For as much as I love puttering in the kitchen, I’m not that good at cooking.
I can easily produce something edible, but it’s rare for me to produce something of plate-licking caliber. God knows it’s not for lack of trying either. Edible, however, is what tends to shake out of these kitchen sessions. There’s no bitterness attached to this statement even though edible just isn’t good enough…if I’m being honest.
It’s obvious I haven’t a latent stash of culinary talent waiting to be coaxed out of hiding, and I can accept that. Likewise I’ll continue to love my afternoons or evenings consumed by the promise of a new – or even an old -recipe. But all the while I still have an entrenched faith in dogged persistence, that a sweet, fat payoff awaits: eventually I’ll progress from mere edibles to delectables.
You have to dream in big, drippy, meaty haunches or you have nothing but watery broth at stake, to guide. And there’s no fun in that, even if you’re a vegetarian and the only haunch you can stomach is of tofu.
I was all set to devote this year to becoming a far better, more skillful, more knowledgeable cook – which sounds sort of haunchy – but as I was writing about that framework I realized that that was not “it”.
No, “it” is thicker than how deftly I can mince shallots, stickier than my defeatist attitude towards cake. “It” is my lifelong mixed-bag relationship with food, not my aspirations for the making of food, that call out. We have some rifts to heal and a vision for the future to flesh out, food and I, neither of which will happen if I don’t defrost the freezer they’ve been sitting in.
By chance or luck (whichever you believe in) my quarterly order to Amazon included several books* that touch on different aspects of a food relationship I’ve been quietly or nervously noodling.
There’s the Eat-better-spend-less aspect that drew me to Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy & Paul Merrett.
There’s the screw restrictive diets/sensible adoration aspect à la Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl.
There’s the global-citizen/huge-swell-of-pride aspect from knowing how to cook both seasonally AND indigenously that spurred me to explore Spanish cuisine via Seasonal Spanish Food by José Pizarro, Culinaria Spain by Marion Trutter, and The Real Taste of Spain by Jenny Chandler.
I’m pleased with these new additions to my food lit library. I’m not so pleased by the hard stuff that lies ahead and outside their pages. But now is the time to engage with it, because now is the time.
* Note – These links are indeed Amazon affiliate links. If you use them to buy something, I receive an affiliate commission. Thought I should let you know so that you don’t feel mislead.
