Oven Things

I don't know anything about cooking. I think I've mentioned this before. Well, I know less about baking. Part of the reason is that I'm not a woman. I deal with grills. Stove tops. BBQ's. Man stuff.

I'm baking for the first time. A piece of chicken (that I marinaded in bourbon, teriyaki sauce, some cumin and mustard) and a sweet potato.

I've never baked either. But I thought I'd give it a shot.

Anyways, it occurred to me, right away that I don't know how to do two things:

1) How you preheat an oven. I turned the oven on and left it for like fifteen minutes. I think that's good enough, right? Right?

2) What the difference is between bake and broil. Those are the two settings. I put mine on bake. Though, in hindsight, that may've been the wrong decision. Baking is for brownies and shit right?

I started to bake and in the meantime, began to clean my stove top. I noticed that it was getting really hot. Is this normal? It was like, if I left my hand on the stovetop, it would get burned hot. I IM'ed a friend who said it should be okay. But I still have these visions of my stovetop catching on fire and then my room burning down. Needless to say, I'm glancing back at my stove top every few minutes.

The End.

My Impressive Rack

I was at Kunsan only a few weeks when I decided I needed to make a change. A noticeable change. I thought it would improve my self esteem. I thought that it would boost my self image and round out the parts of me that were lacking. And so I started the modification. A half size at a time. I decided that I needed a rack.

So I went to the grocery store and bought one cannister of spice at a time. A different one. I built my rack, however, with little research. I didn't go online and compare spices. I didn't compare what was the best deal, what size, combination, and makeup would create the most devastating rack. No, I did it haphazardly. With little thought. And now I have quite a collection.

My rack hasn't turned out like I thought it would be. For one thing, there's so much of it that I don't quite know what to do. When people see it, they stare at my rack. Why? They wonder. Did he really need it? I can't answer their questions. I barely know what to do with my new rack.

Some of its inexperience. I never really had much a spice rack growing up as a kid. Well, I did. But I never paid attention to them. And now I've built my own. And I still build it, by buying one or two spices at a time.

This is what I have. Ground cumin. Tarragon leaves. California lemon peel. Ground ginger. Montreal chicken seasoning. Rubbed sage. Mediterranean basil leaves. What to do with all them? I don't even know what they are. I do know that these are the same kinds of spices that sparked trade wars and conquests (especially the Montreal Chicken Seasoning- the French, the Brits, the Indians and the Americans fought the famous 'Fowl War of 1754' over it, a precursor to the French and Indian War). Sure these things would've been nice to have four hundred years ago- in 1635, I'd be a rich noble vs. the poor soldier I am now.

I bought them with the vague idea that I'd do something with them. And sometimes I do. I dump a few of them in my marinades. I poured some ground cumin (the dirtiest spice out there?) into my bourbon/teriyaki marinade that I left my chicken that I'm going to bake tonight to defrost in. But beyond that, not much.

Its sad. These spices reflect why I'm not meant to be a good cook. I don't like to follow recipes. Recipes mean having to go out and buy ingredients. Ingredients that I don't have. I don't like to do research. Research means time and energy that I don't want to expend on food. And finally, I have a terrible sense of smell. Its what makes me bad at tasting beer. When I put tarragon leaves in my italian marinade, I can't pick up the tarragon. When I put ground cumin in a bourbon, teriyaki sauce, how am I supposed to know where the teriyaki sauce ends and the cumin begins? Maybe teriyaki sauce always smells of cumin.

But my rack remains. It was a bit impulsive. And I'm still building it. One day, it will get to be an extravagant size. People will stare in fascinated and horrified fashion. And until I meet a girl who is a "spice" girl, I don't think there will be any use for them. They're useless appendages to my never ending kitchen endeavors.

The End.

What the Picture Does Not Show

There are a lot of ways pictures can both represent and distort reality. Take this one for instance. It is a plate of food on a bed. You see that the bed does not have sheet. Because I am a bachelor without a lady in my life and I am so incredibly lazy that I have not bothered to put sheets on. You will also notice the plate- cheap but effective.

Finally, your eyes will come to the food. It may look like a dinner right out of a package that you can easily buy at the grocery store. But far from it. Eyes will stray across the cheese- cheese that I added at the last minute. Cheddar because that's the only thing I have; the only cheese I bother to carry because again, I am alone, why do I need to carry multiple cheeses? Cheddar is solidly American, a man's cheese, a sharp cheese.

The vegetables, stir-fry, that again I added in the last moments because I wanted to be at least sort of healthy. The bread, too, came late. Organic honey bread that I bought even though I am not a hippy bear.

You will observe the chicken. What is there to tell about? Nothing much, really. You cannot see the marinade I put it in. You cannot see that this tasted actually good. You will notice that it is not a koolaid purple like my last attempt with chicken. But you will not notice how I prepared it- that I took about 1/5th of my light Italian dressing, poured that into a plastic bag, took about an equal amount of white wine and poured that in the ziplock bag and then tossed the chicken in there before taking my California Lemon Peel spice container and tossing some carelessly onto the chicken.

Finally, what you cannot see is the look on my face as I taste the chicken. You certainly have read about my lack of taste buds but you will not be able to register my satisfying expression as I note, for a split second, lemon, wine and surprise, an overtone of Italian dressing or as I suck delightfully on the tender meat.

And most importantly of all, you will not- and cannot know- my feeling of delayed gratification- that I was so tempted to go to the CAC or the Bowling Alley after the gym because I was so hungry- but stayed the course and made an actually decent meal.

The picture shows many things but it certainly cannot show you that. Or the feeling of a job well done.

The End.

My Unique Kitchen Life

When I moved to my BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters), despite my small room, I felt a great deal of relief. Here, finally, I had my own place. I was a man. And while I was neither renting nor owning this little room (its the government's after all), I could call it my own. That bed? Mine. The desk? Mine. That bathroom? Mine. And most importantly of all, I had a kitchen.

Well, sort of. Its barely a kitchen. No counter space at all and one and a half cupboards. But I had an oven and stove and full size refrigerator and a sink.

As you know, I barely exercised this kitchen at all. But I've felt it out and my kitchenette, with a great deal of wariness, has also felt me out (I don't blame it, I'm a single male who has never cooked before and is more liable to blow something up than to cook something great). And as I've used it, it has presented its own unique challenges.

The most formidable challenge has been my lack of space. It is small. I don't have any counter space. I barely have any cupboard space (one cupboard with one shelf and a cupboard with some kind of ventilation thing in the middle of it and the cupboard isn't even on the wall straight). So I have been forced to improvise. I mostly use my oven for counter space (I have a little plastic shelf thing that doubles as a dish rack). My lack of drawers has forced me to put my silverware and cooking utensils in my washroom (next to the bathroom, separated by a door).

Don't get me started on how this limits my ability to dry my dishes and utensils. I create all sorts of arrangements. My salt holder next to my spatula next to my bread next to my olive oil. Plates on top of tupperware tops on cups perched on pans balanced on a single knife edge. Its a cross between the most awkward dinner party ever and the most dangerous game of Jenga the world has ever seen.

Utensils are irritating too. Those bastards take up too much room and yet cannot find the appropriate balance to settle in comfortably (and equally) in one of my red solocups that I tried to serve as their drying cup. (They always tip over) Tonight I looked up in my half cupboard and realized I could just dump them into my measurer pourer not exactly beaker thingy (broader base). Thank you for helping out thing whose name I don't know despite growing up with one my entire life.

My sink presents its own challenges. I cannot figure out my stupid faucet. Its got one of those joystick like controls where it pitches and yaws and that determines how hot or cold the water becomes and how much water pressure there is. It is also extremely sensitive. An attempted adjustment from lukewarm to slightly hot results in an adjustment from lukewarm to "SONOFAB*ITCHMOTHERF&CKER!!!" To take the joystick analogy further- if my handle were the controls to an aircraft, it would have crashed and burned many, many times already (though thanks to the heat, I probably killed millions of germs. So that's a plus).

The faucet head confounds me to this day. I didn't discover until recently that the faucet head could move (making my life a lot easier as I could now target different dishes in my sink since they tended to accumulate). Then tonight I touched the head and the water suddenly went from solid to sprinkler. I touched it again and it went back to solid water. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how I could get it to go back to sprinkler.

So no, my kitchen is not ideal. Its a hodgepodge of things I could scrounge up at the commissary on the relative cheap. Some are brand new and work great, like my sharp knives and Reaganesque pans. Others not so much. It is not a great collective but it is my collective. Nowhere near perfect and starting from scratch- they embody the same qualities I find in my self as I begin my journey. One day, when I'm a master chef, I will find the financing and time to purchase the best kitchen and wares bachelordom has ever seen. For now- my schizophrenic faucet, my depressingly lacking in counterspace kitchen, my small cupboards- will do. Just like my cooking, they will do. We'll stumble and grow and get by. Together. We're the best we've got.

The End.

Tales of the Ignorant, Part 13859

Just told my friend on Skype that I bought a blender but that I didn't know how to make a smoothie.

He sat silently stunned and then hung up.

Bachelor fail.

This week, Aspiring One Star Michelin Chef Ryan (but still hopeless bachelor cook Ry) met One Day One-Star General To-Be Uyehara (but still hapless butterbar LT. U). The resulting culinary explosion (or lack thereof) did not create a pretty culinary sight. Nor were these matters helped by a heavy dose of Bachelor Dude Who Was Too Lazy To Buy Food This Weekend and New LT Who Also Was Too Tired to Work This Weekend and Is Now Swamped With Work.

What does this all add up to? A bare, bare cupboard and a belly full of junk food. I have vegetables in my fridge and that is about it. I have two cans of soup I can heat up. Some eggs. My rice cooker is full of cracked, dried out rice because I've been too lazy to wash it. Also, I have like one piece of chicken left. I've got one very eclectic, protein heavy dinner left.

This week, so far:

Breakfast, yesterday: White rice, tuna, scrambled eggs.

Lunch: CAC (restaurant)

Dinner: CAC

Breakfast (today): CAC

Lunch: Food court

Dinner: Pizza from Bowling Alley.

There's a constant battle between what I want to do, my priorities, and well, work. I want to cook and I want to buy food but sometimes, I just get tired and lazy and I don't end up going to the commissary. When I come back from work, I won't say how late, but often late, I don't want to cook, I want to work out and then chill on the computer and go to bed.

I feel like a working mom. And I'm my own kid. Maybe I should hire a babysitter.

The End.

Not Durnk off Chiken, Only My Own Brilliance

I thought it would turn out badly. I thought that I'd be gagging from the wine flavor. I thought I'd be tipsy or falling down drunk. It turned out to be not the case. My exploration into wine, while not perfect or probably even competent, turned out...alright.

As always, I literally had no idea what I was doing. (This can apply to many things...women, the Army, video games, taxes, tying my own shoes). I didn't know how I should marinade the chicken. I had vague memories of watching my dad put chicken in a plastic bag before grilling it. Given, as I've mentioned before, that my cooking knowledge amounts to fragmented memories and snapshots of cooking getting done in my house, I decided to go off that (and my friend, Mike's suggestion about defrosting it in the marinade).

There's one thing that I'm not completely clear on either- how long does it take to defrost a chicken? I know if I soak it in hot water, it goes pretty quick but what if I put it in cold wine and put it in the refrigerator? How long would that take?

Knowing my time was limited (I was about to head to the gym for an evening workout and I wanted to be ready to cook when I got back), I struck upon the ingenious idea of putting the wine and chicken in a small zip lock bag and putting that into a larger bag of hot water. Einstein would be proud (mostly because I bet he didn't know how to cook either).

I came back from the gym, started up some rice (briefly going 'uh-oh' when I saw that 1/4 cup of rice is 170 calories; meaning that a half cup, which I've been eating, is a full 340 calories), took out the chicken, and cut it up. I also took out some stir-fry vegetables I had had in there for a couple weeks, unopened.

A plan hatched in my mind: I would cook some chicken in some wine, butter and olive oil, and then toss the stir fry veggies in there. I couldn't believe the leaps I was now taking.

And that's what I did. I tossed a bit of butter and olive oil on the pan following my friend, Laura's suggestion, left it on for a bit, put down some wine, and then tossed on the chicken. The chicken began to cook. I kind of guessed how well it was cooked since it was as blandly white as Martha Stewart (pre-jail) and then tossed on the stirfry veggies.

Now, let me tell you, I thought I was an alcoholic in college- but damn, these vegetables. They were sucking up the wine more greedily than a freshman bonging a beer. The carrots shoved the peas away from the wine and the broccoli was muscling out carrots, peas, and even the chicken out (who I think had had their fill in their wine jacuzzi). It. Was. Brutal. The wine in its terror began evaporating into the fan. Soon, the pan was bereft of the party; the wine had fled or been gobbled up.

The rice cooker finished, I finished stirring the vegetables and chicken (forcing them to awkwardly intermingle like a freshman mixer during orientation) and dumped them on the plate. Vegetables, chicken, and white rice. Gatorade in a solo cup soon joined the party. It was like an hippie convention meet frat party meet liberal elite fundraiser.

And then, the real test came. Would it actually taste good?

Let me preface this by saying that I don't have the most refined of tastes when it comes to food. I don't have a very good sense of smell so I'm not good at discerning flavors. Usually I'm reduced to pointing and grunting, "this taste good. This one sweet. This no so good. This not filling. Oooh...mouth...feel...fire"

But I popped a piece of chicken in my mouth and you know what? It didn't taste too badly. In fact, it felt remarkably succulent on my tongue. The chicken felt light. I got the wine flavor but it wasn't what one would call, 'boozy'. The rice cooked well too. Even my hippie nemeses, the vegetables, despite their short time on the pan, were relatively tender. I actually enjoyed the meal.

And before I knew it, the food, and my powdered gatorade, was gone. Still feeling hungry, I checked my cupboard- completely devoid of almost any food. My Life cereal supply had almost dwindled and I grabbed a handful. And that was it.

I'll try putting some spices in the marinade next time. I need to buy more small ziplock bags if I'm going to do the marinade defrost thing on a regular basis. I'm going to try to add some more vegetables next time too. But for a first time with wine? Not bad.

Now, if I show up hungover to PT, I'll know I did something wrong. For now? A rare success.

The End.

The 6th Thing They Never Told Us*

Read this article and then come back here:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-they-never-told-us/

The sixth thing they should've mentioned that one day, you'd be on your own and unless you made an effort to learn how to cook as a kid- and why would you? Food appeared on your plate with regularity (three times a day to be exact) and it was good and it would always be the case- you'd be on your own one day with your culinary knowledge limited to the two times in your two decade life you actually paid attention to your parents cooking and struggling to cook something as simple as fried rice, looking forward to breakfast (cereal and milk) because it would be your best meal of the day unless you went out to eat and slowly ate into all the precious money you were making, trying to save young and early so you could one day eat at fancy restaurants, the kind that have a Michelin star, so that you wouldn't actually need to cook for yourself...

What? Where was I? Yeah. For some reason I thought that I'd just turn into a cook when I was older. I don't know what I thought, actually. I was retarded as a kid. But suddenly, I became an adult and when I got to my dormitory on my AF base and they didn't have a microwave in my room (and I was too lazy to ask for one) and after eating out too much, I've decided to cook for myself without the aid of a microwave**

**One of the other lieutenants here observed that I was politically liberal but you wouldn't think it because of the way I conduct myself. He referred to my general actions- risk averse and cautious- but also, I think, the way I conduct myself. With standards and without shortcuts. (I think this is intertwined with my risk averse nature- shortcuts mean risks but I'd prefer to think that I'm just a disciplined individual).

So here I am. 22 years young. Suddenly all growed up. Slowly realizing that I'm a young man though I think, as I've mentioned before, that I sometimes think I'm still a little kid or an insecure middle schooler at heart (especially with women, sigh) but I will catch myself, as I did yesterday, on the treadmill right after a shoulder workout, looking at my (I'd like to think) chiseled physique and be like "damn, you're a motherfucking man, Ryan". And then I'll go back and cook myself some dinner and have a few drinks with my other LTs and discuss work and the various subplots and dramas and dynamics and I will again be struck.

But perhaps I'm not all growed up yet. I remember learning how to make fried rice from my dad when I was 14 and he taught me how to do it. In fact, I must've helped make it. But I don't remember what he did now. I vaguely remember him saying, "use leftover rice". Green onions were involved. Soy sauce as well. Beyond that, the memory fades.

My parents are coming a few weeks. I'm not quite sure if they'll visit Kunsan yet but I hope they do. I will show them the room and we will talk about where to go out and I will turn to my parents and say, "Mom, Dad, instead of going out, could you perhaps cook me a homemade meal?" And they will ask what ingredients I have and stop themselves and just check my cupboards. Mom and Dad will turn to each other, a look of deep skepticism upon their face, and my Dad will put his hand on my shoulder and say, "son, based on this pitiful cupboard, you have a lot of growing up to do,"

He will turn to where my pots are and pick one up and say, "this, turkey***, is a frying pan. These are 'spices'. You use them to add flavor to food..."

The End.

*I understand why they didn't make a list of six things. Who's ever heard of "The Top Six Hitters in Baseball Hitters" or "Six Movies You Should Watch Before You Die".

***My dad actually called us 'turkeys' growing up. That or 'kiddo'. He'd say, "hey turkey, get over here," I don't know why. Why that and not duckling or pigeon?

Wine and Chicken

I had a long week. The first half sucked. The second did not. I received two comments from two of my dear friends that gave me some good ideas. Mike's comment about the marinade gave me some good ideas and another of my friends told me to cook with the sauce as well.

I thought to myself that I should try cooking in some wine. I bought two cheap bottles of wine; one red and one white. I got back from buying the food and I was all set to uncork one when I realized that I had absolutely no clue where my corkscrew was. I'd not brought it out the entire time I was in Korea. I hunted for it to no success. I'm sticking to teriyaki sauce tonight then. But I figure I'll try the wines out when I buy a corkscrew tomorrow. I'll marinade one in red and one in white. In the white, I'll probably add some lemon peel that I bought (I plan on buying two small bottle of spices every week I go to the commissary to build a collection cheaply).

I'll keep experimenting and writing down what works. I also bought some liquor- bourbon and gin. In addition to the wine, I'll try cooking some in those and see what happens (me thinks it will turn out terribly). There was some champagne in the shoppette and I thought, wouldn't that be interesting to have?

I'd like to take my friend's Mike's suggestion to put the chicken in a ziplocked bag for the week in the fridge to defrost it but my other friend, Mike (the LT here with me) said he doesn't trust chicken b/c of salmonella and he'd recommend doing it only for a day. Which beckons the question- how safely can I keep chicken? The last thing I want to have happen is get sick violently and miss a lot of work (its a sad thing to see that its not the getting violently sick I fear but rather the missed work)(what has the Army wrought?)

Also, a writer's note: I'm going to try avoiding using the Internet for a while so I can simply experiment on my own. I have Joy of Cooking but I think I'm just going to try to teach myself how to cook with some helpful suggestions from my friends. Of course the point of this blog is to document those successes and failures.

The End.

Too Lazy/Tired To Cook: Part 1,353,782

Tuesday lunch: CAC (Community Activity Center)

Tuesday dinner: CAC

Wednesday breakfast: Cereal

Wednesday lunch: CAC

Wednesday dinner: Cereal.

I have a long ways to go to saving my wallet some serious change. I'm dropping 10 bucks a meal for the CAC.

The Night I Discovered You Cook Your Food in a "Sauce"

I don't have much time to write this since I should be in bed in a few minutes but tonight, I fried up some chicken. First I defrosted it in warm water and added some lemon pepper marinade to the water. Now, I don't know if that's how you're supposed to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure its not. But that's what I've done the two times I've cooked before. I think it imparts the lemon pepper flavor to the chicken. I have vague recollections of my dad doing this before he grilled chicken. Or was it that he defrosted it before?

Well, I don't have time to do that.

One of my fellow LTs came over (we live in a dorm basically) and told me to try some of his beef. It was tender and delicious. Exactly the kind of taste I would like to get to. I asked him how he got it to taste like that and he said he added teriyaki sauce and soysauce into the pan.

Ah...you cook the meat in the sauce. Brilliant.

So, I added some more of the lemon pepper and some olive oil into my pan and after cutting up my now defrosted (and decidedly lemony peppery chicken), I tossed it in. Now, a note about olive oil- I don't know why I added it. For some reason, I think my meat will stick to the pan if I don't add it despite the presence of the lemon pepper marinade. Also, despite the fact that my pan is, you know, non stick. But you know, its just one of those things you do- if you're frying something, you put oil in it. Right?

Given that it took me half an hour to defrost this one piece of chicken and another 5 minutes to cut it up, the cooking was decidedly quick (this was my fourth time frying up chicken). What did I use to flip the pieces of chicken? Salad tongs and chopsticks. I don't really have anything else to use.

I dumped some left over white rice onto the pan towards the end of the chicken frying and this was my dinner.

It is an excellent illustration of what I can do. Fry something. And without any knowledge of basic culinary principles. Also, make rice. This is about it. I don't know how to make pasta or soup or even something relatively sophisticated like boiling a sweet potato (I see them every time I go to the commissary and I always want to buy them but again, I don't know what I'd do with it).

The food, in the end, was decent. I wish it was hotter but I think I cooked the chicken the right amount (so that it was browning vs. the bland white it was when I first fried it up).

40 minutes of effort. 5 minutes of mediocre fare. A promising start.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!

Before I go on, I should introduce myself. I'm an American military officer living in Korea. I'm a bachelor and I live by myself. And I've never cooked before. I am the stereotypical bachelor. I like to eat but I am not a sophisticated eater. What can I make? Cereal. Microwavable dinners (this is a problem since I don't have a microwave). Sandwiches. Rice. That's about it.

So, over the course of this blog's life, I hope to document my various culinary adventures- not only as I teach myself (hopefully) how to cook but as I also explore Korean cuisine.

Hopefully this will motivate myself to become a better cook and take pleasure in the foibles that come along with teaching myself something brand new and indulge my own inclinations to write in a humorous way.

I hope you enjoy the ride. It will certainly be interesting. If not necessarily tasty.