Shake it Up Baby

Irit and I are asked once in a while: “What do you two most enjoy eating at home?”. Simple question, right? Soul food kitchen. Lots of interesting cooking going on every day? What do we like to eat? I hate these moments.

Not because the question itself is problematic. On the contrary. The question makes perfect sense. What cuts of beef does a butcher prefer when grilling at home? Of all of his/her stock, what does a green grocer most like to prepare for his/her family? What shoes does a shoemaker prefer for family members? And there’s the rub, that last one, recalling the famous lines about the shoemaker’s family going barefoot. In short, we are around food so much all day long that we mostly don’t eat. Well, mostly.

Irit’s default every day is shakes or smoothies: a few bananas, homemade almond milk, whatever fruits are really good at the moment, raw nuts (cashews, almonds, walnuts), tchina, ground flax seed, ice. That’s her go-to meal day in and day out. At least it’s a healthy diet.

Me? I’m so busy tasting shit all day long that when it comes time to actually having a meal myself, I’m almost never hungry. So my go to food is always eggs: semi-soft boiled eggs, scrambled eggs shirred eggs, omelettes, that sorta thing. Irit never seems to tire of shakes, and I never seem to tire of eggs.

It’s one of those subjects you don’t hear much discussion of in culinary circles, almost like a taboo. What? A chef not eating? But we’re actually eating all the time. And also not eating all the time. It’s hard to explain. You’d have to be here.