“There no sincerer love than the love of food”- George Bernard Shaw. Food is what binds people together. Food is the fundemental key to culture. There is no greater pleasure than sharing your passion of food with others. The great part of living in NYC is the fact that there is no shortage of culture around every corner. All you have to do is take a little of your time to walk around the five boroughs. One great place to visit if you love food is Smorgasburg is the place to go.

Smorgasburg is an open-air market held every Saturday on the Williamsburg waterfront at East River State Park, Smorgasburg is also at Pier 5, a different location in the same Brooklyn Bridge Park, closer to Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. The Smorgasburgh features packaged and prepared foods, purveyors from New York City and across the region, and other food-related vendors and is like a summer rock festival for food exciting, overwhelming, sweaty, hot.

The setup is simple there is more than 50 vendors selling handmade food from stalls next to the East River. Another 40 or so sell produce, kitchen gear and pantry items. “It’s orderly but informal, a fitting playland for a food-crazy generation that photographs what it eats”. You’ll hit your limit, and then you’ll want more. . You eat standing up, at one of a few tables or at one of the two parks flanking the market.  There are incredible views of the New York City skyline and incredible views of the Brooklyn Bridge. There is no other place where you can experience the rich diversity that is the melting pot of New York.

Growing up in a farm, surround by farm animals,and crops is how I lived for a while as a child. That time may have been short but it has stuck with me forever. I love the farm air and the animals and the food. Leaving the house to go and pick out breakfast and lunch from the fields, was a joyous experience.

One place that makes me feel like I am back in my farm looking for vegetables and gathering food is Foragers market at Dumbo Brooklyn.  Foragers Market is a family-run city grocer with old-fashioned sensibilities. They offer a large selection from local producers and artisans and locally grown produce from their own farm.

Their farm is located upstate. It was established in Canaan, New York in 2009 as a means to supply thier markets and restaurant with a consistent source fresh produce, the Foragers Farm has since become the upstate hub of Foragers. Foragers Farm is a small-scale market farm with 4 acres under intensive vegetable cultivation. The farms growing methods exceed organic standards, and most of the work is still done by hand. The crops are rotated  and the soil is replenished  each season with certified organic compost, cover crops, and mineral powders. In addition to raising vegetables, they have a pasture with over 100 laying hens of various heritage breeds. They personally know the farmers that provide their produce. All other produced that isnt grown in their own farms are delivered from other local distributors that also follow organic requirements. The meats and eggs are raised in small farms with standards of animal husbandry that exceed most organic and humane label requirements. The milk and dairy products are delivered from regional family dairy farms and come fresh every week, in the iconic foragers truck.

Visiting the market is always a treat. Any day you might see and meet the local artisan delivering a batch of freshly made yogurt, and see the butcher cut down a pig right in front of you. There is fresh food made everyday, ranging from regular deli recipes, to roasted chicken, broiled fish. The thing about all this food is that they are all organic or all- natural. Walking through the aisle is an adventure with all kinds of fresh produce, and meats. The possibilities are endless, only limited by the size of your wallet.

Southern food is fun. The whole point of food is fun. We should prepare our food the way we like, and Southerners do that. Ben Franklin is reported to have said “eat to live, don’t live to eat.” Southern dishes utilize a lot of vegetables, fried foods and crunchy food. And it is not, unfortunately, low fat. Southern food is not intended to be low fat. It is robust, stomach-filling, flavorful food. Southerners pride themselves in making dishes from scratch. That is, using all original ingredients, as opposed to pre-packaged food.

The south is well knowned for their barbeque. Of course when they say barbeque they mean barbequed meat, and usually it means barbequed pork. The pork is smoked, shredded, then slathered and swimming in barbeque sauce. The sauces are usually mustard based and tomato based, and both come with sugar, vinegar, and with what ever degree of hot sauce you want.

As far as actual cooking techniques, there’s pretty much just fire, smoke, and meat. Southerners use more smoke than fire, which distinguishes barbequing from grilling. We’ll keep the meat six feet away from the flames. As long as there’s smoke flavor from actual wood smoke rather than a bottle it is considered southern comfort.

The second most famous southern cooking technique is deep frying. Bread it and deep fry it, and you’ll find a Southerner who’ll eat it. Deep frying does wonderful things to food that other cooking methods don’t do. Fried okra may be cooked until it is slightly burned around the edges. This gives it a tasty crunch. Southern fried chicken is also cooked until it has a nice crunchy crust.

One of my favorite types of suthern cuisine is Creole style from Louisiana. The Louisianans are known for putting heat into most of their savory dishes. Easy dishes use Tabasco or powdered cayenne pepper; when cooking from scratch, diced hot peppers are added to the mirepoix.They understand the use of a mirepoixThe classical European continental technique is to sauté or sweat some aromatics, they deglaze the pan with wine, stock, broth, and drown the sauce with butter or cream; strain and serve with the meat that is naturally the centerpiece of the meal. Indeed, most south Louisianans will know the difference between the Cajun mirepoix (onion, sweet bell pepper, celery) and the French (onion, carrot, celery).

In order to understand what Brazilian BBQ or Churrasco is, a little history lesson is in order. Ranching was introduced to Brazil around the 1530’s. The ranchers developed a their own style of cooking called the Churrasco. There are two traditional methods in Churrasco, the first had lots of course salt rubbed around the meat, then skewered in metal spits and cooked over coals. The second method though very similar requires the meat to be submerged in a salt-water baste.  All the meats are cooked on long skewers placed on racks over the fire with fattier items placed on top so that the juices will drip down and flavor the other cuts. When the meats are cooked waiters carry the skewers around table to table carving off pieces onto your plate. Without moving from your table you can experience virtually unlimited dishes. Brazilian Barbecue has become incredibly popular, and has lead to hundreds of restaurants pop up all around the world.

Brazilian style barbecue is an incredible experience, which can only be described as  a carnivore’s nirvana.  Waiters move around the dining room with huge skewers of meats to your plate, they come with knives and skewers with grilled beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and sometimes seafood, continuously circulating the restaurant. The guest are given a card or a disk with a green and red side, to indicate wether to keep the stream of food coming or to indicate that you need a break. Not only do they provide the endless amounts of meat, but also a endless amount of side dishes, and a hot and cold buffet. They have fruits, side dishes, main dishes.

Two incredible Brazilian style barbecue restaurants that i have gone to are the Churracaria Plataforma and the other Beco bar. Both restaurants provide a friendly and hospitable environment. and the Food is to die for. They have a large array of cocktails and large selections of wine. Eating at a Brazilian style Barbecue restaurant is an entirely different experience from any other restaurant out there. Some Brazilian style barbecue restaurants out there are more upscale than others, but they are all family-friendly and known for their tradition of customer service.

I remember there was a time when I would go to a steak house and order a steak because my father would. I never really knew much about steak, so i would always be confused when the server would ask for the temperature of the steak. Since my father always said well done I would do the same. It was not until i watched a video of Gordon Ramsay in an interview. The interviewer gave Ramsay a photo showing a well done steak that a customer had a complaint about in one of Ramsay’s restaurant. Gordon them brilliantly defends himself by stating that if there was a problem with the food why wasn’t it brought up at that time, and explaining that ” whatever quality of beef it is, it has gone past any form of taste when you cook it well done.”

The next time I went to a steakhouse I did what i had to do and ordered my steak Medium rare. There are no words to describe what i was missing my entire life. The red juices put me off for a while but the taste was well worth it. That was it. I was hooked for life. From that moment on i knew i had to let world experience what i had just experienced then, but the world was too big and would have taken a long time to achieve, I settled to starting with New York. Now starts the journey to learn all that the world has to offer in grilling and cooking steak, and not just steak but all kinds of meat and fish. I will be studying the grilling and cooking techniques of the world and try to broadcast them to you.