The end of cooking?

Recently, I've attended a party at a friend's place where a certain kitchen appliance was presented. The mood of the evening was fun and friendly, a nice mix of half a dozen women watching in awe as the presenter transformed grains into flour, cooked fruit into jam, kneaded dough, chopped and sauteed onions, steamed pasta... and showed us a hundred other functions we were told the wondrous machine could perform in no time at all. This was no simple food processor, but a highly sophisticated miracle worker that could also cook and steam!

But somehow watching the presenter throw carelessly ingredient after ingredient into the pharynx of the machine, pressing a couple of buttons according to her manual, brought an incredible sadness over me. While she enthusiastically told us how we would never again have to chop a vegetable or some herbs, never again have to mash a potato or knead a dough with the strength of our hands, never again be exposed to the odors of cooking which would be forever conveniently contained in the inside of the machine, I couldn't help but ask myself: isn't all this what constitutes the very joy of cooking?

I love the steely beauty of my knives and the sense of empowerment when using them. I love the feeling of accomplishment when creating something with my bare hands, the promising smells emerging from different pots and pans and the magic of transforming different ingredients into meals. Would my recipes in the future resemble technical manuals, specifying only the amounts of stuff to throw into a machine and which buttons to press in what sequence? Would this complete the alienation of modern humanity from food and nourishment?

To my deepest satisfaction, at least at our party, the machine quickly revealed it's true self for the others to see. After the preparation of each separate dish, the machine had to be cleaned and the food kept hot in a separate container, undoing the promise of reducing the amount of dishes to wash, and elongating the preparation of a complete meal by the need to do everything sequentially, undoing the promise of saving time. And the attempts of some of the group to actually use the machine and navigate the dozens of buttons and functions - so seemingly easy in the hands of the presenter - turned out to be a complex science, producing several mishaps.

That makes me hopeful that the kitchen will remain a place of mystery, of bubbling pots and steaming pans, of creativity and the utter satisfaction of the time-honored preparation of real food.

Life is good!

Lenten fast: sugar detox, mindful eating and less meat

Today, lenten season has begun, and with it my annual fast. Although not fasting for purely religious reasons, over the years, lent has proven to be an excellent opportunity to rethink my eating habits and make an extra effort to be more healthy and mindful.

This year, I am going to tackle two things: first, reading so much about the toxicity of sugar, I am going to cut out sweets from my diet (we'll see how long I am going to last!); and secondly, for the next forty days I am going to try to reduce the amount of meat and instead focus on more vegetarian dishes.

Here are my rules:

1. Sugar detox
No chocolate, gummi bears, candy, cookies, cake, pastries, dessert, ice cream, sweetened drinks;
Exceptions: yogurt (aiming for yogurts with less sugar), occasional traditional flour-based lenten dishes (aiming at using as little sugar as possible, replacing industrial sugar with honey etc. as often as possible).

2. Less meat
At least two meat-free meals a day, aiming at three completely vegetarian days a week.

Right now, I am thinking part 1 is going to be more difficult for me, and if sugar is really addictive, it will be interesting to see how I am going to react to the sweets withdrawal. Luckily, the Santoku master is in it with me, hopefully making things easier! And who knows, maybe I am going to be surprised by strong cravings for meat instead...

As we move towards Easter, I will keep you updated about my progress (and fall backs). And for motivational purposes, here's a link to an article by someone who already succeeded in 40 days and 40 nights without sugar.

Anyone else in to give something up and what is your resolution?

Life is good!

Weekend shopping spree

Saturday, late morning. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, already allowing a glimpse of the heat that probably is going to come later in the day. My boyfriend and I are having breakfast in the fresh, crisp morning air on our balcony, enjoying fried eggs, whole wheat sourdough bred and freshly squeezed orange juice. Already, you can feel the giddiness and a little bit of excitement in the air, because next to me lies the a blank page of our weekly shopping list, waiting to be filled with the promise of new pleasures.

To to most people (including myself from time to time), grocery shopping is a chore that has to be taken care of. For my fiance and me, it is a special event we look forwards to all week, an exciting opportunity to get inspired, get fulfilled and have good food for yet another delicious week. After the staples like eggs, milk, bread, potatoes and onions, the brainstorming starts. Has either of us come across a new recipe that sounds so unbelievable and maybe even a little bit crazy that he is dying to give a try? Has either of us a craving for an old and long beloved friend of a dish that she can’t wait to taste again this week, maybe giving it a tiny new twist? Or do we just want to go and see what’s fresh and available today?

People these days are all about farmers markets, and if you have the time and live close enough to one, and truly enjoy the communal feel they can have, go for it. In the small town I grew up in, where everyone knows the merchants and they know you, and the produce has been harvested earlier that very day, and everyone you know spends their Saturday mornings going there and choosing the best food for the Sunday feast, it’s a great way to meet and greet friends and catch up on the latest neighborhood gossip. For me personally however, and as the default way of shopping, there is nothing to be said against the efficiency and practicality of a well-stocked supermarket!

After easing into the weekend with an extended breakfast and maybe one or two episodes of our favorite TV show (whichever it is at the moment), we get ready for shopping, list in the pocket. Each of us has their favorite sections in the supermarket and we know each other well enough to decide when to let the other buy this utterly useless and overpriced item, and when to gently shovel the other away from the object in question. I can never get enough from the fruits and vegetables, picturing myself happily chopping away onions, bell peppers, zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes, cabbage heads, cauliflower... making all these tasty and healthy dishes full of colorful goodness. Reality check, realistically we don’t really eat more than 4 or five vegetable dishes a week and whoever has ever tried to eat a whole cabbage between two people knows, you don’t need that many different vegetables. The fiance on the other hand loves to buy meat and fish, and our freezer quells over with sausages, fillets of that special fish that is available only every other week and the beautiful cut of veal that could just not have been passed on...

But it is fun, and our imagination of delights to come and yet be enjoyed, of the fun of preparing our favorite meal surrounded by flavors of fresh herbs and lemon gets us through the rather boring moves of getting the milk, detergent and toilet paper. It also bestows a sense of accomplishment to come home, unload the piles of food and know that for another week, fresh food will be available.

Life is good!

Your new best friends are green

So you’ve recently discovered your love for cooking. For honest, home made food. You’ve been out shopping, diligently making lists and planning meals, you’ve spent hours peeling and chopping and sauteing and blanching - and all that comes out is more bland than the last try was tasteless?

Well, you need some new cool friends: herbs. Next to looking nice, they are the icing on the cake or the chives sprinkled over a salad, taking a pot roast from being a junk of meat to a composition of complementary aromas - you get the picture.

Maybe you have tried befriending them already, but there are just too many, dozens and hundreds of names and tastes, leaving you confused and vulnerable, and even more aware of being an outsider to their world... Here comes the good news: as always in life, there is a hierarchy, of how versatile they are and how much flavor impact they have on a dish, so you want to start getting to know the most useful ones first and then slowly make the acquaintance of more exotic ones.

Here comes my personal order of preference, including favorite ways to use them:

Genovese basil
The omnipotent all around star on the kitchen windowsill of the most fragrant and intense aroma. In my experience tastes best raw, so if used in a sauce it’s advisable to add it in the last minute. Also great in salads, pestos, nearly anything that has tomato in it and as decoration topping any Mediterranean inspired fish, meat, or pasta dish. There is no excuse to not have a little basil plant with fresh supplies of basil at hand (and it looks really pretty).

Parsley
Maybe one of the most versatile, can be used in all kinds of regional cuisines and foods. Sprinkled on in its raw form it completes salads and soups, or cooked is great sauteed with onions/ garlic/ celery as the base of a sauce. I hold parley in such high esteem that my freezer always sports at least a little container of it.

Cilantro
The inseparable friend of lime and hot peppers adds an exotic flair to fish, meat and vegetable dishes, spices up soups sprinkled on as a garnish and brings that fleeting je ne sais quoi to mixed salads. As with parsley, great to have a stack of it in the freezer - just make sure to label them as they look deceivingly similar once frozen.

Thyme
Thyme is a more gentle friend, at its best as a background player supporting others on the front stage. Thyme’s true powers are revealed if used in that supporting role, for example a handful of springs infusing olive oil or butter for a hardly recognizable backdrop, or gently plucked setting the stage for the greatness of a sauce.

Chives
Voila onion’s little sisters - too fragile to enjoy being cooked, they pretty up soups and salads as raw, as nature created them, accompanying their bigger siblings. On their own, the most delicious use for chives is to buy crusty fresh bread, spread salted butter on it and sprinkle generously with chopped chives. You will love the flavor of my childhood’s summers!

To be continued.... Life is good!

On sides and vegetables

Last night I went to a dinner party at a friend’s place. Besides the food being an absolute delight, a mix of various salads, different types of home made quiches and grilled sausages, what really struck me was that the meat (aka the sausages) were only given the attention of a pleasant but minor side in the dinner’s composition.

Plant-based foods are having a come-back, the idea of how bad eating meat is for you and the planet being propagated everywhere, and many voices out there are trying to convert people to the benevolence of vegetables. Especially food blogs (for German speakers a great compendium can be found here: ) are trying to help people be more healty and eat more veggies.

But can vegetarianism be the final answer? I love meat in all its forms from the bottom of my heart, and while splurging on a medley of caramelized onions, juicy orange heirloom tomatoes, salty olive paste and crunchy Edamame beans and every now and then a bite of sausage, a realization struck me: we were having an absolutely delicious meal with the spotlight on summer’s best and freshest, and meat just being one among the many pleasures to be enjoyed. And I thought to myself, why can a sausage and a salad not live in harmony, none of them the sole center of attention but respectfully complementing each other.

Life is good!