From the Giant’s Kitchen: Homemade Food Porn

A black bean calzone with garlic broccoli and onions

By Andrew Johnson

Here at IEatGrass, there is plentiful writing about food, along with tons of food porn and recipes for some delicious dishes. Taking inspiration from Zoe’s Lusty Vegan post on homemade porn, I decided to talk about homemade food porn. Mainly why I do it and what I’ve learned, as well as opening the topic up for discussion.

Now I know not everyone is as culinarily inclined as Ayinde, so we can’t all make beautiful food. But how many of you at least try? When I first got to college years ago, I was lucky enough to have my own kitchen, but poor enough to seldom eat out—talkin food here people! Mind out of the gutters. This forced me to start cooking my own food, often times every meal of the day.

Back then I was making some poor excuses for food; anything more complex than pancakes or stir-fry was out of the question. But with practice comes confidence, and things started to turn around rather quickly. Now, it took many un-leavened loaves of bread and quite a few burnt pieces of tofu to realize where I was going wrong. I chalked them all up to learning experiences, and took mental notes on how not to cook when a meal turned out tasting like old socks.

"Sausage" and okra curry

It’s now extremely entertaining for me to pick up a great cookbook, flip it open to a random page, and prep my kitchen for whichever recipe my eyes land on first. I still order vegan pizzas from my Whole Foods, though, and love to dine out. But now just about 70 percent of my food is made in my kitchen, and lovingly arranged before consumption, a la my very own food porn.

So obviously there are hurdles that prevent people from turning into their own versions of Bryant Terry. With work, school, dogs, cats, kids, Tumblr, a social life… everything seems to take precedence over making sure you’re well fed. But I find cooking is like working out; there is time for it, as long as you make time for it. It has to be important to you to know where your food is coming from, how it was prepared and all the ingredients inside of it. How many times have you gone out to eat, asked the wait staff if a certain dish or drink was vegan, and they respond quizzically, “Umm.. maybe? I’m not sure. Let me check.” Can you really be sure that they checked? How do you know if you’re getting the right answer?

Veggie stew and homemade bread

Whether it was to avoid the questionably vegan choices, or to mimic my favorite cruelty-free dishes from local restaurants, I knew I had to spend more time crafting my own meals. Luckily I wasn’t discouraged, and could learn from my early mistakes… because there were a lot of mistakes. So what did I learn? Here’s a quick rundown:

1. When cooking garlic, never let it get darker than gold. Once it browns, it will ruin the taste of your whole meal.
2. Tofu has a much denser feel and better consistency when drained, frozen, then thawed before cooking. This also seems to help it retain marinade.
3. There’s no such thing as too much cinnamon in baked goods.
4. 1 Tbsp of flax meal mixed with 2 tbsp of water is the best egg replacer for baking.
5. Baking is a science. When baking, stick to the prescribed ratios, or beware the consequences.
6. When in doubt, season it with olive oil, black pepper, and a little lemon juice. That will fix just about anything, especially a carb-heavy meal.

Banana bread

Keep in mind: these are just my opinions, and only a few of them. You may feel differently, and that’s cool. That’s what creating your own style in the kitchen is about. So how many of you out there cook? And who would rather go to a grocery or a restaurant for their fixings?

Andrew Johnson is an activist and engineer living in Louisville, KY. He loves cooking, bourbon, and baking, in no particular order. You can find him on Twitter and Tumblr, or at his randomly updated foodblog. If you couldn’t tell by his handles, he is a giant, standing 6’10’’ above sea level.