I Will Cook!

2

Posted on : 10:15 AM | By : Anonymous | In : ,



This weekend despite struggling with sickness, we headed off to Home Depot for a fun family outing. I am of the philosophy that if you aren't too sick and you don't come into direct contact with other humans, you should try to get out of the house. Sitting on the couch feeling icky is only good if you're really, really sick. We had fun looking and dreaming about what's going to happen in the bus, tools we will need, etc. We are delayed in bringing the bus home at the moment because John simply can't get the right days off work. The border crossing has to be done on a weekday before 4pm, and that's tricky for him to do. I could do it, except that I don't want to drive a 42' bus through Vancouver and onto a ferry. It struck me how many options there are for table saws. I've always been the non-electric sort of girl, but recently we acquired a Magic Bullet to make smoothies, and of course I still have my bread machine. For this bus project, we will definitely need a good table saw. We also stopped at a new outdoor store nearby that you could pick pretty much any activity and walk in and get anything you needed. They are the first store in Nanaimo that I've seen carrying guns, including handguns. It was interesting showing the girls the elk and bear mounted on the walls and explaining what a decoy is.

Then we came home and watched Julia & Julia, and I realized what a terrible cook I am. I am so good at survival foods, quick meals, and breakfast. But I am really bad at anything else. There are so many things that we don't eat that are so yummy, and I've been very limited by being lactose intolerant. I never realized how wrong I was about Julia Child, lol. I had mistakenly thought that she had written The Joy of Cooking... but only because I own very few cookbooks and rarely use them because my experiments often fail. I stick the the least complicated, shortest cooking time, and most well-known meals. But my motto is to do the thing I am afraid of, and so today I am going to go out and find the book she actually wrote, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There was this one time I made roast beef in the crock pot with beer, and it was SO GOOD. But I made it up and didn't write it down, so it will never happen again. We might even pick up a bottle of wine and light candles when we eat. This is one aspect of living deliberately that I have avoided because I've been afraid, but the ritual of eating good food together is so important. Food is what brings people together.

This is a rambling post, because it is a lazy, blustery day and I should be doing things like cleaning up the debris from the garden and finishing my math assignment. It's much more fun to think about cooking a good meal and shopping for books.

Comments (2)

The easiest cookbook to start with for a "newbie" is the Better Homes and Gardens binder style one. You won't lack for ideas and most are pretty simple. Also, believe it or not, The Sopranoes (yes, tv show) Cookbook has some absolutely delicious recipes in it that are extremely simple. Lemon Roasted Chicken and Potatoes (if you're not vegetarian), Rigatoni and Broccoli, Pasta and Potatoes, Biscotti.

And if you ever have to do bread without the bread machine, that one recipe for French Boule Bread from Mother Earth News is so easy it should be illegal.

I wish you good luck in your cooking endeavors! Food is delicious. : )

Hi corabela, thanks for the book recommendations! :)