RED ONION
I've been told I'm a great salad maker. It's a weird thing to be proud of, but damn am I proud of it. If there's one that gets a bad rap it's salads. I think the American food system has made people associate salads with sad iceberg lettuce, pieces or purple cabbage and mushy tomatoes doused in ranch or Thousand Island dressing.
Sad, indeed.
In my dream world, Rina and I work in a light filled studio with professional equipment. Our kitchen is white and full of state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances and large windows. Our counters are covered with fresh flowers; our workplace filled with props and kitchenware that photograph wonderfully. Jon Hamm makes frequent visits and Ina Garten does cooking demos for us. It's a pretty damn great place to be.
But, sadly, my magical powers haven't kicked in yet, so we have to work with what we have on hand. If that means shooting in Rina's bedroom, where the sunlight is, or doing dishes every six minutes to keep her tiny sink from overflowing, then so be it. It's all part of the process that hopefully one day we can look back and laugh at. Anyone who's stopped by or been privy to the tornado that is our recipe testing and shooting days (hi, Cornelia!) knows that's it's basically a hot mess. But it's something we love nonetheless.
There was only one kosher pizza place in all of metro Detroit, and though I never kept kosher, a lot of my friends did. Jerusalem Pizza opened a second location my junior year of high school right in the lobby of the JCC, which also happened to house my high school. The number of times I visited that place with friends to order sub-par-borderline disgusting food was countless, and while I tried to remain open minded, there was one dish I refused to order - the BBQ "chicken" pizza.
What can I say? As the token meat eater of this partnership, fake meat makes me skeptical! But like most other skeptical food judgements I have, Rina managed to change my mind. With this pizza.
Here at Gateau | Gato, we love nachos. LOVE them. When we're together, if we aren't cooking, photographing, writing or editing, there's a pretty good chance we're drinking beer and wine, respectively, eating nachos and talking about the scorched dessert that is the New York dating scene. What is it about nachos that makes them such happy food? How did we get so lucky, to have this amazing dish on offer at most bars with a happy hour? Do they come from the heavens with the angels and scary babies and whatnot?
Not exactly, but their history is still pretty cool!
When I first started my junior year on study abroad, I made the rookie mistake of actually studying. My roommate, now a best friend, and I would spend hours on our homework, memorizing Hebrew verbs and studying Israeli artists until our eyes glazed over. Silly, really, to think of all those wasted hours that could have been spent at the beach or the shuk. Once we moved out of the dorms, though, and into the city center, we learned our lesson. This is why you should never live more than a ten-minute walk from the beach.
As I sit at my desk on this blustery afternoon, my mind naturally turns to what I'm going to eat for dinner. Do I want to spend a couple hours at the grocery store, stirring and measuring and roasting after a long day?
Fuck no. I want a bowl the size of my head filled with guacamole. With some crunchy things to dip thrown in for balance. A reasonable request, I would say.