Building the Foundation, "Eat In" part 3

Like I said...I could go on and on and on, so let me hit on another point before I do....

I think in this country, especially, everybody has forgotten how to eat.  Let me rephrase that, everyone has forgotten what to eat!  Food has been turned into a form of entertainment instead of 3 squares a day.  Let's go back to those "3 squares".  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Back in "the day" dessert was not an every night occurrence, but reserved for special occasions, or maybe one night a week.  Nowadays we expect dessert with every meal, every day, and in the case of breakfast it has become dessert, many times in the form of a mocha latte, and then add insult to injury by throwing down a muffin or scone on top of it!  That's 21 desserts a week!

What a luxury to be able to walk into the kitchen, open the fridge, take out a soda...or walk into the kitchen, open the pantry, take out a bag of chips or cookies.  What happened some black coffee, a couple of eggs (if you were lucky) or a bowl of hot steamin' oats for breakfast?  What about lunch?  Nothing wrong with a small sandwich, a pickle, an apple?  And dinner?  Well for the past 50 years it's been meat and potatoes....and a couple of leaves of iceberg lettuce with 1000 island dressing...but nobody's perfect!

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up my mother cooked an almost exact amount of food for the whole family, if someone was getting seconds it was dad! I can tell you right now how I became a chubby kid...it was by volunteering to help give out the lunches at school!  All of the helpers (me) got to eat any leftover boxes!  And once I was free to walk down to the corner "7-11" store on my own, well heck...do you remember getting a dime for every glass bottle you returned?  And how much were candy bars back then?  Yes, I think they were $.10!   6 bottles returned, six candy bars!  Lucky me...or so I thought at the time.  Is it this kind of freedom that has helped make us fat and spoiled?  What would have happened to me if I made my lunch everyday, only one lunch, no other choice, and no "7-11" around the block to walk to.

Back to building the foundation of "eating in".  What would you start with?  What meal do you know how to prepare, and like, maybe even love, that would be the first one you make for yourself?  What would happen if you prepared that meal every day, or every night?  I would bet you would get really good at it...and really efficient and fast!  I would even bet, closer to the end of the first week, you would naturally start to change it slightly....you would start to feel so comfortable that trading out ingredients wouldn't stress you out, in fact you would be creating your own recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand.  That's how you learn.  You learn by doing.  Doing over, and over, and over again.

In my book, "The Swing" (available March 13th, Harper Collins, pre order you copy now. LOL! Sorry I had to say it!) I write about the importance of practice with the simple cutting of an onion everyday.  Onions are practically the foundation of every savory recipe you come accross, and learning how to cut one properly and efficiently will help you develop the knife skills that are such an important part of meal preparation.  http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/knifeskills/ss/onionchop.htm

Find or have one recipe you know, like the back of your hand, and do it to death until you "make it your own".  That will be your foundation.  Build it by adding one new recipe, method or technique at a time.

For instance "grilling" is a method of cooking.  Grill a piece of meat, the same kind, a handful of times until you know how long it takes, and are confident it will come out right (or acceptable) almost every time.  Then choose a different cut, or kind, of meat or seafood...or grill some veggies.  Grilling is grilling, is grilling!  It's a "fast" cooking method and requires "fast cooking" tender cuts of meat (or veggies the get tender quickly...like onions!, lol).  Don't worry if you screw up, we all screw up!  Grill yourself silly, and before you know it your friends will be asking you "grilling" questions!

Just some suggestions....that's how I got so good using my pressure cooker!  I pressure cooked until I was silly!

more to come...