Cooking

Cooking is a very unique pursuit. It is both useful and artistic. If you think about it, there are very few skills you can have that sustain life and, at the very same time, serve as an outlet for creative expression. I guess there are a few others. But who doesn't enjoy good food?

I won't lie. I'm a good cook--at least as far as ordinary people go. How do I know? People like it when I cook. They tell me so all the time. All I have to do is ask them if they like it, and they tell me straight-up that they do. That's the most concrete proof I need. No-one ever fibs in order to spare my feelings, especially since they know how easily crushed I am. And they would never suspect the possibility of having a plate or a fork flung at their head if they somehow let it slip that what I just made is not the greatest dish of its kind ever to enter their mouth and stomach. I'm just not touchy that way, so I know I'm a good cook.

So this may be a little cliché, but after seeing Babette's Feast, Mostly Martha, Ratatouille and Julie and Julia, I decided it was time to seriously learn how to cook, rather than continuing with my preferred method of preparing a meal--just going into the kitchen and throwing together whatever smells good.

I own five cookbooks--one is your standard Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It's a nice collection of general, bandwagon good stuff. The second is my Family cookbook. My mom compiled it a few years ago for our Christmas presents, and it's a big hit. People especially like the famous food quotations she inserted on section-breaks. The third is called 50 Great Curries of India. I have yet to use it, but this week I'm planning a trip to a better grocery store in order to buy the stuff I need to make these great curries. And four and five I got in the mail today. The Eat Clean Cookbook, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking (of course).

The odd thing is I never expected to be this excited about cooking. But with the odd situation I find myself in this summer with my family, refining and defining my cooking ability seems like a logical thing to get excited about. I think they're getting tired of hearing me talk about all the great things I'm going to make, but they definitely don't get tired of the things I put on their plates every day.

This is not the start of another cook-your-way-through-Julia Child blog, nor is it one of those do-something-odd-so-you-can-feel-good-about-yourself blogs. I don't feel that cooking, or blogging, is necessary to help me regain my sense of self. However, I do like to eat good food, and what better way to make sure I can always have good food than to learn to make it myself?