Why do I cook? I started late. I didn't have a mother who cooked for the sake of cooking. I had a mother who had a repetoire of 8 to 10 dishes, recycled weekly, maybe seasonally. I had a mother on a budget. In the Midwest. In the 60s and 70s. She, like all of us, was my model. What is a mother? What is a wife? What are my duties? My responsibilities?
I turn back, wearily, to Iowa, to my youth, and see my mother: intelligent, layered with children she loved, a stay-at-home life she didn't, a husband who loved her and played his role. I remember ghoulash, tater-tot casserole. chili, stroganoff. My mother is a good cook. She gave me the love for liver and onions (just the two of us), the understanding of lasagna, the inspiration for my best potato gratin.
She gave me, mostly, the idea that the kitchen was just another play area. We made cookies. We made cake. She taught me how to make crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, good orange juice from that concentrate can...(It's an art, that's all I can tell you...) She also endowed me with the idea that families eat together. Play together. Sometimes at the same time.
She taught me that Family Time was Always: there was no down time, no Time Out, no uncounted hours. Like Sands Through the Hour Glass...And so I make our time count: my time in the kitchen is Our Time in the Kitchen. My little ones pull up a chair an stir, add the cheese, whisk the eggs. We played this game so often that my first child grew tired of cookies, named her first doll "Garlic," proclaimed proscuitto her favorite food at the age of four.
I saw the need, as soon as I knew my French man, to cook. Meals. To create. Ambiance. A welcoming. I knew when I met him that I was lacking: I was The American. In a bad way! Six months later my trip to France confirmed my suspicions: I needed kitchen skills. Hospitality. Savoir Vivre. I have strived, since that first trip 18 years ago, to replicate the lessons I perceived on that visit.
Cooking is a large part of the French culture. It is now a large part of mine, so much so that I felt compelled to attend cooking school. In France. I now enjoy every aspect of the experience. (okay, maybe not the dishes....) Living in France, perhaps I could even say in Europe, gives one a new persepective on food. It is not "I eat to live." It is rather "I live to eat." The mode tends toward quality, rather than quantity. Food becomes the focal point for every occassion. The table is the vehicle that moves the event.
How serendipitous, then, that I began cooking at the first murmurings of Martha Stewart. Make fun of her. I do! But do it respectfully, for she has turned entertaining into a regular household affair. I immediately subscribed to Bon Appetit. Learned what Montrachet was. Discovered proscuitto. Avocados. Fresh herbs. Shallots. (Iowa, remember?)
I made my own pasta. (not anymore...pasta is for lazy days...) I made my own salad dressing (still do!) I made my own ice cream, waffles, pie crusts. I added appliances, tools, essential spices. I studied: Indian curries, Norweigian cured salmon, Spanish tapas, Italian sauces and pasta shapes. I get the Latin fusion. I know what sauce goes with pig's feet (gribiche) and what to serve with intestine-filled sausage (mustard).
I love cooking. It is an endless lesson. It is a pasttime everyone is happy that you have. It is meant to be shared, one way or another, with others. It creates only good things, good feelings, good moments, to have a cook in the house.
Really, I love cooking because it is limitless. There are rules. They are meant to be broken. I want to learn them all. Then I plan to break them all. It will take me a lifetime. I'm looking forward to it. Bon Appetit!
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