food and drink

Craig Giesecke: Four more commercial-quality upgrades for a home kitchen (for 25 bucks or less)

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Last week I put out a few ideas about commercial kitchen items that can seriously upgrade a kitchen at home, without spending a billion dollars or being stuck with something you’ll use only once or twice. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this through the week and taking note of things at the shop, but I’m sure there are some things I’ve missed. When I find them, I’ll be sure to pass those along as well. Any kitchen should have an immersible blender, since it’s invaluable for making soups and sauces. But this is one of those things that won’t require a trip to the restaurant supply store.

business

Craig Giesecke: How to build the perfect kitchen — commercial quality on a household scale (Part 1)

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I went into work one day last week and was again reminded about just how much food we produce each day and how it has to be constantly renewed over and over as sales volume increases. Usually, it seems I’ve just made a big load of something when I have to make another one. Not that this is a bad thing – at all. This is tough to translate when I get back home and try to replicate something for just two or three. Speaking honestly, I rarely cook at home much anymore and, when I do, it’s usually pretty simply stuff like pasta with some kind of sauce from a jar.

business

Craig Giesecke: Day-to-day magic

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I was at work the other day and a friend came in to get a few items. We were talking in front of the chef case, where all the gorgeous stuffed pork loin, herb-crusted salmon and other stuff is displayed. He commented on how great it all looked, but then asked me, “Don’t you get bored making the same stuff every day?”

Well, yes and no. Those of us who make food for a living indeed get bored with what we do sometimes and, honestly, we don’t eat a lot of our own stuff at home. Matter of fact, as I mentioned in a column several months ago, chefs are largely some of the biggest junk-food eaters in town. Usually the higher-brow a place is, the lower down the fast-food chain we’re likely to eat.

food and drink

Craig Giesecke: Cooking with fusion

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Those of us who cook for a living are often asked by non-(professional) cooking friends what we’d do in a certain situation or with a certain set of ingredients or what we might substitute if a key ingredient in a recipe isn’t available. Usually, I have no clue. That’s not completely true, of course. Often I can suggest a few things I’d do in a given situation. But, really, it‘s not a fair question because food is so…so… personal.

food and drink

Craig Giesecke: The flavors of fall

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While many of our days are still warm and we‘re certainly not done with summer-type weather yet, the cooler air of the past week has certainly improved my attitude and my culinary approach. Autumn is my favorite time of year — not only because things cool off but because it allows me to bring out a lot of things that don’t seem to fit in the more consistently hot weather we find after about, oh, JazzFest in this part of the world. I was nearly 50 years old before I actually spent some time during the fall in a part of the world that has four distinct seasons. Having spent my entire life on or south of I-20 (except for a brief 18 months or so in Huntsville, Ala.), and having spent half my life along or south of I-10, I’ve tended to experience only two seasons each year. The Green Season lasts a good nine months, while the Gray And Brown Season takes up the other three (though the pines still leave plenty of green).

business

Craig Giesecke: Try it. You’ll like it. (Unless it’s salad dressing in a microwave)

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Few things make me happier as a parent and a chef than walking by a table where kids are eating a variety of foods. I have seen children eating sushi, oysters, Thai food, escargot and all sorts of things that might not be on your average list of Kid Food — and I always want to hug the parents or other appropriate adults for laying out various things to try. When my kids were growing up, the rule was they had to take a bite of everything. If they didn’t like it, that was fine (even if they had already made up their minds ahead of time). Not that we would have unreasonably forced them to sit there until they did, since there’s no sense in turning the dinner table into a battle of wills.

arts, books and music

Craig Giesecke: The sound and taste of success

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Last week I had the chance to go out to Tulane to watch a showing of “Nine Lives,” the Paul Sanchez musical production of a Dan Baum book dealing with our part of the world and a particular view of how things were from Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to Katrina, 40 years later. It’s a delightful show, and here’s hoping it is successful as a would-be Broadway production in the coming year or so. As is often the case when I go see local music (not nearly as often as I’d like), I get to thinking about how much in common our local restaurant operators have with our local musicians. We’re in a city known mainly as a food and art mecca, and we’ve produced a series of folks known worldwide for their expertise and innovation in both arenas. But while such international stars (Lagasse and Neville, Prudhomme and Armstrong, etc.) have their draws, the attraction remains the smaller venues and Who’s Next — who might be doing world-class work in some dive or tiny place.

food and drink

Craig Giesecke: The real list of essential hurricane supplies

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If your house is like ours, there are still a few items in your cupboard or maybe your fridge that appeared during our recent storm and now you’re looking at them and wondering, “Why?” At one point, our Irish Channel house hosted seven adults and two little girls. Our friends arrived with bedding and toys, along with the usual we-might-need-extra items such as flashlights, ice, toilet paper, bottled water and batteries. Of course, there being seven adults, there was an adequate supply of alcoholic beverages. Or at least you think it’s adequate until the kids are asleep and everyone else is setting around with no power and nothing to do but drink.

food and drink

Craig Giesecke: The great food stamp mouse maze

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All of us have been watching the storm named Isaac as it bears down on Florida and possibly other parts of the Gulf South. It’s that time of year and, even though it appears so far we will not bear the brunt, such an event always makes us do a mental checklist of things available, where we’d go and all the myriad other things to face during hurricane season. If conditions get tough enough, as they certainly did after Katrina and even after Hurricane Gustav a few years ago, a lot of folks won’t be able to immediately return to work. When this happens, part of the state’s response has been to make food stamps (the Louisiana Purchase card, it’s called these days) easily available to those who are temporarily without regular income. Such assistance was vital to so many in Katrina‘s aftermath, particularly those caught out on the road with few resources or a dwindling bank account.