Monday night when I got home from work there was a package from Amazon.com in my mailbox. I thought that they’d messed up my Christmas orders and had sent the stuff to my Seattle house instead of to my mom’s house in Miami. (I checked, they didn’t, everything is on its way. Mom, don’t open that package addressed to me, okay?) In fact, my lovely friend Dawn (whose pictures are here (in the plane with Paul) and here (with me wearing silly glasses)) had randomly, out of the goodness and sweetness of her heart, sent me this book.
UPDATE!
Since I originally posted this, I found out that although at first I thought it was my friend Dawn from the Alpine Butterfly Lodge, it turns out it’s Fabulous Redhead Dawnie that I met at JournalCon, who is kind and gentle and cute and let me know it was her who sent it without a smidge of resentment. She is wonderful, as is, of course, my other friend Dawn. According to my calculations, people named Dawn or any variation thereof are fantastic people. I highly recommend you ask for a Dawn for Christmas. The book itself is one I’ve heard a lot about and I always look at it at the bookstore so naturally I’m very excited about the whole thing.
BACK TO THE ENTRY
I’m not much of a cook, sadly. I kind of want to be. I definitely want to be the type of cook that A New Way To Cook wants me to be, all with my locally grown and seasonally available produce, my homemade chicken stock and five-spice powder, my vanilla beans in a glass jar. I want a deep-dish casserole in which to whip up saucy little gratins. I want never to use a can opener for immediate sustenance purposes. I may even want to pan-sear something someday. Most of all, I want to cook every night and cook well every night.
I go through cycles with food, as with everything. Right now I seem to be in a Tired All The Time Cycle, so I’m making a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and braised Brussels sprouts. I think I’ve bought my lunch every single day for the past two weeks, at least. Last night for dinner I had turkey jerky, dried apricots, the aforementioned braised Brussels sprouts, and an egg over easy. This book, like many cookbooks, wants you to think about your food and savor it. It definitely doesn’t want you to check your email with one hand and eat your egg with the other. It probably wants you to set a place every time you eat…by which it infers that you ought to have a table at which to eat, as well.
The thing is, I’m all for that. I love food, I love to eat, I love kitchen utensils and recipes and pretty dishtowels and all of that…and of course, I really like to cook when I get the chance…I think it’s that last thing, though, that’s the rub. Getting the chance. In my head, I make time to cook because it’s important and wonderful and better for you, health-wise, and because it’s sort of meditative, and because it adds to your quality of life and is generally cheaper. Just all around better, and so I should make time.
And it’s not that things are so much busier than usual for me, although going to the gym at least twice a week has, for the past couple of weeks, has put a wee damper on things. Last night I got home at six or so, and so ought to have had time to at least braise my Brussels sprouts correctly. Since I was a wimp, however, and since my teeny-weeny workout had left me pretty much unable to drive home in a straight line and generally knackered, I just sat on the floor reading an old Martha Stewart (I like the ones from ‘98-‘99 the best) and eating dried apricots right out of the bag. My arms hurt and I just wanted to sit on the floor. My commute isn’t that bad, but seriously. Home by six, and I’m supposed to cook? What about reading and washing my hair and maybe watching a DVD with my boyfriend and finding my holiday cards, which have somehow vanished into the recesses of my desk, and making breakfast for tomorrow and petting the cat and still getting into bed by ten-thirty or eleven so I can get up and do the whole thing over again the next day? Occasionally I have luck with making a big batch of something on the weekend and eating for several days afterwards, but again, when? When do I chop and grate and simmer and spice and do all that (not to mention the grocery shopping) and also go to Target for a sweater shaver and go to the art museum before the exhibit closes and sleep late and knit and talk on the phone and do laundry? Seriously, I keep reading in all these cookbooks that the recipes are easy and fast, but I don’t know.
All things considered, I don’t know if I even deserve this cookbook. I have three others, big fat ones, right there on the shelves, full of delicious vegetarian stews and clever hors d’oeuvres, that I rarely use. I always forget to bring a list to the store and end up buying a bag of peanut-butter pretzels, a bag of dried apples, some Brussels sprouts and some honey-oatmeal soap that was on sale. And a case of Luna bars and some gummy bears. And maybe a carrot or something or a sweet potato. I have only one knife, and I don’t know how to use it very well. And the contents of my freezer haven’t been excavated recently, I’m sorry to say. Maybe I should just stick to going out to eat when I want something nice, you know?
However, in the spirit of hope for better things, I told my next-door-neighbor and landlord Deane about the book last night. He cooks at least two hours a day and is always saying something like “Have a Havarti-dill savory muffin! Just baked some!” or “There’s some Indian curry still on the stove if you want some.” We agreed I’d lend it to him and let him have a look at it and then we’d try to cook something together out of it, just to see if it’s all as easy as the author makes it look or if I am just plain doomed to mushy pasta and Boca burgers for the rest of my life.
It sort of feels like a test. That I have to study for. Do you think it would be weird to read a cookbook in bed? Do they have Cliffs Notes for this kind of thing?