For the grilled chicken in this recipe, I countertop-cured the chicken breasts for two hours. This is a pretty simple method which helps keep the chicken moist. Generally, I’ll have cure on hand, a mixture of two parts salt and one part sugar. I’ll generally want to use 3% of the chicken’s body weight. For…
Apple Cilantro Chicken Meatballs
Time out here cannot decide whether to move slower or faster. Days drag on with mid-western monotony. Weeks at a time seem to disappear without any recollection. In order to “go out,” we have to drive at least an hour. So pretty much all of our evenings are spent sitting in the kitchen. Consequently,…
Late-Night Jambalaya
Before I began work, I would spend most of the day pacing back and forth, planning a meal in my head to pass the time. I would begin cooking around four or five, while Morgan was painting in the studio, and Des and the baby hung around in the kitchen. We tried out different…
Thai Laap Wraps
While living Yellowstone, and surviving off of cafeteria steam table food and way too many bagels, I dreamt daily of eating just one good Thai meal. My favorite day was when the cafeteria served “curry” and I would take over the kitchen to hobble together the closest thing I could get to a true Thai…
Beef Enchiladas
Let me just say that during this time period, I had less than fifty dollars in my bank account, and I wasn’t sure when/if I was going to get more. I also had another five hundred miles to travel. My best friend, who’d been traveling with me for the previous couple of months also had…
Quadruple Cake Surprise
I love having the privilege to cook for a living. Food is a dynamic force in my life. It pushes my creativity all the time; it also drives my joy. Sometimes cooking can seem overly serious, while developing a menu for a restaurant, or coming up with a special. Even while cooking at home, working…
Last Minute Falafel
At the end of 2018, I left a sous-chef job in Asheville, NC, loaded up my car with all I could fit and gave away the rest of my belongings. I drove to Chicago with very little plan and about a thousand dollars in the bank. I spent the summation of a year traveling, living…