NOT THROWING KNIVES. But yep! I killed it in the kitchen and it felt good…

It’s been a long, long time since my last post. I apologize for that. There was a monster in my kitchen. I had to kill it. It showed up in the middle of 2013 refusing to leave, creating havoc and determined to mess up my life.

Ahhhhhhhhh…

The menomonster me!

Unexpectedly I went from just being Chef Aunt Weenie’ to this horrorible horror moan me. For about 18 months I had the menopause blues, news and no clues as I struggled to deal with this inner turmoil. Did you know there are some 34 menopause symptoms? Forget about just the hot flashes, cold freezing night sweats and anxiety. I was hammered with meno-morning sickness, vertigo, migraines, stuttering (yes the horror moan imbalance can make you stutter), brain fog, shaking and more.

Last year, in 2014, I ended up in the ER at St. Rose San Martin campus five times. Three trips for the menopause and twice for bronchitis. Honestly I thought sometime last year I was going to die. It was that bad of a body experience. Even my friends and family thought for a while that I wasn’t going to make it. Mostly because we really didn’t know what was going on in my body to make me so sick.

With a lot of internet investigation on my part and several fantastic doctors including my gyno who saved my life 15 years ago with finding my body’s breast cancer in December 2000, we were all able to piece together what was going on. Animal Planet has a series called “Monsters Inside of Me” and I can honestly tell you that menopause would qualify for an episode on that AP show. Easily I may add…

When we finally were able to figure me out I set out on the journey to kill it. AND KILL IT INDEED I DID. By using my culinary skills I not only revamped my diet but I also took on some awesome helpers including Zincm Maca Root and L-Theanine which led to the demise of the monster inside of me. While it followed me into my kitchen I used my kitchen to kill it and it felt oh so good.

By using foods, nutrient-densed foods at that, and going off caffeine for all those months I was able to get my body back on track to a better, healthier me. While I’m not completely over this meno phase of my life, it has become so much better that those folks who know me very personally all think I’m cured. I am not. But I am working on it.

Today I saw my primary care physician and the excitement coming from her as she declared this is the best I’ve ever looked to her in two years just thrilled us both. Let me say, and she knows this to be true, having done chemotherapy 15 years ago and being autistic do not mix well with the change of life. It’s like taking an Italian dressing and trying to blend it with buttermilk ranch. It’s a mess. It’s gross. It’s tastes terrible. Well you get the picture! And it’s not a pretty one at that.

So here I am, it’s January 8, back on track with my blog. Ready to take on the world starting at home in Las Vegas. I love to write. I love to critique. I love to write about critiquing. What better way to satisfy my passion in that capacity than to be a Las Vegas-based food critic. But not just your typical food critic. I’m everything but typical. My goal is to review restaurants, their owners and chefs from a business woman and chef’s point of view. I won’t basturdized our eateries here or anywhere else on this planet like a lot of food critics do. There’s nothing to be gained by being a jerk about it. Jerk chicken is okay. Jerk attitude is not. Eat jerky instead. There is no such thing as a bad restaurant. Only bad individuals who need some direction about how to do their food establishments a little bit or a lot better.

We are already a nation of A-holes and the like. It’s time to take it back to old school when our country had manners not only at the dinner table but also out in public socially. It’s time to bring back the “Yes please.” and the “Thank you.” to the table of our lives again. It’s time to teach some of the culinary peeps how to do it better, improve their look, clean up some of their messes all the while without resorting to being mean and nasty about it. After all, these people in their professional kitchens are busting their pork butts to make a living feeding those of us who don’t bust our chops from the back counters. There’s nothing to be gained as a food critic for me to stomp their steaks for the public to see.

So with that get ready to embark on my food critic adventures while I, myself, am still continuing my culinary studies at Rouxbe.com getting my professional chef credentials. Not everybody is cut out to critique food. You need a working knowledge of the field, hands on experience and a greater understanding of what it’s like to be the head chef, a Sous chef, the kitchen help and the chief dishwasher so to speak if you’re going to mess up or mess with their culinary turf and surf.

Otherwise expect to not be invited back because you chose to create flaming enemies from your strongly negative and opinionated writings. Putting someone out of business because you don’t like the food or you slammed their restaurant by being downright nasty only serves to dish out to you being one of the most hated persons on the planet. Food critics often live lonely public lives. By their own doings.

There is just too much of brutality across our nation in all aspects of life that is not restricted in journalistic capacities or the television media. All it serves is to promote, to create more hostility. Look what happened to Ferguson and how people attacked one another’s businesses almost destroying a whole city. Yes you can be angry. But not to the level that you create violence out of freedom of expression. There has to be a balance with using freedom of expression. And that is what I intend to do by being a different type of food critic. To make peace while being honest but not to create discord that disharmonizes people’s right to earn a living by making food for you because you did choose to eat at their places.

Are you ready for me? I hope so.

Happy New Year. Let’s do some really great food adventures starting in my own neighborhood area. Join Chef Aunt Weenie’ me, Evil Eater Ed, Sous Oui Chef DazE and Noodles Nadja as we set out about town to conquer by taste what makes a restaurant so good you have to go back for more. And when we do find it we want you to know about it too. Don’t expect perfection. No restaurant, no chef, no eatery owner is perfect.

Just about every food place has had health code violations or other business issues that are temporary demerit marks on their faces. Unless you are that ignorant or stupid like Tapas Firefly who finally had to close its doors permanently because of continued numerous health code violations, most restaurant staff members get it when they learn they have to do better after the health department inspects them. There are strict codes to operating an eatery as a legal food business. Being a nasty food critic just adds insult to their injury. They know they have to do improve, change, clean up their act. They don’t need to be kicked down further. The health department in every state comes with the territory of running and owning a restaurant. It’s a marriage but it’s not made in heaven. That’s for sure!

However restaurant staff do need to be encouraged as to how they can really raise their own work standards. Sometimes staff is so busy making the food they don’t see the food as we customers do while we are partaking of it. Or they don’t have the understanding of the day to day business operations or marketing skills that also make running a food business. First impressions are lasting impressions. A smile is worth more than the weight of gold. There are many small aspects of a business that can make or break it without it being about the food alone. Nuff said.

With that in mind remember this—

No I’m NOT THROWING KNIVES as a food critic. But if there is a monster in a kitchen somewhere on this planet you can be sure I will find and happily kill it without ever making a mess. Here’s a hint. At home in my kitchen called Duck Bones Diner, I’m known by my family staff as General McAuntie. So much so that when my husband and our two nieces who live with us watch food programs you can hear them from time to time exclaim aloud that OMG those people would never do that in auntie’s kitchen. Hell no. She would kill them for making a mess like that. Yep. Reputation is everything. Even at home. I trained them well to much higher standards. I will train you too. You may not like it but later on you will have learned to appreciate it.

Get ready Las Vegas. I’m coming out of my kitchen closet to check out your kitchen closet. Together we will improve your look, have your food taste better and get your customers to love you more. You may only need a little tweeking. Or you might need a huge overhaul. Either way it’s a win-win for you if you want it to be.

See you soon. I look forward to eating you up. You can take my words anyway you want. I know what I mean by that statement. I’m hungry for some good eats. Are you ready to swallow my words in the process? HOT DOG I’M EXCITED… I HOPE YOU ARE TOO!

Rouxbe 101 The Basics: Mile High Pancake Lesson

For beginning the culinary arts at Rouxbe.com, the school’s first basic knowledge lesson is about Wheat and Wheat Gluten. It is designed with a self-assessment test of your own knowledge about wheat before they present you with the first cooking lesson with flour to give you a mental test drive of their school. You lock in your answers. There is no cheating or redos.

I used Krusteaz Honey Wheat pancake mix because my husband and I limit our eating of white flour recipes so we don’t keep any flour in our kitchen. The mix is made with an all purpose flour and did serve the purpose of this lesson perfectly.

I mixed the box mix and water lightly. I then separated 1/3 of the mix into another bowl and timed my whisking the batter by hand for exactly two minutes. I let the rest of the other bowl batter sit for the five required minutes. I had Ed, my husband, griddle both batters while observed this.

1. The over mixed batter stayed dense while on the griddle and did not spread out. They were smaller pancakes. Transferring them to the plate they felt like rubber. I then cut one in half and felt it hard to slice it. I propped the cut cake up so I could photograph its texture. It was dense.

2. The lightly mixed batter sat and waited for the over mixed batter to finish cooking. It poured easier fom the bowl to the griddle. It also spread out into four perfectly rounded cakes. They bubbled and rose very well something that the over mixed batter did not do. When they were done to a golden brown perfection I plated them the same way as the over mixed cakes. As I cut the lightly beated mix in half it cut smoothly with ease. Its density was light and airy.

3. I put the two cut cakes propped up next to each other. The difference was obvious immediately. OM was thinner but dense. LM was way more thicker and porous in its density. I took a picture of them side by side for comparison.

4. Eating them. There was definitely a taste difference. The OM was terrible, tasted rubbery and lost flavor. The LM on the other fork was an eating pleasure. It tasted good. Just plain good. Even when we put peanut butter on Ed’s plate of both mixes and I put my homemade strawberry freezer jam on my plate of cakes they did not improve the eating and tasting experience of the OM cakes. But OMG to LM did they enhanced those cakes! Move over Emeril because we kicked it up four notches with the LM.

5. In conclusion over mixing your flour beats too much gluten out of the flour even for Krusteaz’s box mix. That really ruins the whole griddle and tasting pleasure. Sucks it right out of the tater leaving a rubber duck to chew on. So keep your wrist light when whisking your pancake batters or another batter you are cooking with. Heavy-handers need not apply for kitchen duty unless you are taking out the trash. In this case the over mixed batter was the trash….