A Practically Perfect Day
Today is the last day of my holiday break; tomorrow it is back to the salt mine. The house is a mess. I should be cleaning. I wanted to go to Target to pick up a few odds and ends. I need to update several months of sales data in Quicken. I’ve planned to work out every single day until my birthday. So what am I doing? I’m reading recipes online.
I started off well. I got up, ate a healthy breakfast and came downstairs to sort through piles of papers. Once I sorted everything into stacks I just checked Salon and HuffPo to see if anything was going on even though I’m listening to NPR and know that everyone is in holiday mode. The next thing I know, I’m on Cooks.com checking out Chicken Saltimbocca recipes.
I love to read recipes and to shop in kitchen stores. Give me a Williams-Sonoma catalogue and I’m in heaven. My sister-in-law sends me Wegmans magazines as gifts even though there isn’t one within driving distance. No trip to Barnes & Noble is complete without checking out the cookbook section to see what is new and exciting or the magazine section to see if a new Fine Cooking magazine is on the shelf.
I’m not sure how the recipe reading evolved, but I got this love of food from my husband. My mother was a good everyday cook. Her biscuits were light and fluffy. She could make the lightest coconut cake. Her fried chicken was incomparable. But she wasn’t creative or imaginative. If it was Wednesday, it was Tuna Roll. Years later, with a job and family of my own, I can understand her lack of imagination, if not totally appreciate it. With a cranky boss, limited budget, and hungry kids to deal with, who can come up with a new exciting menu?
My husband is from Chicago. He grew up with all kinds of choices of food, many of which were not fried. It was only after I married him that I was exposed to so many new foods and cooking methods. I had never eaten corned beef. Steak had to be well done. Pizza was by Chef Boyardee. Eating an Italian Sausage Tomato Pie in New Haven, Ct. was the moment I figure my addiction was formed. I evolved from loving to eat to loving food. Our vacations involve eating at as many new places as we can find. Friends will mention a trip planned to a city we’ve visited and I immediately jump in with “I can tell you a good restaurant.” It’s a boorish habit that I’m working to correct.
As I read recipes, I imagine the taste of various flavors combined into a dish that I’ve never tried. Over the years, I’ve learned to taste the food without having to cook it. If it tastes good in my imagination, I’ll usually prepare it. My kitchen is small and not cooking friendly and certainly can’t hold my burgeoning cookbook collection. I finally bought recipe software to organize my favorites that I’ve torn from catalogues and magazines. It is fairly efficient if that is what you want to be. You can create a menu, resize a recipe or generate a shopping list. But nothing replaces looking at photographs of beautifully prepared food artfully arranged on a lovely serving piece. It doesn’t compare with searching for a recipe using a specific ingredient on Epicurious and winding up with an entirely new dish that uses pomegranate, say, instead of leftover turkey. Still I faithfully copy and paste into my digital cookbook more recipes than I can possibly make in a lifetime.
So this is how I’ve spent my perfect day. I’ve accomplished nothing on my to-do list. The day is nearly gone as it is now mid afternoon and I need to start thinking about what to cook for dinner. I don’t have the prosciutto to make chicken saltimbocca, I wonder how it would taste if I used Virginia baked ham instead? And added sundried tomatoes?
I started off well. I got up, ate a healthy breakfast and came downstairs to sort through piles of papers. Once I sorted everything into stacks I just checked Salon and HuffPo to see if anything was going on even though I’m listening to NPR and know that everyone is in holiday mode. The next thing I know, I’m on Cooks.com checking out Chicken Saltimbocca recipes.
I love to read recipes and to shop in kitchen stores. Give me a Williams-Sonoma catalogue and I’m in heaven. My sister-in-law sends me Wegmans magazines as gifts even though there isn’t one within driving distance. No trip to Barnes & Noble is complete without checking out the cookbook section to see what is new and exciting or the magazine section to see if a new Fine Cooking magazine is on the shelf.
I’m not sure how the recipe reading evolved, but I got this love of food from my husband. My mother was a good everyday cook. Her biscuits were light and fluffy. She could make the lightest coconut cake. Her fried chicken was incomparable. But she wasn’t creative or imaginative. If it was Wednesday, it was Tuna Roll. Years later, with a job and family of my own, I can understand her lack of imagination, if not totally appreciate it. With a cranky boss, limited budget, and hungry kids to deal with, who can come up with a new exciting menu?
My husband is from Chicago. He grew up with all kinds of choices of food, many of which were not fried. It was only after I married him that I was exposed to so many new foods and cooking methods. I had never eaten corned beef. Steak had to be well done. Pizza was by Chef Boyardee. Eating an Italian Sausage Tomato Pie in New Haven, Ct. was the moment I figure my addiction was formed. I evolved from loving to eat to loving food. Our vacations involve eating at as many new places as we can find. Friends will mention a trip planned to a city we’ve visited and I immediately jump in with “I can tell you a good restaurant.” It’s a boorish habit that I’m working to correct.
As I read recipes, I imagine the taste of various flavors combined into a dish that I’ve never tried. Over the years, I’ve learned to taste the food without having to cook it. If it tastes good in my imagination, I’ll usually prepare it. My kitchen is small and not cooking friendly and certainly can’t hold my burgeoning cookbook collection. I finally bought recipe software to organize my favorites that I’ve torn from catalogues and magazines. It is fairly efficient if that is what you want to be. You can create a menu, resize a recipe or generate a shopping list. But nothing replaces looking at photographs of beautifully prepared food artfully arranged on a lovely serving piece. It doesn’t compare with searching for a recipe using a specific ingredient on Epicurious and winding up with an entirely new dish that uses pomegranate, say, instead of leftover turkey. Still I faithfully copy and paste into my digital cookbook more recipes than I can possibly make in a lifetime.
So this is how I’ve spent my perfect day. I’ve accomplished nothing on my to-do list. The day is nearly gone as it is now mid afternoon and I need to start thinking about what to cook for dinner. I don’t have the prosciutto to make chicken saltimbocca, I wonder how it would taste if I used Virginia baked ham instead? And added sundried tomatoes?
No comments:
Post a Comment