Jessica
We don’t have the greatest relationship. In fact, I’ve come to cooking pretty late, compared to most people. When I was a teenager, I resisted all attempts to learn cooking, since it seemed too expected of me as a girl and future wife. In my twenties, I fell in love and married a man who was an excellent cook, so I didn’t need to learn anything beyond the microwave. Lucky me.
These days, I realize that I want to learn how to cook. I’ve always loved eating, so it seems natural to me (after 32 years) that I should know how to cook it well. So, I’ve been subscribing to cooking magazines, accumulating cookbooks, and reading some cooking blogs. I also spent six weeks acting as the main cook in the house, while the husband taught some evening classes. And it’s all starting to rub off on me.
In the past week, I’ve bought 3 very cool cookbooks: Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry, Almost Meatless by Joy Manning, and How to Eat Supper by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. Since buying them, I’ve been itchy to try a recipe or two. So last night, when our plans broke down, I decided to try something out of How to Eat Supper. With our excess squash, I made Sweet Roasted Butternut Squash with Greens over Bowtie Pasta.
I don’t know if it’s the extra practice or the accessibility of this particular cookbook, but this was one of the first times that I’ve tried a recipe where everything worked like it should have. The cooking time was exactly right, even with some squash and greens substitutions, nothing was burnt and it turned out wonderfully. (Sorry, I was too busy eating to take a picture.)
I can’t quite describe the feeling of victory I felt when this relatively easy recipe turned out right. It felt similar in some ways to writing a poem or making a collage, in that I had that sense of a flow experience. It also felt like good stress relief after a busy week at work, which cooking has never felt like before.
So, I think I’m going to continue to play some more and nail down this cooking thing once and for all.
