Cooking is creative. It’s cultural. It’s therapeutic. It’s a welcome challenge.
I love the feeling of flipping through cookbooks, recipe sites (my current favorite: Williams-Sonoma) and imagining the smell, flavors and ingredients mixing around to produce a delicious dish.
The creative side of cooking comes after the recipe-search. After I find “the one,” I like to expand, a little at first, beyond what the recipe says. You know, add a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And so far…so good!
Of course, there have been disasters. But that’s part of the process! And I have to embrace those disasters, laugh and move on.
Cooking is cultural. Straight up: I’m Jewish. I love food. And the annual holidays bring the best food – At Hannukah, there are latkes and my mom’s brisket (mama’s cookin’). At Passover, it’s Charosis, chopped liver p (an aquired taste, I admit) and Matzoh Ball soup. On Purim, it’s Hamintaschen. Or let’s just stick with the American holidays – who doesn’t love Thanksgiving dinner? My memories of holidays center around the food and the family. All the senses are at their highest.
When I try making matzoh ball soup or attempt to make gedempte (Yiddish = delicious) chicken, I feel connected to my heritage and my family.
Cooking is therapeutic. After work I come home and look forward to start chopping, blending, mixing, folding, shaping a new creation of flavors. It gives me time to decompress, think about what’s coming up the next day or sort through other things on my mind.
And finally cooking is a challenge. But maybe challenge is too negative. It’s really a welcomed learning experience. Like I said, there are, and will be, and have been disasters. But what can you do, but do better next time.
Well, there’s my cooking manifeso. You stuck it out to the end. And now, as I always welcome feedback from my main customer (James, my dear fiancée), I welcome your feedback on recipes, suggestions, ideas, etc.
Yours truly,
Emily
