Snap, crackle, and pop drop.

I was having a stressful but better than average mood today until I heard some very sad news. But before I go there, and I will, I just wanted to make a quick post about my fibromyalgia. I do not want this blog to be taken over by news on my condition, but felt this was worthwhile.

The last couple of weeks I have had a infatuation with cereal, milk, and bananas. I have not been able to consume milk products regularly since 2nd or 3rd grade. I would eat ice cream, well because it's ice cream, and just suffer any upset stomach or bouts with diarrhea that can with it. Now, since I have been on some new medications to control my symptoms, I have found, or reignited, my love of bananas, milk, and cereal. Add to this, a lot of the cereal manufacturers have changed their formulas to make their products gluten-free. Cheerios, for example, was using wheat flour as a binder in their old formula, but now it is certified gluten-free.

I woke this morning and eat yet another bowl of my new found treat. The ability to enjoy breakfast again is welcomed. I haven't been eating breakfast regularly in years as most of what we consider breakfast items were not well suited to eating them and then going to work. The upset stomach and having to rise earlier to fix something to eat, has never been good for me. Making something quick would always leave me with upset stomach, and the items that take longer to prep and consume would always leave me lethargic and uncomfortable.

This last year, or more, has had me making fruit and vegetable smoothies to both raise my metabolism and nourish me throughout the day. This regimen began on a smoothie cleanse and when it was over, I could really tell when I wouldn't fix one, that my body functions were slower and sluggish. So I would make an carry one everyday I was working, and that made it much easier to consume food while away from home, and not be searching the grocery store for something to eat, as the fast food joints had zero, or next to zero, gluten-free quick meals or snacks. On my days off, if I didn't get out the blender, I would be functioning very well, and would regret not preparing one for myself.

The marketplace is improving its options for gluten-free offerings and we sufferers of gluten allergies and Ceilacs disease thank you. The American diet is highly concentrated around wheat flour, it is in almost every well know product, even in ways that are harder to discern by just glancing over the nutrition labels.

Now for the drop.... As I was watching one of my shows on Hulu, a commercial break appeared, and I opened up my Facebook feed only to find out that my life-long favorite artist, hands down, Prince has died at the age of 57. I am heartbroken. The last couple of months we have lost the legends of music and radio that has been devastating to my generation especially, Phife Dawg, Doug Banks a king of radio broadcasting, last week, and now Prince. I grew up with Prince, danced on stage with him once at a show, I've heard every released track, sat in the fourth row center isle to see him perform, took fashion cues, watched his movies, memorized the lyrics and dance moves.

It's with a heavy heart that I say thank you to someone I have only been in physical proximity only once. Goodbye to a voice of my generation that moved us like none-other. And I send my tidings of peace to his weary soul.

Culinary and Chemistry

As I sit in the school library, it becomes painfully obvious that cooking and chemistry is one and the same.  Cooking is more applied science than others courses of study, add in a bit of alchemy and you are square in the middle of chef life.

 

The same skills of formulations, testing, observation, and trail and error, ever present in the kitchens all over the universe.  Even in cases where the chef or cook is cooking from a recipe, all of the steps apply, as good cooks never rely on an untested source when feeding their audience.  Some of us can review a written recipe and spot of it is accurate or not. Others must try it to discover the faults or the accuracy. In either case, mistakes can teach you more than your triumphs in the kitchen.   

The ability to test, modify, mix and remix, ingredients and turn the simple into the worthiest of dishes, let alone into art, is what chefs strive to achieve. Science and art culminate into a type of jazz, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The best of us climb to towering heights and can earn a type of immortality that gives lasting effects on the culinary world. Julia Child will always be with us through her teachings, books, and television broadcasts. The ladders she built will be scaled for generations to come.

We whisk up acids and bases, apply heat or cold, emulsify, extract, concentrate, dilute, expand, divide, and blend, all to achieve the awe inspiring creations. We live for the oohs and awwws that are created by our work. We lose sleep, forgo stopping to tend to our own needs, work odd hours, long hours, and miss out on the simple things, like events we are invited to attend, and even daylight. We arrive in the dark hours of the night and leave again after the sun has gone for the day. We talk more with our co-workers then our families and friends, some times. We can share our story with our loved ones but often they can't really understand who and what we have endured during our work. 

Sometimes I have encountered people who either don't understand what it is we do, or they act as if our work isn't important or not a profession like their's. The amounts of learning and training needed to work at my level can be greater than many other profession and less than others. It is often hard to adequately describe what we do, and how we do it, as many who cook think that they can do my job, or that it can't be that hard, or couldn't possibly take the amount of  hours that it really does. Sometimes my commitment to my work can require me to miss some events in my own children's life for the sake of other celebrations or needs. I don't like that aspect but my food magic show is what puts a roof over their heads.

Mixing magic with nutrition, art with taste, building constructs and designs for the eye, enticements for the nose, and specialties of taste can be very demanding. I love my work and I love teaching kids to think about and improve their options within the kitchen, that can improve their lives and the lives of others around them. 

Culinary and Mathematics

In my travels, I have learned a lot of different things. One of the hurdles that my students struggle with is mathematics in the kitchen. There are others equally difficult and important that I will confront later.

Kitchen math is relatively simple but it is painfully obvious that there are deficits when training young folks. It's the fractions that trip them up. It's frustrating to them and to me that they are in high school and stumble over this stuff. My 6th - 8th grade group are better at it than my older kids and I believe that the quality of their education is a bit better.

Multiplying and dividing fractions, and dealing with 3 tsp equal 1 Tbsp, the rules of non-metric calculations are able to confuse the best of us. I hit them consistently with kitchen math, both on paper and in practical usage.  I am disappointed that the movement to change to the metric system has been extremely slow. Metric system is much simpler to calculate as the entire system is base 10.

With metric system calculations, a quick glance is typically all you need to do in order to scale a recipe, however, America has been very resistant to a change over. Many of our citizens that use the metric system know how to use it because of our drug culture. Believe it or not, grams and kilos are predominate measurement in drug trafficking but when cooking you have to deal with 1/3, 2/3, 128 oz equal 1 gallon, and 16 oz or 2 cups equal 1 pint.


I have been an advocate for conversion to the metric system since high school chemistry class, a thousand years ago, because of its simplicity. Unfortunately, we have not converted and all of cookbooks use the old system so we cannot get accustom to use of metric. We buy 2 liters of soda pop but not 100 grams of sugar, for example.

Our system is the one we inherited from the British Empire where 1 foot was the measurement based upon the length of the King's foot. Americans do not use the weight measurement of stones but rather pounds. Horses are still measured in hands tall and we do still use peck, bushels, yards, and acres. All are old British royal family measurements. I could understand the use of this system when there wasn't an alternative, but metric is far superior and simplistic, so why not adopt the better system?