I've almost always regarded restaurant food to be better. Better tasting, better ingredients, just better. My grandmother was an amazing cook. I loved eating her food, but it was always a treat to go to a sit down food joint. Even if it was just the 'Sizzler. Somewhere along the way, in the past few years, I've had a change of heart. It's taken such a long time to realize that restaurants, even the good ones, don't have to be better. Good food tastes good if you simply don't fuck it up. That's the mantra. That's all you have to do. It's a very simple equation. Good Food + Don't Fuck It Up = Tastes Good.
Let's break this down.
Good food. I specifically said good, not healthy. Diet "this" and fat free "that" have no flavor. I also suspect that they hold a closer relationship to plastics then consumable natural foods. More on that in a different post. At the risk of sounding like a hippy, natural organic foods taste better. I will not debate it. They just do. Meats, dairy, vegetables, fruit, grains all taste better when they're not genetically engineered like some Captain America clone. I eat real butter! Not even the crap formed up in sticks from the supermarket. I use real, unsalted Amish roll butter. Why? because it infuses everything with awesome! The first time you eat fresh organic eggs and see that rich dark orange yolk, you will understand why i pay a whopping 80 cents more per dozen.
There is a trade off. These awesome tasting foods have no chemicals or preservatives in them and therefore do not have the half-life of U92. It means more trips to the butcher or farmers market to obtain the freshest food you can or more waste in spoiled goods.
Don't Fuck It Up. When your food is high quality, it will benefit most from the LACK of dressings and frills. A simple seasoning and properly cooking it really is all that it takes. I recently grilled organic yellow squash for company. The recipe was foolproof. Slice thick, toss in olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, grill till done. The dish was the talk of the party. "What did you put on that squash?" "Oh my god, it's so sweet!". I realized that maybe people didn't really know what squash tastes like. Great food doesn't need a balsamic reduction or a cranberry chutney. It just needs to be treated with respect.
Tastes Good. Trust me. Give it a shot and see if you agree. Great quality food prepared delicately will taste amazing on it's own merit. And it will be kind of healthy when you don't pile on the dressings, sauces, and condiments.
I don't expect to inspire anyone to break out of their Walmart induced food coma. But if anyone reads this, I just want to set the stage for what's to come.