in the meantime

So, while I'm "pacing" out the meat, I keep wondering what else could I do. Tales of the bowl of cereal I made or which of the two apples I bought was better just don't seem as compelling as a smoke filled kitchen and seared meaty goodness. 

One thing that's been occurring to me is, I've been doing a better job of just following directions than I have at elevating my ability to actually cook. Certainly I've learned some things and got to experiment a little bit, but there's some fundamentals I'm severely lacking.

I think in the distant and foggy past, I was able to prep cook to a degree. I kind of remember doing that sort of thing in between sneaking off to hide in the walk-in and dropping crates of rented glasses. So since Molecular Gastronomy may be a bit out of my league, we're going back to the basics to kill the time in between the sweet, sweet meat. mmmmmmmm, meat.

I've done a bunch of research and found some good sources on knife skills (even ones that say "always cut away from you, except when you're cutting toward you"...huh?). Some even with instructional videos and exercises. Sure, why not. I'm supposed to be eating more fruit and vegetables now anyway right? I knew my knives were pretty bad, they were the cheapest block set I could find, but eh, they'll do. So my chef knife is serrated, has no bolster and is a bit short, it's all in the skills right? Plus it feels funny using a tool dubbed "chef's" anything while I'm...me. By the way, I guess you're never supposed to buy a knife block set for some reason. They're bad news.

So this should be fun if I can keep all my fingers. People love a train wreck right? Either way, sleep sound, the next steak is soon and in the mean time, I think it's celery that's under the knife first.