The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

I think Chicken Paillard might be the only chicken recipe where I can support using boneless skinless chicken breast. It’s inadequacies are well documented, but to put it in a nutshell, boneless skinless chicken breast has the power to turn even the most ardent meat lover into a vegetarian. You know that staunch type that would sooner do something incredibly barbaric like open up a can of spam than eat something completely vegetarian? Or maybe like me you have some experience with someone in your life who repeatedly proclaims the unpalatable piece of petrified leather on his plate (in the name of cutting back on fat or something equally obnoxious) to be the best tasting piece of meat they’ve eaten in ages. Seriously, if boneless skinless chicken breast was the only available meat it would have even these people begging for a tofu turkey before you know it.

I’m not going to pretend there aren’t those out there who actually do like such things because experience has taught me that there are. Experience has also taught me that these aren’t the kind of people I want to cook for me. I have a tendency to think that they are members of that paradoxical group who view food solely as fuel (shudder). Or that other group that have some major psychological issues with a little thing called fat. Ok I know there are people who for serious health reasons limit their fat, but they are not the ones I come across in my life, so to be clear those aren’t the people I’m talking about.

I have been having one of those months where anything goes in the eating department. The amount of cakes, muffins, cookies and other not so great for you sweet baked goods I’ve had this month is sort of shocking. It’s actually probably been more like 2 months… I sort of lost count after Thanksgiving. Sigh.

In and effort to tone it down (it being my thighs) and avoid having to shop in the maternity section before my time, I decided to put some effort towards not eating so much bread and other extremely tempting glutonous products that I love so much for every meal. I’m still going to eat bread, because life would be extremely depressing without it, but just not for every single meal.

Turkey is one of those things that once you’ve done it once and are over the fear of actually cooking it, you realize that there was nothing to really be afraid of in the first place. Thanksgiving is actually a fairly easy meal to bring together, most of the smaller details like vegetable sides can be done in advance and the gravy is relatively simple to make once the turkey is out of the oven resting. As I mentioned in the menu post I like to keep things simple and fairly traditional. The focus of the meal is always the turkey, the vegetables that you serve on the side could not compete so why stress yourself out with fancy sides when you could be enjoying some wine with your guests?

I feel like I should apologize in advance for the quality of these thanksgiving photographs. As thanksgivings go, there was just too much to remember this weekend, something had to be forgotten and this year it was my camera. I’m more than just a little disappointed about this and even contemplated just skipping these posts, but I came to the conclusion that too much hard work went into it, so I’m going to pretend these photos are exceptionally beautiful, you know the kind you would see here or here and call it a day.

I’m pretty excited that this years Thanksgiving dinner had very few hiccups. I think this was in part due to my busy work schedule which allowed me no time to over think the menu, make changes and generally complicate the process. I have a major tendency to over think things and in most instances this leads to more problems than inspired ideas. But there were definitely a few things I would change if I could have. For example, I would not have bothered running out to the store last minute on Sunday afternoon and avoided the extremely annoying human being who decided to merge right into my car, minor though it was and not my fault, that would consume my precious cooking time and result in the making of what I call “anger pies”. My mother has since informed me that I’m no longer allowed to make pies at her house. I told her that would result in no more Natalie pies, she seemed not really to care about that but I bet she changes her tune come Christmas time-that woman loves her pie.

OK guys, after more than 6 months with my new camera and several BlogHer Food panels about food photography I decided to get proactive and actually start to read my camera manual in the hope that one day I may actually understand at least 2 of its functions. I haven’t started yet but the decision has been made, which is more than I could say for myself a few weeks ago.

My dear friend in San Francisco was kind enough to spend an hour or so with me on the weekend going over some of it’s basic functions. I’m proud to announce that I now know what shutter speed is and took my first pictures on the manual setting. Where are some examples you ask? Well lets just say they were taken while watching a band I enjoy perform at the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday and though I tried I just couldn’t find a way to work all that leather and nakedness into this site. Also, I didn’t want the people who organize leather pride week to hold me accountable. This event is definitely not the ideal place for a newbie behind a camera on manual setting for the first time. Overexposure just got taken to the next level. Not funny, I’ll stop.