Well, not really. But let’s just say Andrew Zimmern is starting to influence the way I think about food.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, he’s the host of Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.” On this show, Andrew basically travels the world and eats a bunch of weird crap that most Americans would never think of putting in their bodies. This includes everything from strange parts of familiar cuts of meat (beef connective tissues, gristles, fats, etc), cuts of meat we’d never think of eating (bull face, penis, eyes, and a buttload of intestines [pun intended]), as well as foods that are just…bizarre. Think baby birds, toads, all kinds of bugs, and many, many fermented and/or rotted things.
He also learns a great deal about culture, community, and friendship through sharing meals and bonding with folks. It’s a wonderful show and he has a great attitude about it all.
Several of my takeaways from his show:
1. I have a very narrow definition of what is food (compared to the rest of the world).
2. I am a very wasteful eater (compared to the rest of the world).
3. I worry about recipes way too much.
I can’t really do much about #1, largely due to the fact that I can’t find a single shop in Vegas that sells moose nose pudding or jellied pork stomach or fried pulp worms. However, I can handle #2 and #3.
To that end, I cooked some beef rib steaks last night by braising them for 4 hours, but instead of picking the fat and gristle out and only eating the meat, I cleaned everything off the bone, chopped the crap out of it with a meat cleaver, and went to town.
It was delicious, if not a bit chewier than I’m used to – but not at all unpleasant! I’d estimate that I increased the amount of useable food by 30-40% on this particular cut of meat. And to think I used to let all that stuff go to waste. Wow.
As a side dish, I grabbed whatever veggies and fresh herbs I could find at the store and sauteed them with some chili peppers. I quite like the idea of just grabbing whatever freshness is available and going to town. I think my herbs were lemongrass, basil and parsley.
Again, delicious.
I’m going to spend the month just mixing random crap together and seeing what I come up with. I’ll let you know if I survive.
I’m in San Diego next week and can’t wait to go fishing and take down some fish hearts and fish heads. 
Good luck me!