Dinner and a Movie

I love to eat, cook and I love to dine out, but I'm not a huge fan of pizza, at least not every other night like some prefer.

In fact, most pizza restaurant (usually delivery or take-out) TV advertisements quell my desires to have a slice of pie. I always get this image of eating half a loaf of bread along with some poorly produced and prepared cheeses, meats, sauces and vegetables.

Almost everything I cook at home is fresh and I expect the same while dining out, short of the fast food restaurants, which I rarely visit.

Music to My Mouth

Eating fresh local food is like listening to live well-played acoustic music - nothing impeding your senses from enjoying something at its natural best.

Don't ask about the picture to the left. I just like it.

I read an article this morning in our local newspaper reminding me that more often than not, land owners and small farmers are deciding to continue the legacy of providing local fresh produce, meats and other products and doing their best to do so with as little help from man-made fertilizers and pesticides.

Now, I'm no Al Gorish green guy (what falsehood) or Euell Gibbons (ahead of the times in his day) pine nut, but unprocessed (uh, natural) foods taste so much better and are so much better for your bod.

What a Dish...washer

I love to cook - it's creative, social and comes in quite handy when one needs something to eat. This evening I made the main course for my mother along with two items she does quite well, Cole slaw and seasoned baked potatoes. Actually she is a good cook and does quite well at preparing most any dish.

The Cole slaw is a simple combination of white and red cabbage, a three to one ratio roughly, mixed in with just the right amounts of mayo, white or balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. All the cabbage is rough cut as this is not simply a side dish – it’s meant to be heartier in this case.

The potatoes are always baked, but prior they are hand rubbed with extra virgin olive oil and kosher salt. This makes a world of difference as these spuds are baking and even more so once the fork hits your mouth.

In a Pickle

A few years ago, a good friend talked me into working at a craft show for a company which produces relishes, jams and jellies, salsas and pickles.

I had worked many a trade show when I was in telecommunications and they can be completely exhausting and sometimes utterly boring.

Working with MeadowCroft Farm is exhausting, but it is a blast, meeting virtually everyone that nears our booth and engaging them with conversation and sampling of our products. I only do this twice a year, when MeadowCroft is in town for a local show, and it's wonderful to see so many "old faces" I have seen show after show and the new ones I am certain we will see again at the next one.

Black Beans and Oh, Whatever

This article originally published March 10, 2013, but I made the dish again on New Years day, in lieu of collards and black-eyed peas and I used fresh black beans. It was wonderful on a cloudy, mildly chilly day. Okay, I live in South Carolina (it truly wasn't that chilly) and the Gamecocks won the Capital One Bowl. There is no way I could have screwed this up.

Let's go back to March of last year: