Twitter Food Challenge #1 of many (hopefully)

I'm still eating leftovers from this weekend's Twitter Food Challenge with Vanessa. As I stated in the previous post, the fun was not only in the cooking but in the 'knowing'. Knowing somebody else was creating and feasting with her family on the east coast with the whole 'event' in mind was a lot of fun. I want to get others on board with this.

Obviously, cooking is not for everyone. Some of us just do it (or not) to get something from the fridge/shelf to the stomach. That's cool. I'm not into golf. I've been told I have to be to be a good businessman. I'll need to find another way. But, similarly to golf, cooking can be this never-ending, life-long hobby. To be realistic, many meals, if not most, through the week for families just need to be about getting the job done:

Kids fed. Things other than twinkies. Nuff said.

However, there's time to invest in this thing if you actually want to. I spent an hour hitting up two markets to get my ingredients: Tony's for the meat and some great Udi's bread, followed by a stop at Sunflower

Once I got home, i probably spent another hour in prep/cooking time...maybe 1 1/2 hours tops. So, all-in-all: 3 hours. That's 3 hours that could have been spent mowing the lawn, surfing the web, watching some lame show on tv, flossing, shaving my head, watching paint dry, you get the idea. Seriously, it was the best 3 hours i could have spent. Real therapy.

Do you know how to de-bone a full chicken leg???? Neither do I. I still don't. But I did it to 6 of them Saturday. You can google anything now, obviously. Thanks google for the you-tube video and thanks God for your protection (this time), allowing me to keep all my fingers in tact. Two years ago I nearly lopped my index finger off while trying to use a very sharp bread knife to custom fit a dozen roses in a vase. It was Valentine's night. We spent a very romantic evening in the ER. I digress.

All-in-all, I am learning to enjoy things. That probably sounds really strange to many of you. This blog is entitled Peckish for two reasons. The second part of the definition just seemed to fit my state of being for most of the last decade. I'm hoping this endeavor can help. You probably didn't know someone could be "crotchety" in their 20s and 30s, did you? It's very possible.

Grilling Radicchio

Grilling Radicchio, originally uploaded by photowilson.

Yesterday was an inagural Twitter Food Challenge with my twitter friend, and old-time, real-life friend @nessaward, I'll post pics and summary shortly, but here's a short video as I was kicking things off.

Salad within a salad.

Tres Cosas Nuevas Para el Nino!

My son displayed a wonderful exhibition in "adventuresome" eating yesterday. I needed to push a meal from the market-to the kitchen-to the table in about an hour as our Kansas family was attempting to push back to Kansas.

While I love to mess around and concoct all kinds of things when I take the time to do it, the reality is, when it comes to feeding my family, the simpler the better.

The shish kebab hails from the middle east, but in one way or another, it's all over the world now. I'd love to talk about how I created a magical sauce for dipping or how I created a miracle marinade to prepare the skewers to perfection. Instead, I gathered some chicken, steak, green peppers, red peppers, and red onions. Not exactly far-reaching, rare cuisine. After adding appropriate amounts of salt, pepper and olive oil, I was off to my flame. Dog begging by my side, this grill-off took all of about 10 minutes.

The simplest dish pleased the most skeptical of eaters, namely my son. It's amazing what a live flame will do the taste and texture of the peppers and onions. The sweetness therein was enough to sell my 10 yr-old sweet-tooth. I've never seen him eat those vegetables and certainly not without some serious coaxing and deception. Three new things for the boy to eat besides chef boyardee. Not that we won't go right back to that in a pinch!

A big hit off the wilsongrille. Who knew? Kebabs.

I'm intentionally leaving out the part where my 8 year-old twin nieces weren't so impressed.

One success at a time.

Why Peckish?

	In English and commonwealth countries this means to be "somewhat hungry" "I am a hua of a peckish" means that you are very hungry

Pronunciation: \ˈpe-kish\

Function: adjective

Etymology: ²peck

Date: 1785

1 chiefly British : hungry
2 : crotchety

peck·ish (pksh)

adj.

1. Ill-tempered; irritable.

peck·ish (pek′is̸h)

adjective

1. Brit., Informal somewhat hungry
2. Informal cross; irritable

That's why.

If you can't keep up 1 blog, add another one!

In a effort to give myself more to do, I am giving this thing a shot. I have noticed, and it has been pointed out, that I have lost passion. What am I involved in regularly that fuels my soul? Oh, there have been many things in the past. Most of them are on some trophy shelf somewhere: metaphorical and real. Unfortunately, one of the things that has occupied my time as I have been running through life trying to figure out what I'm doing, has been fast-food drive-thrus. Oh sure, there are plenty of what seem legitimate excuses as to why that has been the case. I told them to myself for over a decade.

I've vowed on countless occasions to make a change. To stop eating this. To eat more of that. To do this plan. To do that plan. Whatever. I'm too cynical, too analytical and too hypothetical to allow myself to truly submit to any such plan of change. So, I'm attempting this. No doubt it's an effort to 'trick' myself into a better way of eating, but it's more than that.

I was raised with an appreciation of all that comes from the soil. All kinds of vegetables, fruits and roots. I ate most of them too. I also have been blessed with an ability to try just about anything at least once. And, I'm certainly not afraid of anything beast, fish or fowl either. The irony in all of this is, I got sucked into convenience and despair.

Typically, convenience should produce peace and harmony, right? I mean, the less effort it takes for something the more peaceful your circumstances, right? In terms of the fast food life, I would argue that it was a major contributor to more noise, chaos and destruction in my life than perhaps any other thing. Now, certainly, there are deeper dynamics at work in my life that create an environment where 'cheap' (let's say cheaply made), hyper-processed, mystery meat and accoutrement just seems to fit better. And this is the problem.

So, I could do the back end work and uncover the deep, dark issues that have driven me into this lifestyle. And, to be sure, I have explored these depths ineffectively. Or, I could start with some of the symptoms, or by-products, and work backwards. For better or worse, today, I'm choosing the latter.