Mission

A good friend once said to me: "If a door opens in front of you - get off your ass and dance through it...laughing."

I'm trying, Nancy!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Learning to cook

When I lived with my parents, I wasn't allowed to cook on accounta I might make a mess in the kitchen.  I guess messy is different things to different people, but my mother was one of those over-the-top neat freaks who would have a conniption fit over things like crumbs on the counters, so experimentation in the kitchen was definitely frowned upon!  When I moved out on my own, I didn't so much cook, as practice chemistry.  It wasn't easy being a macrobiotic vegetarian in the 70's.  Remember "Diet For A Small Planet"?  That was  my bible. (And only cookbook)  I pretty much lived on steamed vegetables, brown rice and homemade yoghurt. (gag!)  Of course, as a good earth-mother-hippie-chick,  I did this very stylishly while wearing long cotton skirts and peasant blouses!   In my 20's, I survived on beer and bar snacks.  Period!  In my 30's, I was single again, but by then, microwave popcorn had been invented, (Woohoo!) so I would alternate between that and toast.  (because it's important to have a balanced diet, y'know)  When Dan & I married in 1987 he was working shift work and we seldom ate meals together - and that's just the way it was for some 20+ years.  We ate a lot of frozen or packaged convenience foods - separately! 
So finally, after 23 years, we can sit down and enjoy a meal together.  We can even entertain guests because we both have weekends off now, but unfortunately, neither us ever bothered to learn how to cook.  Umm, bit of a problem.  Sure, I now own a whole shelf full of cookbooks, (I love the IDEA of cooking) but most of them are in pristine condition - and dusty!
Luckily, we live in a technologically advanced age.  I like to browse through the Flickr group called Recipes to Share.  People there post photos of good looking dishes that they've created and they include the recipes.  Quite often, these photos lead to a blog link where there are many more wonderful photos and ideas.  One of my favourites is Cookin' Canuck's blog.  She always shows step-by-step photos and has easy to follow instructions.  Perfect for an old rookie. 
Last night's delicious barbecued salmon was made from her recipe.

2 comments:

Mel150 said...

I love the theme, Dance through, Laughing. I'll be interested in your kindle. It's a great idea to be able to carry a huge and interesting library with you, but who am I going to borrow great books from? You clearly didn't think this through! Luckily I picked up 25 books for $25 in Phoenix last week. By the way, Emma is the new best way for visitors to get down here. $150 return, and she'll pick you up at the airport and bring you straight down here (as long as it's daytime). 1 passenger minimum, 3 max.

Cheryl said...

Hey, good to hear from you on yet another blog. I know, I obviously have too much time on my hands eh? Yeah, sorry about the Kindle thing - so selfish of me, but I'll bring down the dozen or so that I've gone through since we got back. A couple of good ones, a couple of duds and a few fluff novels for the beach.
Emma sounds like a much better option than Nina's! I don't mind paying a bit more for the comfort and the convenience of an airport pick up. Actually, by the time you factor in the taxi to and from the airport, it's pretty darn close. Also, it's unlikely that her window is going to shatter on your lap somewhere along the hightway!