to me it's expensive, overly-processed, and way too high in saturated fat...sadly.

What do you eat that's not overly unhealthy, but still tastes aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawesome.

 

My friend's home made chili - lots of meat, tomatoes, onions, HOT peppers, etc... it tastes best on the 2nd and 3rd day!!! With home made jalapeno corn bread!!!

 

This is really hard to answer. While in grad school I apprenticed to a French master chef for 3+ years and two Italian masters for a year. Plus my ex-wife, also a chef, was from New Delhi. And I grew up in my uncle's deli and cheese shop in NY, lived in North Carolina for years and just got a full-sized smoker, went to high school and undergrad in Baltimore where I worked in seafood and greek places and ate tons of pit beef. Only stopped cooking for a living after two spinal surgeries and chronic nerve pain. Spent more than half my life cooking and working in food.

Been cooking a lot of Lyonaisse and Parisenne cuisine recently, as I got some Perigord truffles. So classic French cuisine is right up there for me - made truffled coquilles st jacques last night, truffled pork tenderloin in madeira earlier this week, pork braised in armagnac, sherry and chanterelles before that. But I love Northern Italian as much - made chicken in a cream marsala and mushroom today, making gnocchi in asiago fresco alfredo tomorrow. And I'm lucky enough to live literally 30 seconds from the best Indian restaurant in the D.C. area, IMHO, and eat there whenever possible. Not to mention Chinese- I'm Jewish, so I've eaten Chinese at least once a week my entire life, and got to study with one of the only westerners who ever cooked at Ma Yu Ching's in Kaifeng.

But I also LOVE a cubano sandwich more than almost anything else in the world, right up there with truffle butter or a real pastrami reuben [reuben is literally my middle name] when I can get a good one. Pain in the ass to make at home - have to roast the pork, cure the ham, etc.

Damn it, now I want to cook again.

Amazing how much food tastes better the next day. We always made all soup at least a day early in all the restaurants I worked in, to give the flavors time to "marry". I try to make stews and chili at least a day and a half ahead.

 

"a real pastrami reuben" - BEST SANDWICH ON EARTH!!!

 

It has gotten so hard to find pastrami with any fat in it. Pastrami is SUPPOSED to have fat. Dripping, tasty fat.

 

You are SO right!!! Folks nowadays think a good pastrami sandwich can be had at a Subways. Geezus...NOOOOOOOOOO! Down here in S. Florida, we used to have the Metro Sandwich Shop in Downtown Miami, and Wolfies on N. Miami Beach...incredibly succulent corned beef & pastrami...and the pickles were amazing!!! Those were the good ol days!!! Don't get me started!!!

 

I prefer real food.

I'd love to try a real pastrami reuben.. I usually have corned beef brisket on mine.

 

Corned beef is acceptable. Reuben's was (maybe still is) a deli in NY, they had pastrami reubens, corned beef, tongue, you name it/ But the pastrami is ORGASMIC when done right. Real kosher pastrami has fat levels

 

I often make different kinds of stamppot(a dutch word, translates to mashpot/mashpan, it's a typical winterdish). it's easy, I only need one pan for all the vegetables(and another for meat/onions/garlic/stuff that is baked instead of cooked), and I can easily experiment with it. I'm a student so easiness and low cost come in handy, and I never made pasta, so most of my meals involve potatoes.

sometimes I make one of the wellknown classic kinds of stamppot(well, in the netherlands they're well-known), like boerenkoolstamppot(potatoes+kale mashed together), or hutspot(potatoes, onions and carrots mashed together)
but I also like to experiment, for example I once made a variation on hutspot with pumpkin and apple added to it(I can't remember if I left out the carrot or not)(in that case I also baked the meat together with some chilipepper I grew myself, wich added nice spicy/hot bits into the mash, while not spreading the heat trough all of it)

and at this moment there is still a little leftover in the fridge of the stamppot I made the day before yesterday, with wich I was pretty satisfied. it consists of potatoes, brussel sprouts, onions and apple, and those baconcubes mashed trough it as meat, but since that wasn't as much as usual, so I also added cheese. usually I either use minced meat or shoarmameat as meat to mash trough stamppot. also, I seasoned that brusselsprouts/apple stampot with cinnamon while cooking.

before this last stamppot I made another dutch winterdish, wich provided me food for about a week: peasoup. it's a very thick soup(if it has cooled down you can scoop it and it will stay in shape, consistency is similar to mashed potatoes), I especially like it with plenty of meat in it. the vegetables it contained(this time): split peas (ofcourse..), carrot, potato, onion, celeriac, leek and seasoned with laurel. meat: one packet of 'soupmeat'(beef), and some pieces of pork belly(shortly before it's done I take out the pork belly and tear/cut it into pieces, then put it back in and stirr it trough), and a marrowbone.

 

Tonight, sea scallops in a lemon cream with truffled jasmine rice.

 

Come to my deli if your ever in NYC lol

 

What's the name of your deli? I grew up in NY delis, though the three my family had are now gone

 

Corner gourmet located downtown by the federal reserve building

 

Will head there next time I'm back in the city.
Terrifying how few real delis are left in NY, though still better than DC, where there is exactly one.

 

Now we are dba as taz café. The economy has led to many entrepreneurs choosing different businesses besides food. Because Food prices have more then doubled since the recession on a wholesale level and yet retail prices at mom and pop places like delis have not doubled. Rent also has skyrocketed in Manhattan.
All the while customers don't understand why even charging 9.00 for a real sandwich still isn't enough for us to make money because margins have decreased and operating costs have risen and sales as any person in retail will tell you have not returned to pre recession levels for real small businesses. In 2007 we were paying 150000 rent monthly with sales around 6000 per day with other running costs like salary and utilities. Today we pay 25000 per month and the sales have remained at same levels but merchandise prices have almost doubled or tripled in some cases. Not to act like we are the only ones getting f**** by a broken system but I don't even see little people and businesses talked about.

(on a side note it is a joke that tax brackets for small business are unfair. If you employ up to 500 employees the us gov't recognizes you as a small corporation. What about the mom and pop places? Why do the American people think of us when small business is said and yet the benefits apply to businesses capable of making billions of dollars even within a 500 employee business. Same thing with property taxes. In NYC if you own a property up to 3 family you are in the lowest tax bracket. If however you have say 5,6 or 7 family units in your building you belong to the tax bracket that also includes building with up to 100 units. Seriously what the f***? we can micromanage the shit out of the middle class when it comes to collecting money and yet when micromanaging can bring much deserved relief to the little people and businesses uncle sam gives you the middle finger. Why should I pay similar taxes and insurance coverage fees for my small deli as the noticeably much larger businesses. The average American with no business or home to begin with will 99% of the time only be able to start and grow a successful business or pay off a mortgage when they are making and working far more then the average American and that is a truly sad statistic. How is it that we allow our gov't to keep the vast majority of us soo deprived? I'm not talking about communism and free everything, I'm talking about being fair and paying the fair share, not squeezing what you can out of the weakest and most vulnerable entities to fulfill your quota.

 

I've always admired a good sandwich and Subways and Jimmie John's should be outlawed. Yuck.

I miss NYC delis.. alot. In South Florida we barely have any mom&pop delis at all. I worked in a deli for nearly 6 years and If I crave a good sandwich I'll make my own (Hot Pastrami with Fontina /Havarti on Rye!)

When it comes to REAL food I have a few favorites:

Jamaican (its in the blood) - Oxtails w/ Rice n Peas
Japanese - RAMEN (Not the 25 cent per package garbage)
Italian - Chicken Marsala over bow tie pasta

 

I have a batch of pork carnitas in the oven braising now.

 

I feel most at home using Cast Iron Skillets. On the stovetop & the oven.

Beyond that I'm becoming a real green smoothie master... makes me want to open my own shop.

edit:
This was Kale, banana, mango, vanilla extract, and aloe water. That's it!

 

i like to eat a crispy chicken cutlet hero
real italian style crispy fried chicken cutlet ( cooked the same daynone of that frozen prefried crap)
topped with pepperjack cheese & bacon then toasted perfectly in a industrial turbo chef oven

• then some lettuce, onions, hellmans ancho chipotle dressing(anyone who has never tried this condiment needs to hop on the wagon. this shit got discontinued so if you can find it online even at the large gallon sizes you should snap em up. this sauce is an amazing sub for ketchup mayo or mustard. also made for dipping as well) & a dash of tabasco. if i liked beer i think itd go great with a beer.
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• I have all the ingredients at work so i often make a fast dinner and take it home. and your local subway could charge you $100 but they cant replicate real by using proccessed. so please go to your local restaraunts and pay a little extra for the hard labor and time it takes to make food from scratch daily, because as a restaraunter please trust me,when i say that although the employees at such unique local establishments don't make much more then minimum wage, they work much harder then the slobs at your local fast food chain to provide the infinitely superior product and service. also you wouldn't believe the kinda stuff the national chains are feeding you. i always make it a priority to support a local place especially when they provide something superior.

 

As the chef who trained me used to say, it takes the same amount of effort and money to make bad food as good food. You just have to know what you're doing.

 

I have been getting into juicing as of late but I am growing tired of paying 10 bucks per visit to the local juice bar. I am looking for a good quality juicer that won't break the bank. Any suggestions?

 

I'd only recommend juicing if you already were a vegetarian.

Unless you get lots and lots of fiber already in your diet, I think it makes more sense to blend whole fruits/vegetables into a smoothie.

The best blenders are always either the Blendtec or the Vitamix...they're like the vapexhales of blenders lol. Expensive, tons of power, consistent easy-to-replicate results.

I use a Krups blender..more of a log vape using the same analogy. They're less than $200, less power but still enough, requires more technique and patience, but can ultimately produce fantastic silky smooth green smoothies. My personal one is very old so I don't have a model recommendation. Mine is fully removable for cleaning. From the boro glass body to the gasket and screw-on base.

Another thing to note is: the blendtec and vitamix both have to use plastic because their motors are so strong. The krups is able to use borosilicate glass instead of plastic because they don't quite have that same level of power causing ingredients to fly off at ballistically-high speeds.

 

I'm a pescatarian. If I didn't travel so much I would go straight veggie but it can be rough on the road.

 

Vitamix is best blender, followed very closely by Blendtec

Best juicer (and, I would recommend juicing for those with sensitive digestions) is Hurom vertical. Absolutely. It even does a great job on wheat-fucking-grass, which is a BITCH to juice.

Mine will come out of storage as soon as I grow my own MJ.

 

Ah yes that makes sense. The excess fiber could definitely complicate digestive issues.

I always try to drink my green smoothies with something like toast or rice to enhance digestion and nutrient absorption. I suppose any starchy vegetable would work.