Ultranormal

Category: Food Thoughts

  • On to the Good Stuff

    On to the Good Stuff

    I was talking to a friend in the TechSAV Slack this morning about people running around without masks and being aggressively ignorant about it online and in person and as I was about to spiral into anger and sadness, I just decided… I don’t want to.

    Instead, I decided to hop over here and write something about all the good stuff that’s happened while I’ve been stuck at home with my family – the happy accidents, the intentional accidents, and the successes (both intentional and accidental).

    • The Wire: The Ringer has a new podcast recapping every episode of my favorite show of all time. I used this as an opportunity to get Brian to watch the show with me, and he has! We’re now several episodes ahead of the podcast, but he’s really into the show, so I’m fine plowing ahead.
    • Home Haircuts: Brian has been growing out his hair since 8th grade (he’s just finishing 10th). The other day, he said, “I’m thinking of shaving my head.” I asked him 3-4 times if he was sure he wanted to. He said yes, so we grabbed the clippers and a chair, and went to the backyard. It was surprisingly fun to take all that hair off his head.
    • Exercise: I was doing pretty well on the bike last fall and then just stopped… and I can’t remember why. But, I’m back! I closed the Move ring on my watch every day last week, and am on to closing it this week too!
    • Gardening and the Barter Economy: I decided it was time to try gardening again, so I planted a bunch of seeds and did the whole “throw scallion ends in a jar” thing. The scallion trick works great, by the way. The seeds? Not so much. But, I have a friend who loves bread and is an amazing gardener, so I’m trading her a loaf of sourdough for a bunch of seedlings that will get planted this weekend. I even set up a table for gardening in the backyard that will hopefully keep the terrible weeds from my dilapidated raised beds away from the new plants.
    • Cooking With Constraints: We’ve been trying to only go to the store every 2-3 weeks, which means towards the end of that time, we have to get creative with our meals. We’ve been trying all kinds of recipes, and it’s been a lot of fun tweaking them to use the ingredients we have instead of running to the store. My favorites so far have been Bang Bang Chicken and Scallion Pancakes.

    There are probably more things, but that’ll do for now. I hope you’re staying safe and as happy as you can be.

  • Cook, Eat, Write… Day One

    This is all Tom Kohler’s fault. At a friend’s Christmas party, we were talking about food and he insisted that I start a food blog to hold all my thoughts, theories, recipes and discoveries about food in Savannah and the Low Country.

    And here we are. It’s the day after Christmas and I’ve registered the domain, set up email (kevin@cookeatwrite.com), and am sitting here writing this while everyone else sleeps off all the turkey and ham from yesterday.

    We’ll see how things go, but here’s what I plan on doing here:

    • Writing about everything food-related. I’m thinking of this as everything from producers to consumers and all the stops in between. I’m fascinated by where our food comes from, how we can become small-scale producers in our own backyards, and how we can do a better job of being mindful of where our food comes from. I also love to cook and eat, so there will be some recipes, some restaurant reviews and some tips on where to find people making or providing interesting things in Savannah. For example, did you know that there are at least three great Asian grocery stores in Savannah? Well, there are!
    • Recipes for everything from BBQ to desserts. I can’t stay out of the kitchen and trying new things. I’ve made Momofuku Ramen twice – the new version and the old version. I’m addicted to trying pie and bread recipes, and sometimes come up with my own twists on them. This is where I’ll share those.
    • Interviews with local producers, providers and chefs. I’ve never done interview like that before, but there are a lot of really interesting people doing amazing things here and I’d love an excuse to pick their brains.
    • Links to cool food things to do.

    I’m not sure what the publishing schedule will be yet, but I expect I’ll have something to say at least once a week.

    I hope you’ll come along for the ride!

    Thanks for reading,

    Kevin Lawver