'Haute' Importance

As you all know (or may not know, I don’t know how much you guys pay attention to me.) I love food. Good freshly prepared food. I just don’t understand how people could go out to the Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factories of the world for over priced frozen entrees when you can go to a local Brasserie or Corner Bar and get better, fresher food in a better more friendly atmosphere for the same price. I used to be alone in this thought process save for few other closet gourmands and gastronomists. Funny thing is though; people are actually starting to give a shit about food. It’s a revolution. It has become popular and trendy to hunt out that obscure Thai place, or an out of the way French café. The younger generations, my generation, actually seem to care about good food! And they seem to care about where the food comes from as well. Farmers markets are on the rise and advocates for the so-called “slow foods” movement are popping up everywhere. And no I’m not talking about the Emeril/ Rachel Ray/ Gordon Ramsey/ Food Network BS, But real chefs doing really interesting things all over the country. “Haute Cuisine”, or literally translated “high cooking”, That was once only found in the bigger cities, and for ridiculous amounts of money, can now be found in places like Wichita, or Santa Fe, and for a reasonable price. Every young graduate coming out of the CIA or other culinary schools thinks he’s freaking Escoffier, and that is not a bad thing. They are bringing this passion back to the small towns of America and doing some really wonderful things.

I think this rise in knowledge is due in large part to inflation, distrust in the government regulatory bodies, and just simply people are getting sick of having fat, McDonalds addled bed wetting manatees for children. And quite frankly are tired of being Manatees themselves and have realized that P-90x and Fen-Phen and Ephedra are not going to make you look like Sienna Miller any more than getting drunk will make the Sasquatch at the end of the bar look any prettier. It may work for a little while but sooner or later you will have to face the facts and hope she has a good personality. Food is important, maybe the most important. It is literally what sustains us and keeps us alive. We owe it to ourselves to eat healthy, eat local, and eat fresh. It’s just worth it.

That being said I have a confession to make. I love me some Popeye’s Chicken. Oh man is that good. I don’t know if its fresh or where it comes from, and honestly I don’t want to know. If I knew I would probably not eat it any more. I guess everyone has his weakness, mine is cheap chicken and biscuits.