HikerciseXIronChef Challenge
I absolutley love to cook and make others happy with the meals I make. There's no greater satisfaction to a chef of the house, than hearing the "clink-Clank" of forks to a plate at a completely silent dinner table. (Hopefully it's because everyone is too busy stuffing their faces, and not some other reason)
I have been cooking for myself and others for about 6 years now, and i've come to learn that cooking well (at least for me) takes a lot of practice and trial and error. In my culture it's usually the women who are in the kitchen and the men off doing something else. So growing up as the only boy in my house meant watching t.v., playing video games or being outside with friends and waiting to be fed.
Needless to say, I found out that when I moved away from home for college I was completely ignorant in the kitchen. I remember the phone calls complaining to my mother about how difficult it was to boil rice (correctly. Theres actually a few different types of rice out there and they all cook differently)
It took some time, but eventually I couldnt take eating chicken flavored ramen (which i got in bulk from cosco) and hot dogs anymore. My microwave was on the verge of death, and I was constantly feeling like crap...My body was begging me to learn how to cook.
I Started experimenting with different vegetables to replace the amount of daily rice I consumed (rice and beans with everything, just how i grew up...). I would find that I would wander into the "International" section of the supermarket more often than not, because nothing was more important than flavor in my meals. (No matter how hard i tried, i could never cook like mom)
A few years down the road, I got to the point where I enjoy
searching for random ingredients to taste and cook with (Tasting being the keyword). I got hooked on the Food Network's "Chopped" and "Iron Chef" (If you don't know these shows, you should!). Both of which feature chefs from all different cooking backrounds and then forced to make meals with secret ingredients.
Cooking well, like anything is hard to achieve. You need to work at it, practice and challenge yourself to new heights, and try new things to get better. I would never claim to be a "master chef" by any means, but i usually keep folks happy when they come over to eat. This took time, and a lot of critisms...constructive critisims, but critisisms nonetheless. Which is hard to deal with when you want to be good fast.
I'm of the belief that "you are what you eat", so it's important to eat healthy. Some people sometimes think that eating healthy means having bland-tasteless food, but let me be the first to tell you that, that's never the case. Eating healthy takes it's work and research, and that comes in the form of finding out what spices, and herbs can inhance the flavor of your meals.
When maintaining a healthy lifestyle, what you eat is just as important as how much you exercise. I'd like to paraphrase one of my favorite t.v. shows by saying "Nutrition and exercise are the two pillars that hold up your body, if one collapses so does the other". It's been the case that a lot of people try diets that just focus on the nutrition aspect, and they end up failing or giving up because they don't see results. The same can be said about people who work out hard, but dont fuel their bodies with the nutrition it needs, and never get the results they were looking for.
So in hopes to further inspire any followers and subscribers I've introduced a new challenge where by twice a week i'll have you vote on either The facebook group page, or on twitter the ingredients I should use for my next meals. (Yup you control what i eat!) To make things a bit more fun, I also challenge the viewers to use the same ingredients to make a meal of their own, If your meal comes out dope, i'll make a video all about what you did and the meal on Hikercise's YouTube page!
Haven't tried to make anything new or challenging the kitchen lately?
Click on the pic of Jeff Henderson (My favorite African American Chef) to check out his long list of delicious recipes and Flip your food!
