Under Construction

As many of you may have noticed, the frequency of my posting here has pretty much dropped off to nothing over the last week or so.  The reason for this unfortunately as I alluded to in my earlier post Wet is the fact that my writing space, our once finished basement, flooded pretty heavily during the downpour a few weeks ago.

What I am left with now is a gutted basement space that aggravates my allergies to no end if I spend more than a few passing minutes in quiet contemplation at the computer.

The good news however is that due to a number of factors our homeowners insurance is going to cover much of the damage.  Meaning that I should have a livable working space again sometime in the near future.

The other big change you surely will notice is the stylistic upgrades that I have made to the look of the page.  To be completely honest I was never really satisfied with the “Look” of the old pages, and was looking to change the design to better suit my personality.

However, as I have always said, EVERYTHING here is up for debate.  If you the readers don’t like this new look let me know.  Similarly if you really dig the way things look and how you access the material let me know that too.

So what have I been up to since my basement flooded? Well for one thing I have devoured books at an ever-increasing rate.  I am very close to finishing Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain.   Once again Tony, I feel, has managed to cut through a lot of the crap and deliver a straight forward if somewhat controversial look at his life since writing his breakthrough tell all book Kitchen Confidential.

Medium Raw

This time out his stories include partial, and apparently disputed, explanations to many of the questions that us that follow his career have asked.  Why he turned to drugs, the reasons for his breakup to his first wife Nancy Putkoski, and how the once bad boy chef of the food world has become whipped by his now 3-year-old daughter.

Those child rearing stories in particular left me speechless, vacillating between horror and laughter.  But all throughout left the impression, and rightly so, that the bad boy world touring cook has finally seen fit to be dragged out of his leather jacket and cowboy boots by the new light of his life.

His writing also serves to deepen my already sharp dislike of the Food Network.  I have personally held a similar distaste for the speciality channel for always catering to the lowest common denominator viewer.

Honestly, how many burger cook-offs and cake building shows does the average viewer need?  Take a show like Chopped for example, where the somewhat talented chefs are made to cook with an increasingly bizarre list of foods.  Yes I will admit that Top Chef,  seen in Canada on Bravo and strangely enough Food Network Canada, does have the odd out of place competition, the vending machine challenge springs to mind.  But to base an entire show out of adding novelty ingredients to your menu that’s a bit much even for me.

But I digress.  If you’re a fan of the cooking lifestyle and or of Anthony Bourdain in particular you will be very well served by picking up his new book Medium Raw.  In fact, if you’re so tempted, Catsworking has a most excellent chapter by chapter discussion group going that is most definitely worth checking out.

Till next time.

Bob