Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 Begins the Journey!!

Christmas was brief and relatively painless.  The wife and I set up a few of our decorations, trying not to "overdo" this year, and New Years went by without a hitch.


In MY world, all the meals I've eaten at home for thirty-three years and counting, have almost always been creations my wife has prepared.  Right from the "get-go" back in our College days, she showed me that her background and influences had prepared her for cooking, and her love of it is quite strong.  It isn't that she always "loves" to cook, but she has learned the art of knowing what goes together and what doesn't; how to eat healthy, and how to be creative in her preparations.

Back in 2006, an active Registered Nurse (recently promoted to Nursing Management), my wife had an incident that landed her in the hospital.  At first we thought it was a stroke, but as time went on, we learned that it was Multiple Sclerosis (M.S.). Since 2006 she has been able (since M.S. symptoms are different for every M.S. patient), to be somewhat functional, thanks in part to the plethora of medications that she must take every day.

All of this went together to create a situation where her ability to prepare meals was hindered with various levels of trouble.  Some days, it's all she can do to get up and make a meal, and other days, she's decided to take on a meal for she and I, our kids and their husbands, the grand kids and my parents.  I'm amazed, (frankly) how she does it sometimes!


As for me, I've worked on a breakfast crew at a summer camp year ago, working a three by eight grill, making French Toast and Scrambled Eggs for five hundred hungry campers; cooked breakfast foods on the rivers of Maine in the middle of nowhere over an open fire; cooked breakfasts (beginning to see a trend here?) for men in our church; and made some foods at home from scratch.

I've been known to put together a coffee cake of various types from scratch on a Sunday morning, or make a basic meat-n-potatoes meal with Mashed Potatoes (no gravy), canned vegetables and hamburger patties.  I've worked  an outdoor grill to cook chicken and hot dogs, hamburgers and pork, but that's about it. I figure that that description is true of about 80% of most American males, when it comes to food.

Now, because of the decreased functionality of my wife, I want to be more like her, and fill the gap.  She's a very patient teacher, and is encouraging to me, even when what I attempt (like my most recent "first attempt" at an Omelet and Hash Browns),  turns out "not quite right."

I have the itch, so why not scratch it.  I want to be able to look in the cupboard and see the possibilities.  I want to learn what spices go together and which ones don't.  I want to learn the fundamentals of timing a meal, so that everything gets to the plate together and hot, and to learn the basics of "method."

YouTube has been an inspiration.  I 've watched a number of cooking videos lately, and find myself running upstairs to see if I can replicate what I've just watched.  There are a lot of different voices out there, and I'm struggling to find the right source for me.  Probably my best one is my wife, and I'm very priviledged to have her nearby to watch over my shoulder.

Unlike that gal who was learning to cook from the Julia Child's book, I have been looking at a couple of sources for inspiration in book form.  A trip to Barnes & Nobles recently, yielded a couple of interesting starts, and I'll list them in just a moment.  The wife has a TON of cookbooks around, (not the least of which is the "family cooking bible" that everyone has; filled with lots of personal family favorites), which I'm sure I'll look thru when trying to find a particular food to prepare.  But I am not interested in damaging or putting notes in her collection (even though everything we have is "ours"  together and I know that), as much as I am having my own to ruin and write in.


I watched a few videos about how to handle a kitchen tools, and even had a griddle donated to me that works just fine, from a family member who happened to have one that had only "been used once."  In our house we have never really had a "griddle" as such.  Everything that has been prepared has been in Cast Iron Skillets or pans.  There are some aluminum pans here as well.  I won't be buying my own pans though.  I've learned to use her choice of tools.

Just this morning (sad to say) I was putting away a wooden spatula that is her "favorite" after it was washed, and I accidentally dropped it behind the stove.  Now I'll have to move the stove which is glove-fitted in the kitchen counter, to get it out.  Not a great way to start this adventure (although perhaps a good excuse to go buy more wooden kitchen tools!).


The wife's copy of "The Joy Of Cooking" sits on the shelf with her other cookbooks, and I wanted my own copy of that, so the 75th Anniversary Edition has been ordered from Amazon.com, and I await my own copy.  She has a  cookbook entitled, "The American International Encyclopedic Cookbook" that I've used over the years for Master Recipe help, but I haven't ordered my own copy of that.

Here are the other two cookbooks that I recently picked up, (although I don't really think that they are exactly what I'm looking for):


1. "Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen Cookbook" (isbn: 978-1-58816-905-1)
        I liked the way the binding was, since it lays out rather flat.  When working with a recipe book
in the kitchen, I have found that a book that lays out well, is less aggravation.  There are some interesting meals in there, but I can't say that it really walks me thru many of the basics with regard to ingredient mixing do's and dont's, or has much in the way of covering the basics of methodology.

2. "One Big Table" (isbn: 9780-7432-3270-8)
      I liked the way this book takes me to recipe's that are regional.  There is also a story that goes
along with the recipe's that makes it more interesting.  Regular "Recipe" books with no diatribe bore me to death.  If all I want is the Master Recipe, that's one thing, but generally I like to read the history behind a dish, and a bit about the development of the dish.

So there you have it..........my opening blog.  Hopefully as time goes on, I'll achieve a level of competancy in the kitchen that comes somewhere close to the skills that my wife has.  I'm not out to become a Master Chef or learn how to make exotic foods.  I just want to understand the chemistry and skill sets that it takes to feed my wife and I with food that are good for us.  I want to be able to look in any cupboard and refridgerator and see the potential meals and combinations, and know by instinct how to put them together.

To "have fun" in the kitchen is a concept that is not entirely strange to me, but I see that it can also be a drudgery, and I'm interested in avoiding that. I'll be reporting the "gutt feelings" about what I'm doing, just so you can get the full impact of what it's like on this journey.

For some of you, this journey of mine will be a walk down memory lane, and for others of you, it will be an eye-opener.  I hope that you enjoy these rants, which I intend to post regularly.  I haven't given myself a time limit for completion, as had the gal who wanted to be like Julia Child.  Post any questions or comments as you feel compelled, and I will respond.

-Nutmegger1957

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