I feel like a fish at the bottom of a pond in winter. I am. Slowing. Down. When I am home and not doing work, I am either watching Food Network or an episode of the Waltons from the third season box set with my family, or I am thumbing through big photo and recipe books like the following:
Nigella Bites by Nigella Lawson
The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
Barefoot Contessa Parties!
Barefoot Contessa At Home
How to Boil Water by the staff of Food Network
Jamie's Kitchen by Jamie Oliver
And I am chip, chip, chipping away at A Year in the World by Frances Mayes. I am very much enjoying it, just not getting to it in daylight hours. And if I read a book only before bed, it takes me much longer. Mayes and her husband have been in Morocco, Greece, Turkey, the Cotswolds in England, and are now in a rambling house in Scotland with friends. Food and travel. Travel and food. This is the stuff of my daydreams.
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I hear ya. My mother got quite a thing in her head this Christmas about me & French cooking. She gave me three (three!!) sets of DVDs of Julia Child's show, The French Chef, as well as several of Julia Child's books (Mastering The Art of French Cooking is amazing so far). Truly, her show is as entertaining to watch as it is informative. I LOVE French cooking, and it's nice to have that added push to get back into it myself.
Crud. Now I'm hungry.
I am so intrigued by the fascination of food in your reading Christine. What is it that speaks to you? Do you try a lot of the recipes? Or do you just fantasize? When I look at cook books I'm left feeling so inadequate because the only way anything like that would come out of my kitchen is if Emeril (sp?) got amnesia, thought he lived here and took up residence for a while.
Oh, and BTW, I did leave a message about the "Giver" for Tuesday's blog.
I am no cook, Insomniac, but I have been taking small steps toward eating a little better (read: more fruit, more vegetables). I just love reading about food and watching people prepare it--even meat, although I've been a vegetarian for 15 years.
I have tried a few new recipes lately. I am finally getting tired of my own pickiness and am ready to like some new things (onions?). I bought my first can of white beans a couple weeks ago and made a Greek salad with them and some parsely, olive oil, lemon juice, kalamata olives, feta cheese and cucumber. I know, world shattering, right? But it was different for me.
And all these big cookbooks I look through now have strips of paper sticking out of them to mark things I really mean to try. I photocopy them, label what book they came from and put them in a skinny blue binder on my kitchen shelf.
I also want to learn about wine.
Life is short. I've wasted so much time--thirty-six years without onions!
Oh good, the library just called. My next Barefoot Contessa cookbook is in. The one on French cooking. Heather, want to see it?
Ooh, yeah! I'm not very familiar with the Barefoot Contessa though...I thought that was mostly Italian cuisine?
Tonight, I'm making a *fabulous* boeuf bourguignon, with crusty mini french baguettes. I'm cheating with the bread, though, as I bought it rather than made it myself. I tell ya, I feel SO spoiled, having Inbodens right down the road from me! Most of my meals get planned there, based on what's on sale, and everything is so fresh and of SUCH high quality. That, and their pastries are downright addictive...
You seriously have issues with onions? That's one of the few vegetables I actually like. (I'm all kinds of picky myself.) What is it in particular about them that's distasteful to you?
When I was very young, a neighbor said, "Close your eyes and open your mouth." I did. And for whatever reason, I was thinking of frogs. Small frogs that would fit in your mouth. She popped in a piece of onion, and I spit it out. Raw onions and little living frogs have forever been linked in my brain.
Bwahahahaha!!! :-D Omg, that's priceless! The things that make an impression on the young...
For what it's worth, dinner tonight was FABULOUS. I only used Julia's recipe as a bare-bones framework, and just winged it from there. I'm feeling terribly smug that I can do that successfully. I sauteed the mushrooms in butter & garlic, and added them towards the end of the cooking time. Best. Stew. EVER. Dang. There was a richness and complexity to the flavour that just about killed me.
/end self-congratulatory gushing
Now I'm all hungry.
Heather, so glad your dinner was a success. It is very satisfying to make a special meal.
Barefoot Contessa isn't Italian. Maybe you're thinking of Giada? Also on Food Network.
You finished Children's Blizzard? I work with someone at B&N who is reading it right now. Jim likes that kind of bleak nonfiction, too (Donner party, doomed expeditions, deadly westerns and the like). Would you reccomend?
Would I recommend The Children's Blizzard? HECK yeah!! It was absolutely fascinating, and felt very real (of course it was entirely a true story, what I mean is, it felt like I was there...the descriptions made me cold, even though I was toasty warm in bed while reading it. Always a good sign.) :-) It is decidedly bleak, yes. It just about breaks your heart, reading about what these people went through, but it's also incredibly engaging, without being sensationalistic. Yeah, I'd totally recommend this one. :-)
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