Saturday, July 19, 2008

Fantasy Cooking

Today on the couch I'm reading recipes, which I find is sometimes a good substitute for actually cooking. I used to be a decent cook, and I enjoy it, and I'm very pleased that all my kids are foodies. But I don't cook a lot any more because mostly I just don't feel like it and I don't have to. I don't consider grilling a piece of fish and making a salad to be "cooking." And I eat pretty well, considering. Right now, though, all I feel like eating is nachos made with Target's organic blue corn tortilla chips, the ones with flax seed, and some Paul Newman's peach salsa and some shredded cheese. Oh, yes, I indulge myself with the fatty cheese because the no-fat ones turn into a repulsive gum when they melt. See, I care. Add some nice fresh grapes or berries, and I consider myself fed.

The problem I have is that I am still clipping recipes. There is a kind of disconnect here because I know that the number of meals in my future isn't infinite and is probably less than 20,000, and it's obvious to me that almost none of the clipped recipes will ever be used. After all I have dozens of cookbooks, and unless I am baking I seldom follow a recipe anyway even when I do cook. I like the ideas, and the new ways of using ingredients and seasonings.

The other day in Harris-Teeter I heard a woman ask for Waverly crackers, saying that her recipe called for them specifically and wondering why that would be. Possibly because the Waverly people sponsored the recipe? I have never really been that kind of cook. I am horrified to hear that there are people who try to use olive oil with a boxed brownie mix, but I often get creative with appropriate substitutions, my idea of "appropriate" anyway. For me, it's never been worth a separate trip to the store to get that certain thing. Yes, there's a difference between bread crumbs and panko, but I can work with it.

Whatever is the reality, I still have to have a kitchen to house my cooking equipment and all its good karma. There is my lucky brownie pan, that is aluminum and that I have been using since it was my mother's and I was a teenager. Now it has a couple of pin holes in it, but, again, I can work with it. There is also my original newlywed (the first time) Tupperware measure and mix pitcher bowl. It too leaks, but it's good for dry ingredients. Et cetera, except that one newer thing, from a Pampered Chef party, where I just felt pressured to buy SOMEthing, has become essential. It's a 1-quart plastic pan with a handle and a vented lid and it's great for heating a meal for one person. That's what the reality of cooking is for me these days, but I'm never giving up on fantasy cooking.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Olive oil in brownie mix??? On Gawd's green earth- WHY???

"P. B." said...

I'm so happy you're horrified too, KBK. (And thanks for reading my blog.) Maybe it has to do with reducing the importance of learning basic domestic skills in schools but in a lot of other places too. The first person I knew who did the olive oil thing was my daughter's old roommate, a very bright and beautiful young woman. What she said was that to her oil is oil is oil. Thank God she didn't reach for the Valvoline.

WileyCoyote said...

Ah, well, PB, as she gets older, maybe she'll realize that olive oil is to be used on the face and hands, not in fattening sweets.

Olive oil. Ick poo. Whatever happened to rich, creamy, BUTTER??? Yum.

"P. B." said...

WC, I think if you're going to use brownie mix, you may not be thinking rich, creamy butter, which is what my lucky brownie pan prefers.

You are so right about using olive oil on skin. I like olive oil so much that now I'm wearing my hair Olive Oyl style. :>) But, geez, not in brownies.

It could catch on though. Look at how much burned vegetables are now praised for their caramelization. I'm just goin' with the flow here, reading my recipes.