Today is the second day of the government shutdown. Among those on furlough is my primary writing instructor, Peter Robertson. My first feature was about him as a foodie. I hope you like the story. He is an interesting guy in many ways, long career as a Navy public affairs NCO, an avid comic book collector, and a stand-up comic among other things.
Now he is one of the hundreds of thousands of government employees deemed non-essential. I hope this ends soon. Our writing class wants him back!
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Peter
Robertson, a journalism instructor at the Defense Information School here, is
living proof that a “foodie” is made, not born.
As a child he wanted macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, and chicken
fingers. He and his younger brother protested
when their mom made falafel and other foods outside their narrow, mostly fried,
favorites.
Now
Robertson loves to cook and eat international cuisine. He sees food as a door to culture and a way
to preserve and share memories. Two
experiences turned him from narrow path of the typical American diet to making
the cooking and eating of a wide array of food a life-long adventure.
The
first big change happened when Robertson took a home economics class in the in
seventh grade. He took shop, art and
music classes that year, which he described as OK, but home economics “I kind
of enjoyed that,” he said.
“I
mastered the incredible, edible egg,” Robertson said. “I learned how to make pasta dishes,
lasagnas, from there I learned how to make stuffed shells,” he said. “By the time I left home to go to college I
felt I had cooking skills other people didn’t have.”
After
college, in the Navy, he continued to cook for himself and increase his skills.
On his first cruise in the Navy, Robertson had an experience that turned him
from competent cook into a foodie with a flair for international cuisine.
His
first deployment was a cruise of the Mediterranean Sea in 1997 with port calls
in Greece and Italy that began in Haifa, Israel. His shore visit should have been short but
extended to several days because of rough seas that kept ferry from taking him
back to the ship.
The
first place he ate was McDonalds which he said was a bad decision, though not
without culinary adventure. He had a
goose breast sandwich at the Israeli Golden Arches. “Every McDonalds caters to locals tastes,” he
said.
On the first or
second morning on shore he and some friends went to a hotel that had a giant
spread for breakfast, he said. On the
serving tables he saw, “Nothing that makes you think breakfast.”
“There was fish,
there was flatbread, there was olives, there were more olives, there were
tomatoes,” Robertson said. He started
eating, combing flavors. He was eating foods that were familiar, but in a
totally different way, he said. For the
rest of his stay he ate “mystery” meat from street
vendors and other foods he couldn’t identify—and he liked all of it.
As the cruise
continued Robertson ate local in Greece and Italy reveling in local cuisine
while most fellow sailors opted for American-style fast food and bars. Some sailors joined him when he wandered port
cities looking for good local food. His
friends then and now tend to be those who share his sense of adventure in
eating.
“If you are someone
who has an open mind about food, you probably have an open mind about life in
general,” he said. “And that’s the kind of person I like to surround myself
with.”
Among his recent
foodie friends is Erin Smith, also a journalism instructor at DINFOS. Smith and her husband go on couple dates to
restaurants in the Baltimore area with Robertson and his wife.
“He’s good
because he’s adventurous,” Smith said.
“I can’t think of a food and food group he doesn’t like and I’m the same
way. We can go out to kind of a funky,
hole-in-the-wall joint and find a good meal. He knows all the good places in
Baltimore.”
Robertson cooks
for family meals, for parties at his home, and sometimes brings his creations
to work. Smith remembers a tea-rubbed
smoked salmon he brought to DINFOS. “It was absolutely to die for,” she
said. “The tea and the smoke and
juiciness of the salmon we’re incredible, cooked to perfection, still a little
bit raw, a little rare.”
Robertson’s
favorite restaurant in Baltimore is Woodberry Kitchen, near Druid Park, north
of the city center. It serves local,
seasonal dishes, a cuisine Robertson dismissed earlier in his life in favor of
getting what he wanted wherever he was and at any time of the year. Now he sees local, seasonal food as the way
to get great flavor.
Though
Mediterranean cuisine is his first love, Robertson’s current passion is for
Korean food. “Korean food always amazes
me,” Robertson said. “Last weekend I had
Korean food at a place called the Honey Pig in suburban Baltimore—they have
this burner in the middle of the table, kind of like a wok, kind of like an
iron skillet.”
The food is
cooked at the table beginning with sprouts and adding “things I can’t
identify—sour and sweet—all the different kinds of meat, Korean barbecue spices,
pork bellies—more bacony than bacon—everything was delicious.”
For Robertson,
life in Baltimore combines a job he loves with a city of great restaurants, both
with local and international fare, access to a wide array of local ingredients
from the land and the sea, and good friends to share it all with. The little boy who wanted only chicken
fingers and burgers has grown into a man who both knows and cooks good food from
around the world, including some of recipes his mother made for her
not-so-adventurous sons more than 30 years ago.
