With the exception of The Church of Burger project, I have not been able to do much writing of late. My wife and I sold our amazing hundred year old home in the city last fall and have been hunting for a new house to buy and eventually remodel. The search for the right house in the right location has been a long one, but we have a contract on a house and if everything goes well we'll move in soon and get to work.
Many thanks are due to our amazing friends Jeff, Leslie and Esme who not only put us up, but put up with us as well.
I'm really excited to be moving from my dark galley kitchen to a bright and open space for cooking and food photography. It will only get better as we gut the space and put in a new kitchen. With the help of my wife, who is an interior designer, I hope to create a space that not only complements our home, but allows me to cover techniques and cooking in a way that my previous space would not allow.
Along the same lines the outdoor space has tons of potential as well - not only will it accommodate my grilling and barbecue tools better than my last space, it will only get better as we expand the living space out of the kitchen to the deck and then down onto a patio space that hopefully will be complete with an outdoor wood fired pizza oven. My fingers crossed to have that project completed within the next 24 months.
Another plus is a great south facing yard on a bit less than .4 of an acre - more than enough space to set up a great culinary garden. Because of the late start, I've asked my friend Kelli and her business partner at Yellow Tree Farms to help with starters and planning. If you are in the area and are planning your garden - you have to check out their list of heirloom starters. I'm gonna have tomatoes up the yin yang come summer, but I can't say no to all the great plants they have for sale.
The potential of this new space is great, and I think it will make for an interesting addition to this site as we plan, tear down and build. I'm looking forward to sharing the adventure.
In other news I recently was interviewed on a range of topics for Urban Bacon, which was really interesting. I got a chance to not only talk about food, but share some thoughts on getting started with blogging and how restaurant owners can leverage tools to improve their on-line presence. Super fun and thanks to Phil for reaching out to me for my thoughts and opinions. I'll provide a link once the interview is published.
I got a chance to eat some downright foul fucking "barbecue" with Matt Ridings and discuss just what we can and can't do as far as having a barbecue competition here in St. Louis. It's such a great idea, but right now I'm wondering if its to logistically hard to pull off and still enjoy participating in the event. More details to come, hopefully.
And lastly, I'm really excited to report that I was asked to a meeting of writers for the Gut Check section of The Riverfront Times this week. It was great to meet several people that I read and usually interact with on Twitter.
It was even better that I've been asked to contribute to a reboot of their food section. Thanks for the opportunity, I can't wait to get started.
Beyond that, check back in soon for the recap of this months burger and the announcement of the March "burger". Should make for a fun few weeks.
