Reinventing Myself in the Kitchen

I am not a domestic person. I dread like the daily grind of cooking dinner, but I do enjoy cooking when I'm entertaining and can try out new or exotic dishes, especially when I know my guests will appreciate my efforts and not heap salt or slather the dish in soy sauce. I can remember a time when cooking was an adventure, and spices were exciting, (and I used them to paint with until my mother put a STOP to it. Glue mixed into ground pepper or paprika or cumin is just fabulous to play with). I know I made a cheese souffle when I was very young, because I thought this evidence I was becoming sophisticated, and not some ordinary farm girl who raised runt lambs as pets. In college I learned how to make Palestinian red pepper and ginger chicken soup from Sharif, a grad student who also taught me traditional dances and always claimed that when he was fishing he heard the fish complain how unlucky they were to be Mormon, since they were allowed to only drink water. At the time I thought he was old. He was probably thirty.

As far as the domestic goddesses, I'm more of wild at heart, how did this housework & cooking stuff get to be MY job?, Artemis type, not the hearth-warming, soup-making Demeter. But, like Demeter, I would make the earth barren and everybody pay if Hades abducted my daughter to the Underworld.

The only apron I use on a regular basis is paint-smeared and seriously messy. I do own a cooking apron, my sister gave it to me, and I have worn it, once. This is all going to change, as is my attitude about cooking. The plan is to cooking dish that hold my interest, and that my family will eat. I started with making hearty split pea soup. I hate split pea soup. Always have. My husband loves it. The weather turned cold so I decided to start making soup. The base is an organic mix (from delectableaddictions.com Gourmet Food Mixes Homemade without the Hassle) to which I added sliced turkey sausage, diced carrots, celery, and onions, and a big splash of Tapitio hot sauce. Yummy!

I love food, books about food, recipe books, history of food, etc. I read Julia & Julie a few years back, read old blog posts, but have yet to see the film.

My younger sister told me about The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I ran across Heat today on Powell's website.

If you're interested in free and incredibly tasty recipes, my nephew's wife, Stephanie, has an awesome blog. Check her out at http://www.stephanieskitchen.com.The featured recipe today is: Mini Chocolate Bundt Cakes with Peanut Butter Frosting.

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell