Food Porn and Why I Suck at Taking Pictures of My Food

I can't even call it a phenomenon because it's so predominantly featured in the food world on the web be it Food Gawker , Taste Spotting, , Serious Eats, or a random food blog. High quality glossy magazine page friendly photos are everywhere. You eat with your eyes, you eat with your sense blah blah blah. Who the fuck am I kidding, I've got a poorly lit Mancave and a standard issue iPhone 4. How do I compete?  I don't. What I do when I get questions like: What's with the bad white balance? why is there a  blur to some of the photos, is that a dirty dish towel in the background? Shit. I am fucking up your food porn experience.

This is a springboard for me to get writing about food everyday. I'm not trying to screw up the pictures. Why am I focused on words when I could take pretty pictures of my food? You need more good food porn. Great. That's why I listed some links. Go look at those pictures and come back hungry. I'll post a recipe later.

I mean, I cant take good pictures. I'm too impatient. I'm sweating like a pig over my not ventilated stove top salting my fish from high like Thomas Keller told I should and trying to drain this pot of fettuccine that's rolling at a heavy boil. Do I have time to go back to my office and grab the good camera to take stove top pics? Not really. Do I have the lighting to take a picture of my fancy plates? Crap I don't even sauce or garnish pretty enough to compete with the sites listed above.


I am just a sad, lonely, desperate home cooking seeking validation in my craft by posting yellowed, poorly framed photos in a standard issue blog. Will I ever be cool enough to be on Food Gawker? SHould I run out and buy a light rig and a DSLR? How do all these food bloggers make time for these pictures? by the time I eat it's 9:00pm. If I had to setup my shots and double check them before I ate I'd be sleep deprived and hungry til midnight and by that point my food's all cold and my sauce is ruined anyway.  Maybe I'm just too disorganized and too A.D.D. Maybe I need more adderal and a donut to tide me over until I've got a good picture or two.

Maybe there's a blog dedicated to taking pictures of food for your food blog that could queue me in on the proper angles and lighting to use when shooting my burger.  If I go that far maybe I should learn how to write a recipe properly and step it out better than I  do. Crap. When did this become so much work?

What's a bachelor chef to do when food blogging cuts into bar and girl time? Wait. Is that it? Do food bloggers go out to bars and have girls they date? Do they have full time jobs that don't deal with food? That's it. That's my eureka moment. I have too much other crap going on. No wonder I'm not cooking out of the French Laundry cookbook. I'm busy as hell. And I'm a child support paying bachelor which means I can't afford a fancy DSLR and a lighting rack and godamnit that's why you are gonna get yellow pictures and subpar directions because sometimes I'm pounding out some long-winded rant of a blog in my office in between setting up someone's email account, trouble shooting a network issue, or reinstalling printer drivers.

This whole busy, working bachelor thing has me cramming in 5 minutes of writing between windows updates and computer restarts. All I wanna do is pop a bottle and sear some foie gras but I'm drinking Miller Light cans and eating yesterday's Carnitas in new and inventive ways... I'm making a quesadilla tonight instead of tacos!

I 'm starting to really enjoy thinking about things i can write about entrees I can prepare, food topics to discuss, and shenanigans I can inspire. I'm working on all the organizational stuff, the photos, and the way the blog is setup too. I'll even work on the way I prepare recipes and post them here to.



okay, really I'm just jeakoius that I can't afford a DSLR and have fancy place settings and a good idea for photography. How can some of these people have lives? Crap. Someone buy me a camera or come over and do all that shit while I'm cooking and plating. k? Thnx bye.

Ever-expanding menus now offering free waist-band extender with purchase of Frappemochacinno

You know what I’m sick of? Seeing things like this: Subway Tests Upscale Cafe w/ Expanded Menu

 Okay, you don't have to read it. I'll summarize it. Subway is trying to launch an ‘upscale’ café version of its stores on a case by case basis (thank god). I can’t think of anything more demoralizing that the minimum wage paid pimpled processed meat stacking sandwich maker serving me a subway chocolate chunk muffin and asking me if I’d like another shot in my mochafrapachinolatte while I wait for my bistro sandwich under their chic new lighting. Really? Next thing you know McDonalds is going to be making a huge push into gourmet coffee and Starbucks is going to start peddling more hearty food items… That’s already happened? Great. Just great. I mean the absolute last thing I want to do in my day is go and enjoy a nice afternoon macchiato at a McDonalds. They don’t have that? Oh. But they do have a 560-calorie (medium size) McCafe Frappe Mocha. I guess if I consumed one of those with my double quarter pounder extra value meal I’d satisfy my carving to know what most fat, unhealthy Americans feel like when they’re all doped up on sodium, fat, and sugar.  You know I’d rather just fry an egg in bacon grease and pile Gruyere cheese onto a fried piece of artisan bread, right?

I’m a food snob and I refuse to apologize for it.  But this is ever-expanding menus thing is a pet peeve of mine that isn’t going away. It’s why I won’t be caught dead in a Chili’s or one of those big chain eateries that try and please everyone by offering 80000 different entrees. So, I won’t step foot into a Subway Bistro or whatever the hell they’re calling it because it’s still a Subway with the big Sysco truck dropping off bags full of overly processed meat except now they have chic lighting and make cappuccinos.  People are too lazy to get their coffee from a coffee shop and sandwich from a sandwich shop. The lowest common denominator wins again. Now, screw you guys, I’m going to Wal-Mart so I can buy my groceries, my toiletries, rent a movie, buy a 6 –pack, eat a big mac, get a hair cut, deposit my mileage check, get my oil changed, and drink my McCafe Frappe Mocha in peace.

A Few Questions About My Obsession with Ramen Asked By and Answerd by Your Favorite Bastard.

Q: Bastard, what’s your deal with Ramen? Aren’t you over 30 and don’t you have a “real” job?

A: Why yes, yes I do. Only, I work in education and serve the greater good which hardly translates to much of a living wage. When you spend $5 on a bulb of fennel because you got a wild hair and you want to eat a Fennel and Arugula salad it makes sense that you’d want to be able to balance that out with the cheapest possible work lunch you could.

Arugula and Fennel Salad w/ black Olives, shaved Parm and lemon anchovy vinaigrette

Q: Why not bring leftovers to work?

A: Oh, I do but most times I would rather save them for dinner. Like, when I should be at the gym or running it’s a lot easier to reheat leftovers than to make polenta again from scratch.

Q: So you’re really into the whole Ramen thing?

A: Hell yes I am. Find me something else as satisfying and is that affordable and we’ll reconvene. Until then my pantry will be over-flowing with different types and varieties of Ramen.

just add bacon... okay and some other stuff too

Q: Why do you post sporadically ? Is this going to be random and mostly centered around Ramen?

A: I'm A.D.D. I can hardly keep my face shaved or underwear in the drawer,  you're lucky I post anything at all. And I promise to make it about other things I like to make too. Like: Tomato sauces, Pestos, pancakes & waffles, Omelets, late night experiments, Salsas, random salads w/ fennel, burgers, nachos, date food, Vegan stuff for my buddy Mike, family friendly stuff for Sunday dinners, and etc.

Monday Night Dinner without pictures or a recipe.

BLT Salad w/ bacon grease quesadillas

Bastard, you've totally outdone yourself. A meal like this and i'm ready to open my own spot. I'll just do different variations of this dish. honest.


    okay, really what happened was I had a few ideas for posts this weekend but never got around to them. See, Saturday was a birthday party and date night. Thai food and a movie trumped out writing about food. I know, total shocker. After that fantastic dinner and some impromptu couch romancing we decided to go see a movie. It was that odd cusp of too early for sleep and too late to do anything else so we decided to go and see The Tree of Life.  Take the post coital guy to see a movie described by the NY Post as  "[It's] overflowing with powerful images that will stay with me a long time, even if I still can't explain some of them." which means that not only is it boring but not even snooty long-winded film critics know what the fuck was going on. So I sat through it. Fighting off sleep long enough to catch a velociraptor stepping on anothrer dying dinosaur's head and some some pretty intensely smug Brad Pitt performance. That is, when I wasnt trying to figure out why 5 minutes of whispered dialogue over lava cooling into the ocean and hissing as it turned to rock. I felt like I was really high and watching Nova at my grandparents' house... You don't want to say anything because it's pretty to look at but you're too high to know what the fuck is going on and even if you opened your mouth grandma might figure out you were high so there i sat in stunned silence wondering why anytime there was 5 minutes of cohesive narrative there was some dumb transition into 5 minutes of noises and more whispered dialogue over my MacBook Pro's screen saver.  I left feeling traumatized. Do not go see this movie. Really, I tried. I even consider myself to be a pretty smart guy and yet I still felt like an idiot having sat through 2 and 1/2 hours of that movie.

It's only relevant to this blog because i had a passionate love affair with a BLT and it was so intense that we carried our romance from one meal and into the next. I think I'm on 4 days of bacon or pork products in a row. Meatless Monday was ruined by a slow-cooked pork Cuban sandwich with some pretty fantastic ham on there too. Ham and slow cooked pulled-pork on the same sandwich? Genius. Toss on melty cheese and melty onions and I'm forgetting how I did a month off of meat. But I couldn't think after that movie on Saturday night. I didn't get home until almost 2 and all i wanted to do was put my head in someone's lap and cry because my brain hurt so much. I couldn't even make pancakes right when I woke up. my 1 1/2 table spoons of sugar were completely left out and i 1 1/2'd my recipe and didn't have enough butter or milk. God. And I had to go to kickball immediately after brunch. Yes, Kickball. Sunday's are devoted to my favorite adult-coed league sport, Kickball.  

Kickball was a blur. I remember that jello shots were a big hit. I had cherry coke with rum, banana with banana and vodka, and banana flavored without banana, and old-fashioned gasoline swill with PGA. I decided it would be worthwhile to take  a bottle of J sparking wine and waste it on Mimosas. After that I took the bright idea of morning drunk and I made what by about 4:00pm I referred to as the key elements in creating your own Napalm.  Cheap Orange juice, Lots of Blood Orange Sorbet, and enough Pinnacle Vodka to get the prudish chubby girl making dick jokes. After Umping, a game, losing a game, and winning a game I was so drained from 100 degree weather and midday son that we retreated to our Sponsor Damgoode Pies for drinks and food. The food was a blur, but the drinks came in flavors like Jammeson, Car Bomb, Sierra Nevada, push-up, Car bomb, Jack Daniels, and Miller Lite. By the time I made it home and turned my curry seafood into the most bitching scramble a sunburned, blind-drunk miscreant could I was hardly able to consume it while sitting upright. There's two evenings in a row killing my writing groove.


Which leads me to tonight, a painful Monday night spent recovering on my couch. I was so hungry by the time I had my bacon grease fried quesadilla and my BLT salad that I forgot to take pictures. MY hands were moving but I don't know what went into what and in what measurments. I know that I grabbed hand fulls of grated cheese, and cut think slabs of bacon but none of that matters because no one can follow along without pictures.

Tomorrow I promise I'll try and talk about food. Tonight I need to finish my Vodka and Vodka with a splash of tonight and go to bed.

cheers, goodnight, and godspeed to you lovers, fighters, blog-readers, kickball playing heathens, and foodies


PS-- If anyone know Terrence Malick or Brad Pitt please tell them I want a refund. I'd say Sean Penn too but that motherfucker scares the shit out of me.

The world crumbles /the cookie crumbles... time to bake!

         When life gives you lemon they say you should make lemonade. I prefer to muddle some lemon slices with some mint add ½ an oz of simple syrup a dash of water and a double shot of Maker’s Mark and then you've got something worthwhile. Life is giving me lemons this week. The world around me which has been fairly stable and rewarding is smoldering in flames… Okay, that might be a little dramatic even for me, sorry. When stuff gets out of hand I like to fall back on things I know. So I called the Bastard Dad for a quick chat. We agreed that when the floor is falling out we like things like working on cars and cooking because they have guaranteed outcomes. If X than Y. Life, not so much. When the flames are licking your heels it's nice knowing where there's an exit. 

         Wait, Flames? Lemons? Whiskey Drinks? How do we get to Cookies? I'm a cook foremost. I'm all about improvisation. I'm about what's in the fridge and what can I come up with at 3am that won't leave me wrecked when I'm stumbling out of bed for work 3 hrs later. Baking is different. I have to be in the mindset. So on this day of days when I'm grumpy and I want something that I know is going to kick some ass and satiate those cravings I bake cookies. I cream some butter and sugar in my kitchen aid and I overdoes on sugary goodness.

        I've got a few varieties in my repertoire and at the top of the list is a Chocolate Chip cookie. Growing up there was nothing better than a Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven. I could annihilate a baking sheet of cookies and half a gallon of vitamin d milk before dinner without breaking a sweat . So I have a bit of a history with cookies and when I went to help w/ my dad's B&B after his stroke I started making cookies. The cookies I made out there were an Oatmeal Peacan Chocolate Chip version of the Alton Brown Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie. Arguably the pinnacle of buttery chewy chocolate chip goodness. You will be hard pressed to find less than a gleaming review of this recipe. Smell. Close you eyes. Do it, I'm serious. Close your eyes. wait, your eyes are already closed... point being that regardless of how awesome the cookies taste the way the smell permeates the otherwise musty scent of my man-cave really adds another level. It's like being a kid. I made at the B&B because that's how I thought a B&B should smell all the time. like something awesome was always baking awesome.


Let's get down to business. You need to go to the store right now and buy the essentials:
5 min Oatmeal and not that overmilled 1 min crap
Whole Pecans break em into peices yourself dont be a pussy.
Chocolate chips (duh) I use a dark and a semi-sweet 50/50 mix
Brown Sugar
Granulated Sugar
Baking Soda (yours is way out of date)
Eggs
Unsalted Butter
Kosher Salt (why aren't you using this all the time?!? ) 
Milk (it's only 2 tbls so almost any milk will work)


You're back? Great! Here's a surprise. The Tollhouse and the Alton Brown chewy are practically the same thing! No wonder they're both so awesome. In fact the only difference between the two is the fact that brown uses milk instead of egg white for egg # 2 , and the sugar mix is 1/2 & 1/2 between granulated and brown, oh and he uses 1/2 tp more vanilla. Really? The Alton Brown Chewy is the Tollhouse? Pretty much.  So what do I do differently? Wait for it.... Wait for it...... Wait..... oh fuck it, I add 1 C pecans and 1 C Oatmeal and I mix my brown sugar w/ Dark brown sugar. Boom. It's like a totally different ballgame now. You're overwhelmed it's okay. The recipes are easy.

 

It's Charles Bukowski's birthday

     In honor of what would be his 91st birthday,  I'm taking my buddy the Hawk on a scenic tour of the local gutter system ( by way of drinking Cutty Sark for dinner). The guy's a literary hero of mine. I admire the grit and the honesty of Bukowski's writing more than anything. I like the realism and all of the gruesome details. It reminds me when I'm missing something in my life; be it a good drama or a key ingredient in a dish. Okay, I've gotta eat something. I'm skipping the Cutty For now. So dinner in a rush because there's booze to consume an skirts to consort with. I like a big carb-heavy meal early when i'm about to start a bender. It's almost on the grand scale of date food or dinner party pretty food. I plan it big. Eating a pre-Bender meal helps me pace myself with the early drinking and it gives me the strength and nourishment I need to last me until 7am. When, regardless of the sleep I have or haven't had I have to go to work and punch the clock by 8.  Tonight didnt work that way. This bender was sprung on me. I didn't have time to prepare one of the greatest meals prepared in god's history nor did i have the time to pray or say grace beforehand. There were women drinking at a strip club waiting on me.  i was stuck with whatever I could prepare and consume in five minutes.

I threw together this:

Fresh Ciabatta fried in butter. and a scramble with as may complimentary leftovers as I could dredge from the depths of my fridge.

The 5 Minute, $1 Work Lunch

         Sure I could drive across the street to Mc Donald’s and order a number 4 with a coke and be in and out for under $7. Cost to me?! It’s 1350 Calories and over 80% of my daily fat intake. Awesome. Now when I go home and want to cook something in rendered duck fat I’ve completely gone into fat kid territory. Wait, how do I even afford to have duck fat? I don’t go across the street to Mc Donalds. I take my once weekly trip to the halls of Sam Walton hell and trudge through the knuckle dragging masses as the buy commoditized food products. Ramen. That’s right, I’m rockin’ ramen like the wage-garnished, under-paid, child-support paying, high bar-tab, & broke-down car in my friend’s garage having bachelor cook I am. 

southwestern ramen experiment

Okay, that sounds dramatic, but convenience is especially pertinent at work. Sometimes I’m lucky and we have lunch catered in and sometimes they cater in Golden Corral and other Sysco bag O’ meat serving caterers and I can’t identify what they’re giving out for free and I have to eat something. That’s ramen to.  I have a drawer devoted to Ramen and other easy prep noodles and I took over a section of the work fridge for veggies and important staple foods. I can normally concoct something but having the Ramen noodle base is a huge benefit. 

What is this bastard chef nonsense and what are you gonna cook?

I think we’ll call this The Bastard Chef. We could call it flying blind in the kitchen, The Joy of Fucking & Cooking or fixing it without a wrench, or man in kitchen without a fire extinguisher.  I’ll use it as a forum to post pictures of the things I want in my kitchen, the food I cook, the booze I consume while I’m cooking, and the women that make their way into and out of it. I’m sure there will be a weekly segment for guy’s night and maybe even for a failed recipe I’ll try and resuscitate or at least make palatable.

I get ranty. The problem with me is that I’m long-winded and this isn’t going be neat. It’s going be messy like my cooking towel, my stove, and the rest of my life. I will not give you exact measurements, often. I work with pinches and approximations. I won’t coddle you, I won’t sell you things you don’t need.  That doesn’t mean that I won’t use cool things you don’t have and talk about how cool they are. I’ll try and not make fun of you for having only one pot and a dull-ass kitchen aid knife your mom gave you the first time you moved out. I’ll give you some basics, and I’ll provide you with ample guidance for a half-witted literate person to prepare something that may very well look or taste like what I’ve made. No, wait. Fuck that. Even a full-witted articulate person will probably fuck this up. I am no Joy of cooking.  I am not even some bad ghostwritten celebrity chef cookbook that you bought because you saw it on the food network. Shit, I can’t even follow my own train of thought.  How are you supposed to? I will try and write the food segments clearly enough to be recreated. I will not take the blame for your culinary disaster. If you’re an intuitive type with some problem solving skills you could probably bridge the gaps of my shortcomings and find yourself pleasantly surprised with a tasty meal and an appropriately paired beverage.

Normally an appropriately paired beverage is a cold miller light or a glass of fizzy water. I am not some goddamned snooty sommelier.  I like beer and wine and will talk about them but I am only snobby about the shit I like and don’t like. My palate is probably fucked. A real wine or beer connoisseur might balk at some of my pairings. They can pleasantly go fuck off and die.

This might be a good time for me to tell you what I expect out of you. It’s nothing. Boom.  No bitching, no congratulating, no witty rhetoric necessary. Sit back and relax and take it all with a grain of salt. I am just some dude in the kitchen cooking the food I like and bitching about the things a 30something single guy bitches about I.E., not having enough booze, money, or time to do what I want. I’ll probably complain about my job and the situations I get into with women.  This could also be referred to as cooking for girls that will probably wind up wined up and hating me because there’s a strong likelihood that I really am a bastard. I am not known for being tactful. Could you tell?  

I might possibly be recognized as that guy who posts all those pictures of food or that guy who is standing in the kitchen of your favorite local restaurant talking to the sous chef acting like he works there. Feel free to make note of these worthwhile talking points as they highlight my grandiose culinary aspirations and simultaneously illustrate my complete lack of any formal or professional culinary training.

If you like what you see follow along. Run along if you don’t.

The Bastard Chef's Uber Burger

Look. I'm a fan of the simple things, I like pancakes for breakfast, I like BLT's for lunch, I like fresh pesto with Penne, or grilled chicken over mixed greens. I leave all of the fancy shit in the capable hands of professionals. That shit takes too much time at home!



When I make a burger it's beautiful thing. You're getting fresh and awesome. I don't like processed foods, prepacked things, freezer meals, or soda pop. Why not just go out and get a burger? The local places have recently let me down. I just can't get into a burger in a restaurant when I can do some much better at home. Hugo's-- I'm calling you out. Your burger is whack.  Your beef is thrown on the grill frozen.

I stopped off at my local Meat Market and ordered some fresh ground chuck. The perfect burger has fat in it. It's not a healthy snack. It's hamburger. I want mouth watering not any of that 97/3 lean bullshit. I ordered 65/35. and even snagged some of their in-house smoked bacon.

The Bastard Chef Uber Burger

65/35 chuck separated into 1/4lb balls
Salt & Pepper for seasoning 
Bacon (I like 2 strips per patty)
1 package Thomas brand English Muffins *nooks & crannies keep sauces off my shirt
1 cherokee purple tomato slices kept thick
3 alarm cheese sliced (habanero, jalapeno, & chipotle) colby jack.
Herb Greens or your favorite lettuce (just not iceburg )
Mustard
Chipotle Sour Cream Sauce






Caramelized onions my way:
1 stick unsalted sweet cream butter
2lbs sweet yellow onions
2 tea spoons salt
Chipotle sour cream sauce
2 tbls minced cilantro
1 C Sour Cream
1/4 C mayo
1 tbls fresh lime juice
1 seeded chipotle in adobo minced (more to taste)

just stir and combine. I could put this stuff on almost anything.