Thinkin' 'bout Food

Well, you would assume a foodwriter would be thinking about food, but you can figure out for yourself I haven't put much effort into writing -let alone thinking- about food.

Until I found my new passion, and my new audience for culinary art. I'm not talking about my radio gig, I'm talking about many of the new friends I've met over the last few months who have become almost as close as family...and they're polite enough to tell me my cooking is superlative.

I'm truly humbled. So, I've actually been doing quite a lot of cooking. And a fair amount of writing, just not for Gastrologica.

Now it's time to blow off the keyboard and oil the spacebar, because I'm going to start posting with more regularity. I'm not shooting for daily posts. I want to reserve what I share with Gastro readers to significant thoughts about food and cooking...or at least something funny.

Daily posting would water down the quality and frankly burn me out before I got out of the gate. Writing about food inherently makes work out of eating, as well as preparing, meals. So, food becomes labor, which is a certified labor of love.

Some of the things I've been working on lately have been: osso buco (4 stars)
fried Old Amsterdam cheese crisps (19 stars)
grilled lamb with mushroom cream truffle sauce (4 stars)
macaroni and cheese (4 stars, for the kids)
vanilla cream crab on fried wonton crisps with sauteed Bartlett pears (34 stars).

For the first time, I will also pass along a wine recommendation. If you can afford it, pick up some Lindemans Cask 45 Cab Sav 2005. The 2006 is good, but the 2005 has a rich, buttery flavor with a mellow bite at the end. It costs as much as the GDP of Tanzania, about five dollars and fifty cents.