...who knows how to cook?
Always loving to eat is a big impetus of course. I love thinking about the fact that all cooks must not only love to cook, but also must love to eat. I guess that's part of the beauty of being an artist.
But anyway, what else is appealing about cooking? Being a visual person and therefore susceptible to the charms of 'food porn' TV or even the bougie beauty of choosing from the gorgeous produce stacked up at Whole Foods. Or even indignantly thinking, "I could make this!" when looking down at your $30 entree in a restaurant.
What I made today:
salmon with lentils from Ina Garten's show,
Barefoot Contessa. It usually comes on after
Everyday Italian, which is how I began to watch it, but now I actually enjoy it in its own right. I especially like the interaction between Ina and her husband (did you know he was an MD at Blackstone?) She has such a comfortable, knowledgeable demeanor that makes it a real pleasure to watch!
The lentils came out really beautifully, though I haven't put in the red wine vinegar yet (I forgot, but I'll put it in before actually serving it later). It's wonderfully satisfying to taste your dish at different stages while cooking and tasting all the ingredients fuse together, feeling textures developing to your liking. It kind of shocked me that the flavors came from such simple ingredients: it's really just vegetables, chicken stock, lentils.
I like cooking for the same reason that I hate laboratory sciences - you generally don't have to be zealously precise in order to get your desired result (unless you're making some fiendishly complicated sauce or something). Like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I made myself for dessert. I've been a dessert fiend lately!
Yuck / yum.
