guest post: the taster

Hello Everyone! ‘The Taster’ here for a guest post…

I’ve always been a (somewhat) healthy eater and I’ve always liked to cook good food, but Emily tends to reign in the kitchen these days (with the general exception of grilling) – especially since she started this blog. Though Emily and I don’t agree on everything when it comes to food and nutrition (see: our many arguments over organic vs. non-organic), she has opened my eyes a great deal to many new things. I’m a simple guy whose parents owned a grocery store while I was growing up so I had free reign of everything that I wanted and never paid any attention to prices when it came to grocery shopping (just put it on ‘our account’) – until I was out of college and started purchasing my own groceries and reality set it. So…when it comes to purchasing organic groceries I say, “No, gimme the cheap stuff” because I like money in my pocket more than worrying about what kind of farm the eggs came from or what that cow ate before it was butchered…that’s just me, but I can’t argue with the ‘Organic Movement’ as it has proven to be beneficial to many people.

It was a moment of weakness for Emily when we discussed me doing a guest post. We had recently received a small deep fryer from some great friends. It was a ‘pity’ housewarming gift due to all the gifts (really) going to Emily and I think they thought I was feeling a little left out. These friends, being the astute people they are realized that:

1) Being away from my home state WISCONSIN for the past couple of years, I haven’t had the easy access to my good, old-fashioned Wisconsin Fish Fry…

2) Sometimes I just want to let loose and break the mold and start frying things.

We broke out the deep fryer the other day with the thought of making some homemade mozzarella sticks. Another friend in the building had an idea to take mozzarella chunks and pesto and wrap it in an egg roll wrap. Then, we proceeded to fry them – SUPERB! They were great with pesto or without pesto. We also dipped them in marinara and ranch (what isn’t good dipped in ranch dressing?). Note: they were also good the next night with Monterey Jack cheese. Other ventures took us to trying to fry some zucchini as well, but it didn’t turn out so well as we couldn’t get the breading just right.

I’m sure that many of you are either appalled, or enthralled at the fact that Emily would let a deep fryer into her kitchen – and then let me actually use it – she protested a great deal, but finally caved. I’m normally a decently healthy eater and enjoy a great deal of salads and veggies too, but I like to get nasty every now and then. Just consider me the Yin to Emily’s Yang.

Happy eating!

The Taster