Cleveland

Fall is about food

By Craig ⋅ October 7, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅ Post a comment

It’s my firm belief that fall / autumn air carries food smells better than any other season. Winter is too cold and windy. Spring is wet and conflicting with other scents. Summer is oppresive and humid. But Fall… fall, to me, is the season for restaurants. The fall menus are hearty and  inventive. Red wine is always the perfect temperature because there is a little nip in the air. I happily eat my way through this season wishing it would stay all year round.

This is the time of year I always relapse into my “I wish I were a professional cook/chef” thinking and I start to look at night-time culinary programs. I up my game again and start making stocks, sauces, more restaurant-style dishes. They are simple, relatively fast, repeatable. I try and use in-season, good produce, local if I can get it. It’s all basics and good craft, or at least the best I currently have.

I walk by restaurants after work for the smells, the buzz. I don’t know why I would be jealous of 16 hour days, heat, always working when friends are off, etc. But I am. I always have been. The more I learn about cooking professionally the more I know it’s really, really hard. I’ve known this for years and I still love it. Maybe I’ll just volunteer to do prep work somewhere downtown for free. But who has that kind of time?!

So… I guess I should start posting here again. I’ll be for the next few months it will be alot about food and cooking.

Tags: food chef restaurant cleveland