That's So Good !!

There he is, my 4 year old foodie son, moaning out "It's soo good", slurping, gulping, cheering over how good his dinner is. He is commenting about the color, the shape, how it holds to a spoon, and oooh wow how it tastes. From across the house I hear his shouts of joy and cheering his Mommy on for another amazing meal that he, the youngest foodie of the house, is enjoying.


I walk around the corner, more and more curious as to the culinary delights he must be enjoying tonight, and wonder why I wasn't called in to taste some. I immediately smell broccoli, and while it is one of my son's favorite veggies, realize that there must be more, something else that's doing it for him.

As I near I realize just what every foodie father eventually must come to terms with. My son is just a 4 year old boy, and while he may have an amazing pallet and foodie adventure side, he is just a little boy. What do little boy often love to eat? What do parents sometimes resort to as a quick fix meal? What is made with some kinda funky scientific bright orange cheese sauce? You guessed it - Kraft Mac 'n Cheese !! My son was having the kinda reaction to food that I normally love. In this case, kudos to Kraft for blowing my son's mind tonight!

Takeaway here - even in the complex and tasty world of foodies, there is always room for Mac 'n Cheese and other core basics. Gotta run, I want to grab the last bite before my wife and son woof it all.

Go Dodgers !!!

My kid, loves going to the Dodger game here in Los Angeles. He loves his Super Dodger Dog (all beef), the $15 bottle of water (slight exaggeration), and the Minute Maid frozen lemonade snack. For him, the game is all about food and snacking.



While hiding from the sun we strolled around the stadium and the amazing thing was the vast variety of food and drink offerings. Without mentioning any restaurant names, aside from what I see and "normal" baseball game food of dogs and beer, there was a pizza chain, a Mexican chain, a burger chain, a sandwich joint, and even Chinese food. The game used to be about just a hot dog and watching a baseball game. Now, seems like having foodie options is a must at the "old ball park", and I'm not complaining.



Drinks too were all over the place, ranging from the normal beers to margaritas and some interesting New Orleans style mixed drinks. Again, not complaining although with my 4 year old I only get to sample the lovely bottled water and the occasional beer.



Here's to the food and drink revolution.. Lesson here is to not settle for what you expect to find, just look around the corner and see all the other options as they present themselves to you.



Go Dodgers! Or for me, Let's Go Mets!

The Disney Machine

So..... Disney, who doesn't love 'em. We went last week with my visiting nieces. Today's theme park is somewhat different than those of past. While overall, the food is high priced, low flavor, and more or less very bad for you. But... they do cater to people on vacation so I guess those attributes fit. While strolling, or limping, through Disney this week we had to joys of sampling both the bad (read cotton candy meets the churro) and not so bad (as in tasty) food offerings. I even noticed that there were several locations within the theme park that offered diet or health friendly snacks ranging from fruit, veggy's, and smoothie type drinks.

I will say, we brought our lunch into the park this visit - somewhat to enjoy more health foods and mostly to save $$. Our snacks ranged from the usual theme park stuff (only 1500 more floors to climb before break even), and some healthy snacks Romy brought. Dinner was at a restaurant on site, that was highly tasty and fairly balanced. I was craving fried chicken (don't say it) and it came with veggies and fruit.

All in all, we avoided the massive coronary that the high cost and high fat, ultra high sugar, and ultra low flavor often comes with a visit to your local theme park. Well done I must say. In closing, bring in your own snacks, lunch and/or dinner. Nothing fancy, just stuff that fits in the cooler and holds up well to sitting for a few hours. We love cut up veggies (ok, Romy does), lots of fresh fruit, many bottles of water, and sandwiches or wraps. Snacks are almost mandatory and a requirement. Lets face it, you walk several miles when doing the family vacation day, so go ahead and have that snack that will no doubt takes days or weeks to recover from. It's why we do all the other stuff during our normal days, right??

Debating with a Four Year Old Foodie (I may have lost)

So... I'm talking to my 4 year old today, and he's trying to tell me all the dinners he wants me to make his cousins next week when they come and visit us. He is off the wall excited about their upcoming visit, as we are all to often the ones that travel across the country to NY to see them. He just wants to see his family in his house, using his dishes, playing with his stuff. But I digress.....

I told my foodie son to think about the type of foods he might want me to make his cousins (and Aunt and Uncle) when we have them here for a few nights next week. He came back to me with requests for his special recipes - "Ratatouille flat iron steak", Chicken Snitzel (egg dip, seasoned bread crumbs, lightly pan fried) , Salmon on the grill, and Tilapia Snitzel. The Ratatouille Steak for the record has no relation to the actual menu item called ratatouille, its referencing the movie by the same name. During the "awards season" I received a recipe book (5 pages) in the mail with Variety, being used as a promotion for those that may be voting for an Oscar. I gave the recipe book (for the pictures) to my kid, who immediately asked me to tell him the names of the recipes. I did, and he selected the flat iron steak recipe as something he wanted to try. As a happy father of a mean lovin' boy, I agreed. When his mom (some refer to her as my Wife), was out of town on a "mental health scrapbooking weekend" (wine, massages, looking at old family pics, and of course a gaggle of female friends - don't even get me started on this beyond crazy 'hobby'), my son requested this recipe. We made it, plus or minus a few minor tweaks as he can't actually read yet (thank god). In the end, it was excellent. I used high quality steak (you need to also), and basically, you are just adding a small saute of shallots, butter, oil, and thyme. How can anything taste worse if you add a nice herb and easy on the palet oniony thing like shallot and some butter? So.. I made that, he woofed a portion for a normal woman (or a girl on a first date trying to act petite), he loved it.


Now the problem.. His cousins, ranging from 2 - 9 years old are normal kids that like normal easy food. They probably will eat the chicken (its fried in a highly seasoned bread crumb mixture), and might eat the salmon (my sister cooks healthy so they may be been exposed to it)... But he's insisting on the steak deal, and I've seen other kids blow off steak as being weird. Most kids request noodles, hot dogs, burgers, and pizza. Now, for the record I LOVE all of those things and my son will eat and enjoy all of them too. He just really enjoys "foodie stuff" and may push for me to make them his steak.


Luckily, I have a fairly (read into that what you wish) well adjusted 4 year old boy, who will be so wound up in the fun and moments of having his cousins here that he probably will enjoy eating basic BBQ food. I for one, am excited about dogs and burgers, one of my favs..


Again........ foodie does not equal snob..... Just enjoy your food.... In fact, I will enjoy a lovely and refreshing beer with my BBQ. Maybe, just maybe a Blue Moon. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot.. Just get an orange at the market when you buy the beer, and but a small slice to put in the glass with the beer (ok ok....... just stick (cram) it into the neck of the beer bottle like I do. Whatever... it just brings out the orange citrus notes in the beer. Yeh, I taste that too........

See Ya..........

Confessions of a Foodie

So I need to confess, I've eaten only crap today. Coffee, cheese and some kinda cereal that I bought in bulk at Costco (says its good for me though), and then for lunch I reheated a strange and frozen cheese less spinach pizza that my wife bought from Trader Joe's. How's that for a confession?

See, being a foodie isn't about being a food snob or only eating top shelf or high priced entrees, it can be about loving those things while sometimes or very often eating like normal schmo. Gotta love the reality of this.

An Asian Evening - Saturday Night Entertaining

So, we planned on having two couples over this weekend for an Asian inspired evening. As luck would have it, one was sick and we ended up with a slightly more intimate dinner with another couple. I think I can admit that the night went very well - awesome food, great decor, stimulating conversation, and wonderful wines to keep us all lubricated and enhance all of the above.

The menu: (and yes, all homemade and all fairly easy)

• Apps: Shrimp ShuMai with a spicy soy dipping sauce; and an edamame hummus with veggies.
• Entree: Seared sesame crusted Ahi Tuna (didn't do enough sesame seeds though); wasabi mashed potatoes; Asian style asparagus.
• Desert: Mr. Belvedere Meyer Lemon Sorbet w/fruit.

The day was a little more crazed than usual - the wife was gone all day doing girly pampering errands, and my son and I were tasked with finishing the shopping, prepping the "made ahead of time stuff", doing crafts, playing/working in the backyard, and everything else I could figure out to do to tire him out so he'd go to sleep early enough to let us have an adult evening.

The normal course to an evening hosted by Romy and I is that we together come up with the menu (she does more of the legwork on finding interesting recipes), we co-shop (often means I shop), I do the cooking, and she deals with setting the stage and atmosphere for the evening. I am often racing around in the 11th hour just before guests arrive, trying to get those last minute things figured out while getting my son to sleep, while she is adjusting the music selection 1 notch, lighting the last 2 candles, and checking out her hair in another mirror around the house.

Overall this divide and conquer works well and our friends always leave having an awesome night telling us that we "need to do something with our talents" professionally.

I think... this blog may lead to that next career, or at least a step toward that next career.

Thoughts?

Hmmmmmm.... Foodies..... Where to begin

So..... I am a foodie, my wife Romy is a foodie, and yes my 4 year old son is also known as a foodie. Our friends know us as Foodies, in a good way. Our friends love to come to our place for dinner, or a party, or just to hang out. Our friends love to go out on the town with us. And we in turn love doing all of the above with our friends. We live to host gatherings, try new recipies, eat interesting foods, explore new wines and vineyards, and overall expand our palet. And yes, I am talking too about my son. This BLOG may morph into a BLOB because of all the elements we have passion for - food, wine, travel, entertaining.

So what exactly is a foodie - I have no real idea what the "legal" definition is, even though I sit only 15 inches from what in the old days they called a dictionary. We love to try, taste, cook, pair, match, plan, combine, and entertain with whatever is edible and interesting to us in that moment. So I think we're foodies. Maybe?

So much more to say, on so many points made above, and so many new and exciting adventures to have in this rhealm. My advise, losen your belt, and hold on to that fork and corkscrew. If you love food, wine, and/or entertaining, tell me.... Don't be shy, tell us all about your adventures and we'll include your tales along the journey. After all we eat to live or survive, but food and eating is a journey, an experience, an adventure, so why not enjoy the trip.