About the Cook

About Me
Us vs. Food: A battle against time to save the known universe, starring Eric Stolz.

Not really. I’m Michelle, a food and drink lover from Jersey City, New Jersey. I started this blog to chronicle and share my love of all things edible. Despite the image in the header, I love food and would never shoot a pineapple (unless a recipe required me to do so, in which case that fuckin’ pineapple is going DOWN).

I’m a program director at a small non-profit. You should read its blog as well and then donate some money, because I need a bigger raise so I can buy all the food necessary to populate this blog. I love to cook and bake. My weapon of choice is a KitchenAid Professional 600 standing mixer. I also try to keep several spatulas on my person at all times. I like to curse frequently, and with great gusto.

My partner in crime, Brian, is an actual rocket scientist. He loves to cook and brew beer, a tedious pastime that involves lots of equipment sterilizing and standing around waiting and makes the whole house smell like grape nuts. His weapon of choice is a Polder instant-read thermometer. You can check out his beer and barbecue-related escapades at Us vs. Beer.

Chester and Felix are our dogs. They eat our failures. They like to sing songs about hot dogs.

I have no training of any kind in (a) cooking, (b) pastry, (c) writing or (d) photography. This will, most likely, be quite evident to you. I’m sorry.

About the Blog
Along with original recipes, I’ll also be blogging the weekly Thursday Night Smackdown. Each week one of us will choose one of the many “man, we should really make this one day” recipes from our ever-expanding cookbook collection – preferably one that introduces us to a new technique or ingredient – and make it. We’ll take pictures along the way and give you our review of the dish and cookbook. I welcome any and all suggestions for cookbooks or potential Smackdown meals.

I welcome all comments, unless you’re trying to sell me something. Trash talking is allowed, but if you choose to start, prepare to have your ass handed to you on a fiestaware platter.

About Food
As I said above, I love food – real food. I’m committed to eating whole, fresh foods grown in an organic and sustainable way as much as possible, and I’m committed to spending the time it takes to seek these foods out and prepare them. I try to avoid – as I think we all should – edible products masquerading as real food, like Funyons. I have to eat multiple times per day every day for the rest of my life, so I want each of the moments to be pleasurable and beneficial.

My culinary rules of thumb include: If you’re not actively enjoying what you’re eating, stop eating it. If the foodlike item you’re considering eating includes ingredients that you couldn’t easily obtain yourself, preferably at a greenmarket or somewhere like Whole Foods, consider second thoughts before consuming it.

Also, any food is improved by at least 50% if (1) covered in cheese (2) wrapped in puff pastry or (3) accompanied by a vodka gimlet.

Please continue reading. Your call is important to us.