badseed1980 | I'm gonna interview myself!

So I was just browsing over at the Tasty Kitchen blog, and there's an interview there with a Tasty Kitchen member. I liked the questions they asked her, and decided to give some thought to those questions myself. So, here's me interviewing myself about cooking.

Q: What do you enjoy most about cooking?
A: I love taking individual raw ingredients and bringing them together in harmony to create a whole dish that is more than the sum of its parts. It's a way I can be creative and a way I can be playful, by thinking of new ways to combine things and new ways to present them.

Q: What is the strangest food or food combo that you really, really enjoy?
A: For an individual food, I really like the dried fish snacks I buy from time to time at Super 88. It's like a chewy fish jerky flavored with sugar, soy, sesame, and seaweed. Nom. For a combination that some people might think is weird, I like very sharp cheddar cheese with Nutella. It's truly evil, but sooooo good.

Q: If you had to eat something right now, and had only 3 minutes to get it ready, what would it be?
A: Here at work, it would be a mini whole wheat bagel with almond butter or some plain fat free Greek yogurt with cocoa powder and Splenda (tangy chocolate pudding?), since that's what I've got. In fact, I just snacked on a mini whole wheat bagel with just a tiny bit of almond butter. If I were at home, I'd have cheese (I have goat, manchego, gouda-style, and cheddar) with crackers (Kashi TLC) and a peach.

Q: Most memorable kitchen disaster?
A: I once roasted a gorgeous salmon filet in the oven just to rare, and was really looking forward to eating it. As I was removing it from the oven, I missed my grip on the cookie sheet and the salmon fell off it, hit the oven door, broke, and landed on the floor. I almost cried. Cleanup was a bitch because it took forever to get everything out of the nooks and crannies, and even so, the oven smelled like fish (not rotten fish, but fish) every time I heated it for a few days. I think we ordered pizza that night.

Q: Complete the sentence: “I panic when I realize that I’m out of …”
A: Gin. :) OK, I get upset when I'm out of either oatmeal or plain fat free Greek yogurt, because that is my go-to breakfast on mornings when I have to get myself to work. I keep the yogurt at work, usually, and put the oatmeal in a container with spices, Splenda, and dried fruit to bring with me from home. I cook it in the microwave at work. If I don't have that stuff, breakfast usually ends up being something either less than healthy or not filling enough, from the cafe at work.

Q: Give us one of your favorite kitchen tips that you wish you’d always known.
A. Hmm. I am really glad I know how to chop an onion properly, but that's not really a tip. OK, here's something, and it's also onion-related. When you are caramelizing onions, get them to where they've started to turn light brown, then add a splash of water to the pan and scrape up the fond. Stir the onions up, and you'll see all that gorgeous caramel-brown goodness coat the onions nicely. I usually do this twice in the course of caramelizing onions, and it's helped me get them darker, sweeter, and richer than I ever could before. It also keeps finely cut onions from drying out too much and burning.