Intro to Mookie's Food Odyssey

We're born, we die. Hopefully, in the end we've loved and paid taxes, no more or less than our share. But, to leave it only at this seems a bit blase.

(Insert 80's record scratch).

We're born. We cry. (Or, we don't; I didn't at first ). After the cord's snipped perhaps our backs are rubbed and we're  cooed over. (I bet you were). Soon, a breast is heaved at us and we begin to eat. We eat and eat. We need more and more food. Our parents are mystified as they try to figure out what we like, when we're hungry and how much we want. And then as we grow up, we change our minds. For example, I used to hate apples because those offered to me by the After School teacher were mealy. I adore them now. I usually can't abide by red onions on a sandwich, but I do serve them minced in my tuna salad, a recipe I 'borrowed' from the Whole Foods in New Orleans. They've since changed it.

I'm here to answer questions!

What did our grandparents' supermarkets look like? Why don't we serve sweet potatoes at the restaurant where I work? How many ways did my neighbor's family prepare cream cheese and olives during the Depression? Who eats bear, raccoon? Gross. Don't astronauts recycle urine into drinking water? Does anyone eat thistles anymore? With butter? How does a sea cucumber get nourishment?

Why do my potted basil plants always croak after four months? Why's it been assumed Eve ate an apple when it was probably a pomegranate? What kind of craft services did Shakespeare provide? 

Herbs in the wild, herbs for your skin, mushrooms, good and bad. Best roadside berries for bikers, please. Pass the sunscreen. 

Several months back, when I was particularly broke, and had gone down a pants size or two, I said I was on a recession diet. The name's not really accurate, of course, since we can gorge ourselves on the cheap at any number of chain restaurants. But the theme surrounding food still holds. I try to eat carefully, and I'm no stranger to the second coming of teenage appetite lost. What fuels Mookie's is a renewed curiosity about food, for I was once a childhood chef who taught younger kids how to properly burn cookies. 

Mookie's is about making something from very little. At home, I have a low-wattage microwave, a crock pot, two hot-plate burners, and a shoestring budget. I'm not a professional food writer or chef. I've got some of the coolest cookbooks around but seldom have all the ingredients to create a prize-winner. But we must begin somewhere, and I did. Cooking is about faith and failure. So, too, with writing and reporting, the latter of which may be terribly scarce. In fact, it could morph into The Onion of food blogs. But I do seek some truth, I will take some photographs, and I hope to bring more than just what Wikipedia offers. You can quote me on that.

This will be a grand adventure. I look forward to hearing from you.