Greetings everyone….I am still here, so keep checking back often and I’ll have many updates to follow about recipes, food shows, product reviews and more. I mean, it’s almost football season…..well, it kind of IS already, so I’m getting my indoor smoker ready and also wanting to check out a recipe I saw recently for wings–in which you steam them first, then pan fry them before tossing with wing sauce. It’s an alternative to deep frying that I think would be cool to check out.

The other thing I wanted to bring up and mention is the fish boil my wife and I went to when on vacation recently in Fish Creek (ha), which is up in Door County, Wisconsin. We stayed at a renowned bed and breakfast called the White Gull Inn and one of their claims to fame is their Wisconsin fish boil, something that is a tradition year-round in that part of the country. Now, I’m not a huge seafood eater. In fact, only recently have I ventured beyond occasional shrimp or crab and made actual fish. But honestly, I’m still squeamish about cooking it, afraid I’m going to screw it up, like the time I made cod that became shredded fish on a plate.

So keep in mind this is not fried fish. What they do is have these master fish boilers, or whatever they call them. These guys dump buckets of large pieces of fish–skin, bones and all–into a vat of boiling water over a fire. After a few minutes, they dump kerosene on the fire and it shoots flames up to the sky, but what it also does is push all of the fish oil up and over the side of the vat–leaving you with tender, flaky whitefish that can easily pull from the skin and bones.
They serve it with a delicious horseradish sauce, boiled potatoes, slaw and bread. And it is delicious and not at all fishy tasting. If you are not sure about seafood, this is one meal I’d recommend trying if you are somewhere that they do this.

And honestly, the one thing I didn’t like about this meal was the slaw–for the life of me, I don’t get why anyone puts raw onions in cole slaw. It makes it so that all you taste is mayo and onions. Blech. Don’t onion the slaw, is what I always say.

I won’t go into too much detail about why I never cared much for seafood. I think that it’s because of the awful smell when my mom would take me into fish markets on Long Island. Ewww. And the beady eyes on those things. But I’ve tasted some seafood and have liked some things at times–crabcakes and shrimp cocktail to name a few. And I’ve had fish a few times too, especially at wine dinner events or special all inclusive “chef’s dinners” that my wife and I have gone to, like at Graham Elliot in Chicago. Well, there, I went into detail.

Anyway, I always notice how nice the frozen fish looks at Trader Joe’s, our favorite grocery store. And I keep thinking I want to give fish a chance. So last week we got some–a fish called Cape Capensis, a mild white fish from the coast of South Africa. Yeah, that’s a long way from Madison, but there it is. And last night, we tried it. And by we, I mean that I cooked and ate fish for the first time in my life. I won’t say it was my favorite thing ever, but it was tasty for sure and I’d make it again. The recipe was one I found on a site called The Fish Bus. (note: The Fish Bus name reminded me of this hilarious rap written by my wife’s friend Aly). I substituted panko bread crumbs for the corn chip crumbs and it seemed to taste fine.

So there you have it. My wife and sister are proud of me. My parents will likely faint when I tell them.

The last few years, Mrs. Mike and I have done New Year’s resolutions together on New Year’s Day. And I must say, we’ve stuck to many of them, often referring to our lists as the year wears on. That’s what resolutions are intended for, but many of us forget about them on or around January 3. But I thought it would be fun to put together a few food resolutions for 2012–feel free to add yours below or on Facebook:

Try one new kind of cheese per month–I started doing this in 2011 and got sidetracked or disinterested. But wait, I live in Wisconsin. Disinterested? Not an option, so I’m going to follow through this time. There are simply too many good cheeses to try in this part of the country.

Try a few things that are out of my comfort zone–I’m not a big fan of seafood, or anything in the organ meat vicinity. But in a meal at Graham Elliott in Chicago this past September, Mrs. Mike and I had a meal that had cooked fish; a deconstructed Caesar salad with a whole anchovy on top; and a foie gras lollipop with watermelon pop rocks. That was enough out of comfort zone for a whole year for me, but the foie gras was phenomenal–and I’m glad I took a step out of my comfort zone to try it.

Eat less junk–and by junk I mean stuff like candy, snack cakes and greasy chips. I am vowing to get back into shape in the New Year, and especially after having back surgery in February. And while I don’t think there is anything wrong with occasional junk food, I ate far too much of it in 2011. Time to start eating more nuts, dried fruit and sensible snacks when possible.

Work even harder to eat what’s in season–we belong to a CSA (community supported agriculture) but found ourselves not using everything in our box before some of it went bad. I want to make more of an effort on that one.

Teach our son to eat better–our four year old, who has autism, is very picky about his food. We work hard on this, but it’s extremely difficult to get him to open his mind with food. I think we can work harder at it.

Revive “a can a week”–that was a fun column I started here but need to revive it, reviewing a canned food item per week, be it a new product or one that we’ve been eating for decades.

Use the deep fryer more–I don’t think I took that thing out at all in 2011, and that’s a shame. Who doesn’t love fried food (except me, when my doctor is reading this!)?

Find more cool restaurants and review them here–We live in Madison, one of the coolest food cities on the planet. Mrs. Mike and I love trying new places to eat but need to do so more often. And I’ll bring you the play by play here.

DVR more food shows–I keep seeing press releases and then forget to DVR the shows.

Eat more tofu–seriously? No, that was a joke. Blech.

Thanks for reading, and happy new year!