what teenfooding really means to me (by h.chiurciu)

one of these days i was probably fooding when thought to myself about the exact limits between teenfooding and regular cooking - at least when concerning my own experiences.

all the cook-alone/cook-with-friends part is very important; you are not being fed, nor providing solely the food.

but to me the most beautiful part comes from experimenting.
and when experimenting, i think it is important to always avoid onde or another tradition.

for example, whenever i'm teenfooding i tend to plan a dish without the traditional structure, or at least making a new version of the carb-protein scheme. i never cook rice or beans to myself, and always look for something i can make with one pan only.

it is the audacity of being lazy efficient!!

minute-eggs at midnight (by H. Chiurciu)

as some of you may know by now, besides being a Teenfooder I am also a true egg-enthusiast (although not an Eggmäister, such as my fellow fooder Ricardo);

to-night, I felt the desire for a good japanese-style Onigiri - but I had no japanese rice, no japanese skills, and wasn't feeling like driving all the way to the japanese neighborhood on a late monday night in search of an open place which could serve me a decent Onigiri.

being so, I decided to put my hunger at rest with a good and old soft-boiled-egg.
the most common soft-boiling method me and my pals have been using is simply boiling the water and then adding the eggs, waiting for a few minutes [but not too many!] and then opening it's butts with a spoon - the true caricaturesque style, I'd say, and very delicious.

but this time I decided to test my grandmother version: the Minute-Egg:


simply put the eggs with room-temperature water to heat;
wait for the water to boil and THEN count one minute!

it may not seem much, but i felt some interesting differences among these two methods.
later on, I've decided not to dig my eggs with a spoon, but to peel them completely.

the experience was quite something.
the first egg was tricky, alright: I started with the bottom, as usual, but , for starters, the skin between the shell and the white wouldn't peel so easily. when I reached the tip of the egg, the softness of it made me struggle to break and remove the last and narrowest part of the shell.

but, when I finished it... O, great joy upon me!!!
I delicadely held the tiny, soft and warm white ball in my palm... with one soft bite, I reached the creamy, almost entirely raw yolk of it, and felt a great chill down my spine.
yes, I know I sound like an egg-junky or something, but that's how it was.
then I added a small pinch of salt and engulfed the rest of it, stirring the yellow juice with my tongue and feasting like a wild badger.

then, there came the second one.

I felt right away that it was a mistake to eat the first before peeling the second... but there was nothing to be done, then.

I was in such a frenzy, craving for more of that divine sensation, that I just went for the peeling as fast and wildly as I could. the result, my dear friends, was that the second egg was not blessed with the same perfection as the first. fear not!: it was not rotten - but me, O, dear...
my mental balance was completely lost. I couldn't grasp my patience again, and so I ended up with a messy egg, with most of the skin on, and just threw the whole thing down my mouth. not that good.

maybe it was an act of gluttony - having two eggs when just one could be enough;
maybe I was so blinded by my lustfull first experience, that it completely ruined my second attempt;
who knows?

this method of mine, I then realized, is a body-and-mind ritual - almost a tantric excercise.
it may be much more difficult than the spoon-style, but when you are really craving for a fresh egg it can bring an unbelievable sensation.

and having pleasure is also a very important part of fooding. ;)

curry hands (by h. chiurciu)

i love curry, so i like to add it to whatever. like eggs, or soup, or risotto, or noodles.

whenever i use it, my hands smell like curry all day long, no matter how much i wash them.

i keep smelling yummy food on my fingers all day long. and it makes me happy!, more often than not.

what about you?

do you like when your hands smell like your favorite spice?

what is your favorite aromatic spice? is it garlic, pepper, cinnamon?

how does it affect your fooding?

(i love cinnamon also, but i'm allergic to it. so i have to use with lots of precaution.)