Welcome to Bradford’s Culinary Adventures! My name is Bradford Thomas and I will be your guide this evening (or morning). Guide to what you ask? To NYC, to fine dining, and to great meals with old friends.
A bit about me
I’m a digital marketing professional and entrepreneur living and working in NYC. I’m a transplant from the country (upstate NY to be exact) and, despite my professional life in a big city, the country girl in me is not gone. You learn things about food working on a farm that you’d never learn by eating in gourmet restaurants or reading books about food. With that said, NYC has some of the most talented and creative cooking professionals in the world. Living here has changed my mind on a few things.
I hope to bridge the gap between the ingredients and the preparation, between the rustic and the elegant. There is something to be learned in both – and indeed, the two worlds are complementary. I’ll also get into the philosophy of food and “how” we should eat. You’ll find that I’m inspired by the works of Wendell Berry and Alice Waters, but I also extend their work and challenge them in ways that you might not expect.
Got anything else for me?
Okay, it won’t all be serious food philosophy talk. Food should be fun! And this blog will be too, I promise. There will be a mix of restaurant reviews, recipes, and just general blogging about culture in NYC. Food is tied in with most items of cultural significance for humans, so there is always a way for me to get back to food. Even for parts of our culture which food seems to have no significance for (Did you think that food wasn’t significant to the boring corporate sales kickoff your company hosted last year? Think again.)
One final thought
I’d like to finish with a final thought here. Good food is expensive. Treating food like an experience is indulgent. I recognize that not everyone can afford the kind of food we’ll talk about on this blog. By talking about the “how” of food, we can get into the territory of being judgmental. “Oh, you don’t feed your kids organic?” Oof. It can be tricky to write a blog like this, but just know – I’m not judging you. With the state of the economy, people are struggling financially and emotionally and I get that. Cooking dinner is hard after an exhausting day at work, especially with young children.
The kind of food we’re talking about in this blog is closer to art than “real-life” food. Maybe we shouldn’t shoot for a fine dining experience at home. So what if you’re not eating organic, grass-fed beef from the finest ranches in the United States? That’s okay.
With that out of the way, let’s have some fun! Hope to see you back here soon. Cheers.
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