So being honest with you, being a self proclaimed food critic on Fort Worth Eats is not always as enjoyable as it seems. I got into this because one summer I worked for my dad in an internship building websites. At that point it was still by typing out HTML by hand (I’m glad that I have the knowledge but thank you WordPress). During this summer I went and got lunch with my dad every day. It was awesome and that turned into a website called 2fatguyseatout.com where I wrote about where we went that day. It was a lot of fun writing about everything and I ended up getting a couple of consistent readers.
I enjoyed it to the point that I continued in college and have continued after college evolving the site to become something bigger than a guy just talking about where he ate that day. Fort Worth Eats has seen me through breakups, through becoming an uncle, to finding my girl, getting married, and soon to get me through being a dad.
Although this provides an immense escape at times into the world of food that I love, it can also be exhausting. My wife has had to go through the life cycle of excitement with me many times. It begins with the excitement of what can be. We can visit and share our experience at places with love with the world through the internet. Ideally the site would become a vehicle for not only us, but for ALL of Fort Worth to share their experience with food and the city where the West begins. Then after making a couple of great posts and taking the time at date night to take great pictures at a great angle, you begin to yearn for content. We would always go out and date night became more of a job. Plus, it was expensive to try and eat as lavishly as a Kennedy.
That out of the way, it’s still something that I love. The dream of having this website and social media becoming a platform for all of Fort Worth to share knowledge of the best in Fort Worth is something that I think about at least once a day.
The other night when I was thinking of new ideas for things to post about, I came up with an idea to marry together two goals. This all begins with the movie Chef. Great movie starring Jon Favreau that is also produced, directed, and written by him as well. Man of many talents. SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD: But this is a great feel good movie that is about a chef finding a closer relationship to his son through running a food truck and teaching him to cook. For this movie, Jon had many chefs from across America on hand to help make sure that he looked like the real deal. This includes a scene where he makes a grilled cheese with multiple cheeses which would cause anyone who’s lactose intolerant to happily embrace a day in the bathroom. The care and knowledge of what it took to make something so beautiful and delicious has always made me want to gain that ability.
Finally, I had enough. I am no slouch in the kitchen. Of my college buddies (shout out to my Pride Rock brothers) I was definitely near the top in terms of better cooks in the house. That being said, I will not begin working at a restaurant any time soon. I want to be able to understand food, understand kitchens, and why sometimes my chicken is tender and other times its chewy.
But where could I find this training? A culinary institute. Luckily Fort Worth happens to have one! Fort Worth has a highly regarded Culinary Institute off Camp Bowie (https://www.csftw.edu/). Unluckily with my full time job and a kid on the way, this is not the time for me to be shelling out a ton of money to learn this. So I went with the more affordable version and I’m hoping that through some grit and consistent effort I may be able to make it work.
Off of Amazon, I purchased the textbook that the school uses to go through and try to learn the techniques that make a well rounded chef. The textbook is called On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals (5th Edition)
So get ready for not just posts about eating out but also about how to make great food on Fort Worth Eats! Recipes! Cooking Techniques! If I’m able to process it I’m going to do my best to put it into words here! Looking forward to this journey and I hope that I come out on the other side able to make that grilled cheese from Chef.
