The Story So Far

Mr. Cardinal

Mr. Cardinal, can be described in a single word, Curious. His journey with food started nearly 20 years ago and has transformed from surviving off peanut butter and jellies, and an unholy amount of potatoes, to crafting raw ingredients for the betterment of a dish.

If ever you need of him, you may find him in the kitchen happy to share a meal

What not Why.

Asking ourselves why something has happened limits us to the capacity of the effect. "why did my eggs burn?" focuses on the eggs burning and the phenomenon of the fats and proteins breaking down in the pan. The question we ought to ask is, "what caused the eggs to burn," or "what actions were taken leading to this result?"

These questions offer a directed attention to the steps proceeding the phenomenon.

"What caused the eggs to burn?"

Could be answered with,

"The heat was too high."

"What actions were taken leading to this result?"

Could be answered with another question,

"The temperature of the pan was right, but maybe they were not stirred enough."

Unfortunately, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

The Philosophy

Ingredients

Many of the ingredients in Mr. Cardinals pantry are homemade. There are two reasons for this.

1.) Have you seen the cost of ingredients?!

2.) When you purchase ingredients from a store, you reduce the possibilities of creative touches within the foods you cook. Store bought brown sugar has a molasses content around 3% by weight; Mr. Cardinal often will use variations of brown sugar ranging from 10% to 18%.

A batch of cookies made with store bought brown sugar will taste like cookies. However, a batch of cookies made with 10% brown sugars will taste like cookies, but has a touch of something unexpected. The food you make should reflect you as a person, unique and esoteric.

Processes

Processes are a process. Cooking and baking are an act of chemistry.

Garlic added at the beginning of a roast will lend a light roasted garlic note, but if it is added at the end of the roasting time it imparts a sharp note of garlic. Bread that proclaims is knead free will taste of bread, but will not have the same mouth feel as the one that has been kneaded, rested and shaped.

A family recipe for mac n cheese remains a secret if the process of melding the cheese and milk prior to adding it to the pasta is never shared.

Crispy lemon steel head trout with whole wheat croutons, orange slices, and sunflower seeds.

Ingredients Continued

An ingredient that is just an ingredient will create a dish of equal impact. A recipe that calls for all purpose flour will create a delicious dish, but congrats, you've made what many others have.

On the other hand, if we replace just all purpose flour with a blend of many flours we are gifted a dish that has few equals.

However, one must consider that a change in ingredients means a change in the chemical composition of the dish. Whole wheat flour's absorbency is different from all purpose flour and will absolutely result in a different texture of the final dish. Mr. Cardinal often replaces all purpose flour with a blend of whole wheat or other specialty grain and all purpose flour, but rarely exceeds 30% specialty grain by weight of the blend.

Who the heck is Mr. Cardinal

Short answer? Human.

Though his cookery can be traced back to a single rat dancing and flitting about a kitchen in a lovable movie, life is... tumultuous. Life can take us all places we would have never imagined. For Mr. Cardinal, this was finding himself alone, scared, and hungry. He survived on little more than rice, potatoes, and peanut butter sandwiches. Food, meals, or cookery in general was not the forefront of his concerns. Survival, making it to the next day, was all that Mr. Cardinal could muster.

But... Life... Brings us from valleys to plateaus if we are fortunate enough to take the leap into faith of life. Years ago he was gifted something beyond words, children.

That was the defining moment. He vowed that under no circumstance would his children have that same anxiety or fear he had found in the loneliness. Determined to change what food meant for himself he found himself waiting for him patiently in cookery.

He spent years attempting years attempting to find the answer to the question "who am I?", but as we all know, the harder you try to find the answers, the more questions you are presented with. No matter what you do, you will always find yourself waiting for you in the future, down paths you never expected to be on.

Once the cookery began however, the question of "who am I" held less and less significance, and a primordial hunger immerged. A hunger of understanding, not knowledge. As a know it all has nothing to offer if they fail to understand the knowledge. From this hunger a new question presented itself to him, "What am I?"

And this could only be answered by one word with a weight beyond understanding at the beginning.

Human. As we all are.

Humans are the only species in this world that cooks to the caliber we do. Other animals may prepare food in ways that can make it more appealing, but they fail to breakdown and reassemble molecular structures to the degree humanity does.