Hi there! Welcome to my inaugural post on Bites By Dre. I’m Dre and I’m a foodie! I’m so thankful to finally have my blog up and to be able to share with all of you one of my biggest loves and passions…food. You see I believe that food is so much more than daily nourishment for the body. To me, few things are more rewarding and more important in life than sharing a lovingly prepared meal with my closest friends and family. Food brings us together in so many ways that we often overlook how central it is to the core of our being. Treasured memories are triggered with just one whiff of an aroma, the soul is comforted by our favorite dishes when we feel down, and every important milestone and celebration in our life is typically accompanied by something delicious made special just for the occasion. Food provides us the perfect excuse to spend time with a dear friend, opens windows to other cultures, transports us back to far and foreign places we’ve traveled, or maybe it just takes us back home to our mother’s kitchen table, wherever that may be in this world. It tells a story of our heritage, of our values, of where we’ve been, and inspires where we’d like to go. It prompts us to loyally defend the dishes of those cooks that have forever changed the landscape of our taste buds: “Ain’t nothin’ like my __________’s (insert family member/friend’s name here)  ___________ (insert tastiest dish you’ve ever had here)!“….save for those rare moments when our eyes light up because, OMG, this tastes just like the one my mother makes! 🙂

Think about it, that feeling you get walking into your grandmother’s house after a long drive and smelling homemade chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, made just for your arrival — and a couple spoonfuls of raw cookie dough she set aside for you just  to pop in your mouth.

Recall nights sitting at your kitchen table as a child doing your homework, trying so hard to focus while your mother is whipping up something amazing, even if it was as simple as breakfast for dinner, one of my childhood favorites and my mom’s go-to meal when she was too tired cook, and I’m simply talking “juicy” egg yolks (my childhood term for eggs over-easy) with hot buttered toast; or something as elaborate as peppers picked from the garden she grew herself stuffed with meat and rice, roasting in the oven.

Envision stopping for a shore lunch on an uninhabited island in the middle of Canada’s great lakes, and salivating as your father prepares walleye fish just reeled out the water over a stone fire, served with nothing but a squeeze of lemon…and if you got to eat the walleye cheeks, well then you knew you were special!

Imagine the excitement of firing up the grill in the midst of an unforgiving Chicago winter, pretending for a slight moment “what if it were summer already?”, while your grill-master brother tosses on very particular lamb chops that required a special trip through questionable south-side neighborhoods to the Greek butcher because well…you just wouldn’t fathom going anywhere else to buy lamb chops!

Picture walking through an open-air market in central Mexico, your senses assaulted by unfamiliar sites and smells at every corner, watching curiously as men in one stall stretch yard-long strands of handmade Oaxacan string cheese, while in the next stall over women top handmade tortillas with frijoles, chapulines (dried grasshoppers) and the same freshly-made cheese over a hot comal (Mexican griddle).

Perhaps you recall the first time you boiled rose water and cardamom pods on on the stove to make syrup for namoura (middle eastern dessert) and were so overcome by the intoxicating perfumed aroma you felt cheated, wondering “where has this amazingness been my whole life!?” Okay okay, so these are my memories, not yours, but you get the point and I’m sure you can relate with your own stories…its about creating memories, feelings, experiences, delights for the senses, and most of all enjoying life and sharing with others.

So my earliest memory in the kitchen was around 4 years old, attempting to “cook” using a  toy set of plastic pots and pans with molded cartoon faces. I put one of the plastic pots on the stove and turned on the burner, melting the plastic right to the stove. I still have a fuzzy image in my head of my mother’s panic and of the cartoon face who’s smile had melted into a unhappy frown..the irony. Well, I’d like to think my cooking skills have advanced a little since then!! But you can be the judge…

My philosophy on food and cooking is simple…. …hospitality always comes first. I read a list once of things every grown woman should have – on it was a set of 8 matching place settings, stemware, and a recipe that will make her guests feel honored. I couldn’t agree more! Make everything from scratch when you can…most of the time its easier than you think and tastes so much better; the more rustic and ritualistic the cooking process, the more I love it. Use the freshest ingredients you can find, don’t hold back on the spices, don’t overlook the importance seasoning with sea salt and fresh ground pepper, it makes all the difference. Ethnic markets are your friend, don’t be afraid to explore and talk to the people that work in them about what you are making they will usually be happy to share tips. But my most important piece of advice is to always cook with love in your heart and whatever you make will always be delicious (a little music also never hurts) 🙂 Please enjoy!

~Dre