Posts tagged ‘Food Network’

Here’s your butter Julia!

on February 3, 2012

Sometimes I have dreams about food.

Shocking right? And most of the time they are crazy…which is why i don’t tell you about them. (I think I’ll just publish a “Tanner’s Crazy Dreams” book later in my life) Every once in a while though I have a dream that is not quite as crazy as the others and needs to be shared. Last night I fell asleep in Lincoln, Nebraska and woke up in the land of Julia Child.

As a 17 year old…sure I know who Julia Child is, but I never really had a chance to experience what she was all about. To be totally honest I thought she was boring when I first layed eyes on her TV show. CRAZY…I know. But there has been a change in the air.

Every day during the week I’ve started to watch “The French Chef” on the Cooking Channel. Her show puts me in a trance, ignites my passion for food, and sends me over a flavor rainbow with a huge pot of beef bourguignon on the other side. I DIDN’T KNOW HER MAGIC EXISTED. Sure, I knew who she was, I knew she was THE celebrity chef…but I didn’t know why she was who she was.

After being completely sucked into everything she has done…I’ve started to feel sad, and guilty, and in love. I feel like maybe I could’ve gotten to know her better before she passed away…even though I know that would’ve been a far off dream. Maybe I could’ve run into her in a french bistro, and asked her to sign my forehead. Who knows! But I think my feelings of guilt, sadness, and love all stem from me wishing I could meet her and follow in her footsteps…and somehow fall in love over a fancy dinner. I mean she’s just plain awesome. ;)

So I finished sending emails last night and slowly fell asleep. My dream started like normal…Everything I was thinking about before bed started fighting to the death. The topic that came out on top received the high honor of supplying me with great entertainment for about 5 hours. Julia was obviously the winner with her big knife and chicken minions.

In my dream Julia received an email from me. (I frequently send out emails to amazing chefs asking for advice) While I slobbered on my body pillow last night…My new Idol hit reply. She asked me to come to her home. Not because she wanted to cook with me, or talk with me, but because she was out of butter and desperately needed me to bring her some. Funny huh? I remember arriving at her kitchen, which was the exact kitchen out of her show, and guess what happened? She wouldn’t say a word to me. I offered her the butter she desperately needed…and she just didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if I came too late, or made her mad…I was extremely confused, but became even more confused when she finally looked up at me and said “just keep chopping.”

“Just Keep Chopping,” What the heck does that mean? I wasn’t even chopping anything. I was just standing in her kitchen with the butter she asked for! I tried again to communicate with her, but from then on the only thing she would say to me was “just keep chopping.”

Sadly I don’t remember much more from this dream. The part that I do remember though really REALLY impacted me. The “just keep chopping” went on for quite some time I believe. Before I headed over to the radio station today to share my super bowl hot wings recipe…I googled quotes from Julia Child. I was thinking that it would be really creepy to see “just keep chopping” on the list.

No, I didn’t find it (that would’ve been crazy!)…but I did find this one:

“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
― Julia Child

So I decided to interpret my dream in this way:

Just keep chopping is Julia’s way of telling me to not give up. Lately I’ve been trying to really figure out the direction I want to go after High School…and what this quote tells me is that for the rest of my life I get to chase after my dreams. I WILL be on the Food Network, I WILL go to culinary school, I WILL speak to and inspire millions of people. And while I’m doing all of this I will continue to grow, and learn about what I love. Everything will happen the way it should. (even though I’m slightly disappointed I didn’t get to eat any of her food in my dream)

—————————————————————————————————–

Share your dreams with me in the comments. :)

Tweet me too! 

 Bon Appétit!

Leave a comment

Paula and the Diabetes Factory

on January 17, 2012

I have loved this woman ever since i met her….through my TV. When I first started watching the food network I was literally glued to the screen when Paula’s show came on. Casseroles made with everything under the sun, decadent desserts, and the constant view of fried food made me feel like I was in her kitchen! Sometimes I could even swear that I smelled her chicken fried steak cooking. She has been the closest to creating smellovision I believe.

Recently though there has been some NOT SO SHOCKING news about this wonderful woman that has been confirmed. This morning (January 17th) Paula announced on the “Today” show that she has had Type 2 Diabetes since 2008.

“You can have diabetes and have a piece of cake. You cannot have diabetes and eat a whole cake.”  -Paula Deen

My first question Did she really use to eat a whole cake at a time?

My second question Why did she wait until now to tell us all about this?

The answer to my first question is an obvious yes but the answer to my second question has people in an uproar! Paula claims that she never came clean about having diabetes because she knew very little about the disease and wanted to make sure she was sharing the correct facts with people. Okayyyyy……so here’s my third question Why did it take you 3 years to learn about diabetes?

You want to know the answer to my third question? Just read this paragraph from The Associated Press:

“Deen is the pitch person for Novo Nordisk’s new online program, Diabetes in a New Light, which offers tips on food preparation, stress management and working with doctors on treatment. She has contributed diabetes-friendly recipes to the website and takes the company’s drug Victoza, a once-daily noninsulin injection that had global sales of $734 million in the first nine months of 2011.”

It takes a long time to put a deal together like this! Sure she had to learn about the disease, change her diet, change her recipes, and get her family on board. (one of her sons is now hosting “not my mommas meals” on the cooking channel) But the thing that I’m sure took the longest was finding out a way to make money off of her diabetes. Thank you Novo Nordisk.

Now I’m not bashing her…even though it might sound like I am. Everyone is in business to make money…and if you were in Paula’s place I guarantee you’d be making millions off of this too. I don’t judge, I think it’s great that she has come clean about this…I even think it’s great that she made a deal with the drug company! I respect her as a business woman and a culinary Icon. Before you go against this southern butter bell, think about what you would do as a cooking celebrity with diabetes. You’d start a whole new line of recipes right? You’d try to partner with a drug company right? …That’s what I thought.

The one thing I hope she does is change her diet for the better. Pills aren’t the way to go…you can truly cure diabetes with the right kind of diet. And remember Paula! A diet isn’t something that you go on to lose a couple pounds…It’s a way of life! So drop the pills, drop the gluten, and eat your vegetables.

No matter what, I still love you!

Tweet me! :)  

1 Comment

100 Dreams

on January 16, 2012

Happy monday everyone!

Here’s my challenge to you this week: Create a list of your 100 dreams

Below are my 100 dreams to help spark your imagination. Just think of anything you’ve ever wanted to do! I’ll be crossing these off throughout my whole life, and every year I update and revise my dreams.

Share your dreams with me if you’d like! :)

My 100 Dreams

  1. Inspire other people to follow their dreams by passionately pursuing each of mine.
  2. Have a TV show on Food Network because that’s what first inspired me to cook.
  3. Open a restaurant that focuses on serving healthy food and helps families become healthy.
  4. Successfully host and promote my radio show and podcast so It’s very well known and respected.
  5. Become a more focused entrepreneur
  6.  Create my website so that it’s extremely unique and engaging with many new and returning guests.
  7. Own a food truck that serves healthy food that tastes AMAZING.
  8. Workout 6 days a week, or every chance I get. Even if I don’t feel like it.
  9. Have 10,000 twitter followers…and then any number beyond will be like a dream.
  10.  Eat dinner with Alton Brown
  11.  Get a meaningful and cool tattoo.
  12.  Go skydiving in the Swiss Alps
  13.  Move to California for college and always have a place to live there.
  14.  Create an online cooking show with a big sponsor. (Kitchen Aid, BHG, Vitamix)
  15.  Always be as unique and creative as possible.
  16.  Get my pilots license.
  17.  Spend a month in Vietnam.
  18.  Build a house on LOTS of land.
  19.  Live where I can see tons of starts at night.
  20.  Win a James Beard Award!
  21.  Be a guest on Good Morning America.
  22.  Be a guest on the Today Show.
  23.  Be a guest on the Rachel Ray Show.
  24.  Be a guest on the Ellen Show.
  25.  Eat dinner and have awesome conversation with Jose Andres.
  26.  Meet and talk with Jamie Oliver and then partner in some kind of project.
  27.  Get a huge sponsor to support our Fatplate radio show.
  28.  Open restaurant incubators in Lincoln and beyond.
  29.  Purchase farmland and grow all kinds of healthy and delicious foods.
  30.  Open a restaurant that uses only food from the farm.
  31.  Syndicate one of my radio shows.
  32.  WRITE A BOOK! Write more than one book actually, and get them done fast! Then be a New York Times Best Selling Author.
  33.  Go to New York City and visit Food Network and Chelsea’s Market.
  34.  Make a time capsule.
  35.  Go back to the Grand Wailea on Maui every 5 years.
  36.  Live in Spain for 1 year.
  37.  Go on a cruise to Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize again.
  38.  Buy a small house/shack in the Caribbean.
  39.  Visit Atlantis in Nassau again.
  40.  Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef.
  41.  Go vegan for a week.
  42.  Workout on the beach.
  43.  Dye my hair a crazy color.
  44.  Cook with and eat bugs.
  45.  Eat a piece of fish or other sea life on the boat that caught it.
  46.  Compete on Iron Chef America.
  47.  Go to Culinary School.
  48.  Get a degree in nutrition and dietetics.
  49.  Throw a BIG party for all the close people in my life that helped me become who I am.
  50.  Be the keynote speaker at the UCLA extension restaurant industry conference.
  51.  Create a speaking tour and go all over the United States.
  52.  Get 1,000 “Likes” on facebook.
  53.  Have a destination wedding.
  54.  Create a color-coding system for food that is served in schools. With the mission being to educate students about nutrition without them really knowing their learning.
  55.  Go on a speaking tour with a political figure.
  56.  Eat dinner with Anthony Bourdain.
  57.  Have 4 children.
  58.  Be a mentor to many people.
  59.  Visit South Africa.
  60. Always remember to give back to the community!
  61.  Always start by telling people why I’m doing what I’m doing, not just the details about what I’m doing.
  62.  Buy a boat and Jet Ski!
  63.  Have a cabin on a lake in Nebraska.
  64.  Meet the President and First Lady.
  65.  Eat my way through Europe.
  66.  Cook with an old Greek lady in her kitchen.
  67.  Never become part of a pyramid scheme business.
  68.  Always remember to BE MYSELF.
  69. Remember who my true friends are and let them always know how thankful I am for them being in my life.
  70.  Go up to Grand Island and cook with my grandma, and talk to my grandpa who I haven’t seen since I don’t know when.
  71.  Watch the sunset on the airplane beach in St. Martin.
  72.  Own sugar gliders again.
  73.  Go in one of those shark cages where I can see a great white up close and personal in its own environment.
  74.  Be involved with the UCLA extension restaurant industry conference every year.
  75.  Visit a black sand beach.
  76.  Have lunch with….drum roll please…Oprah!
  77.  Have my podcast do AMAZING on iTunes.
  78.  Buy the person behind me in a drive through at a coffee shop their drink(s).
  79.  Re-design the idea of what a kitchen should look like.
  80.  Build a mobile kitchen for speaking engagements that’s unique and cool!
  81.  Own a range rover
  82.  Own a FJ cruiser.
  83.  Help my mom open up a business.
  84.  Create a HUGE healthy eating campaign and partner with big name entertainers.
  85.  Buy a pair of TOM’s sunglasses.
  86.  Allow a needy family to always eat free in my restaurant.
  87.  Be mentioned in a lady gaga tweet. LOL.
  88.  Eat dinner with Andrew Zimmern.
  89.  Be a New York Times and LA Times contributor for food and nutrition.
  90.  Randomly be cast in a movie.
  91.  Always hand write and mail thank you letters.
  92.  Go on a cruise through the Mediterranean.
  93.  Learn how to play the guitar.
  94.  Go on an African Safari and see a giraffe.
  95.  Own a “pocket pig” as a pet.
  96.  Design a line of cooking tools.
  97.  Be the spokes person for a BIG non-profit organization.
  98.  Have a unique and fun office space. A one of a kind office atmosphere.
  99.  Look at the stars from a boat out in the middle of the ocean.
  100. Always remember Success is a journey, not a destination.

Tweet me :)  

Leave a comment

Learning To Read

on January 11, 2012

I was never a kid that liked to read. Sure I would sit and listen as my mom read “Mr. Poppers Penguins” or “Goodnight Moon”, but you would never catch me actually reading a book. This rebellion of some sort was difficult to keep up as I went through middle school and most of high school. (I’m still a senior in high school so my time isn’t over yet) I would be assigned books to read for a class, if your one of my previous english teachers just look away, and I would always have a tab up on my computer for Spark notes. You would’ve thought that my eyes would’ve melted if I stared at an open book…that’s how against reading I was. Don’t get me wrong, I wished that I could read…I really did! I would watch my brother sit down with a book and be done reading it that same night, while I would still be staring at it out of the corner of my eye. The good news though is that I found a passion…not for reading but for cooking! So naturally I started to discover cookbooks, and then culinary text books, and then food stories from all kinds of authors. It was great! I started becoming interested in reading. I wasn’t finding these books to actually read a book though, I was searching for more and more information. So if you aren’t a reader…I challenge you to find a hobby, or a topic, or a passion deep inside of you and then  search for a book on that subject. You won’t even know that your reading a book, your mind will trick you into making you believe you love it.

So here are some of my must have books that you can go get yourself! I’m guessing you have an interest in cooking if your checking out my website. :)

#1- Any book by Alton Brown

I learned so much from reading Alton Brown’s books! They explain cooking in such an easy, but yet scientific way. I owe most of my knowledge to Good Eats and this mans amazing books. Bravo to you if you have his stuff already…if not, go get it all!

#2- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

I got the chance to listen to Anthony Bourdain speak and then meet him afterwards and he is just a cool guy. This book is crazy entertaining and I know you’ll enjoy it.

#3- Food Matters by Mark Bittman

Mark Bittman was never formally trained as a chef and writes for the New York Times. Check out this book because it’s just all around awesome.

#4- The Professional Chef from the Culinary Institute of America

I learned a lot of actual cooking techniques from reading this book cover to cover. High light and bookmark as you go…It’s a heavy book but you’ll love it if you want to learn more about cooking. 

#5- What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert Wolke

I’m a fan of the science behind cooking, and if you are too…this is the book for you! 

#6- Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD

Learn why everyone should be gluten-free! This is a must read! 

Let me know what you think of these books by commenting on this post or tweeting me!

My challenge for you is to find something you love and read about it. Your passion may not be cooking…just remember that whatever you want to do, there’s a book for that. If there’s not a book for it…why don’t you write it?

Leave a comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 4,472 other followers

%d bloggers like this: