Today, December 1st is World AIDS Day. 40 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS. I think most of us all know someone whose life has been impacted by this virus. It is a topic that is close to my heart. I work as a Social Worker with families and individuals who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Although the news does not carry as many stories about this epidemic, rates of transmission have not gone down- in fact last year more people transmitted HIV/AIDS then in the previous year. To me, the scariest statistic is that 1 in 4 people who are HIV+ do not know it. Lets stop AIDS by preventing any more new infections.  I do not want to be preachy or a buzz kill. Go on and get your groove on, just protect yourself.  

In the quiet moments of today, I hope that you will reflect and think of those that have lost their battle with HIV/AIDS and send strength to those that are still fighting it. Think of the families and friends who provide unending love and support. Send courage to all those who will never give up until we have found a cure.

We don’t always cook difficult or exotic dishes. I don’t think many of us have the time everyday. I know I do not have the money for goose or lobster or truffles all the time. I am looking forward to cooking with these ingredients. But I also want to master many basic techniques. When I make quiche, I hope to make the crust myself. I am hoping it will be buttery, light, and fluffy. I don’t know if it will be, because even the simplest recipes can also be complicated. In The Art of French Cooking Julia Childs describes making an omelette:

“The depth of the egg mass in the pan should not be over 1/4 inch, as the eggs must cook quickly. A pan with a 7-inch bottom is right for the 2 to 3 egg omelette…When transferring the omelette, hold the plate in your left hand. Turn the omelette pan so its handle is to your right. Grasp the handle with your right hand, thumb on top. Rest the lip of the pan slightly off the center of the plate so the omelette will land in the middle of the plate. Then tilt the plate and pan at a 45-degree angle”

I never think this much when I am making eggs. I break the egg into a pan that is sitting on the stove and use my spatula to move the egg around the pan. Making an egg is basic, but sounds so complicated. I think one of the weeks with have to be everything egg- from omelettes to poached to scrambled.

What techniques have you mastered?

Cooking can be intimidating. As I have been reading cookbooks over the last couple of weeks, I find recipes that seem to have a bajillion steps. And each one is more difficult, detailed, and sometimes counter intuitive then the next. If I am making goose, The Joy of Cooking tells me that I need to:

“Bring a large pot of water to a rapid boil. Protecting your hands with rubber gloves, submerge the neck of the goose in the boiling water for 1 minute. Pull the goose out, then submerge the tail end for one minute…Set the goose breast side up on a flat rack set in a roasting pan and refrigerate, uncovered, for 24-48 hours to dry the skin.”

First of all, it makes me a little nervous to leave poultry uncovered in my fridge for 48 hours. However, I spoke to a friend of mine who is a chef in a New York City restaurant and that is what he does with his turkey. He says it makes the skin crispier and the meat juicer. Second of all, do I submerge the whole turkey, or just the ends? Third of all, how are we ever really sure what a rapid vs. roiling vs tepid boil actually is? Big bubbles, small bubbles- sometimes it all looks the same. Every step feels a little intimidating, like you might get it wrong at any moment. 

What recipes baffle and overwhelme you?

Cooking is not all fun and games. Cooking is not always successful. Cooking is not always the perfect picture of friends and family sitting around a table with candles and wine. Cooking is sometimes exactly the opposite. Disaster is an integral part of learning to cook. Many of the memories we have each shared are wrapped up in cooking with relatives or sharing meals. However, I am sure there are many stories yet to be told that are sheer culinary catastrophe.

When my husband and I began dating, we decided that we would make Paella for dinner, a dish we both love. We found ourselves a great recipe and together bought all of the ingredients. So far, so good. We were chopping and laughing and enjoying the energy of shared cooking. Everything was going great, until we got to the rice. We measured it out, and my husband declared that the amount of rice called for cannot possibly be enough. I had not done a lot of cooking by this point, but was pretty sure that the rice would suffice. However, with my fear of being wrong in a new relationship, I went along with his idea to add more rice. 20 minutes later when the water and rice were boiling out of the pot and onto the stove and floor, I knew I had been right. My husband had to empty out the pot of rice three times. We were cleaning up rice for an hour. We laughed back then as we ate rice flavored with nothing (there was too much rice for not enough spices), and we still laugh to this day. Even ‘bad’ cooking brings people together and creates memories.

When I was 12 I wanted to make blueberry pancakes for my Mom on Mother’s Day. They were her favorite and she talked about the times she made them with her sisters and mom. In my mind, the blueberries were the best part of the dish. I think I put 1000 blueberries in every pancake. Apparently a high amount of fruit throws off the cooking process. The pancake was slightly burnt on the outside and barely cooked on the inside. Mom still loved it and managed to eat 3 of them. In retrospect, that is probably why she was sick for the next 36 hours.

What stories of culinary catastrophe do you have? What laughter have you shared over burnt pots, bad food, and recipes that were better left in your imagination? What memories still make you cringe and smile at the same time?

I am moved by your comments.

I returned from work tired and a little cranky. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with the notion of writing everyday. However, that all changed when I sat down at the computer and began to read. The stories shared made me smile and the emotions conveyed brought me joy. I thank all of you. I cannot wait to take this journey with all of you as well.

Cooking, eating and gathering are things that all of us can relate to. Some people have large families that get together every weekend. Some of us come from a small, but close group. People argue politics, religion, tv, books, and each other over pasta, roast beef, casseroles, and salads. Whatever it looked like in your home growing up, the images stay with one. As children we learn to cook, eat, share, and love the way those around us do. Our parents learned the same way. The traditions they were taught by their parents, are many of the same as those we will teach to our children and grandchildren.

Every year for Thanksgiving my family in lieu of saying grace, sings “We Gather Together.” At Christmas time we eat Roastbeast, just like The Grinch. In August my aunt gets a fruitcake and begins to ‘feed’ it whisky until Christmas day. This is our version of Figgy Pudding. It is served with hard sauce (cream cheese, cinnamon, sugar, and bourbon). They light it on fire and my uncle carries it to the table as we sing ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas.’ These are some of the cheesiest traditions- and I do not ever want them to stop.

What traditions are you not wiling to let go of? What traditions will you honor and pass on?

Yesterday we talked about food and memories. I only mentioned three, and had comments on more. I began to think more about what shapes the cook inside. We make choices about what type of food and how to cook it based on what we saw in the kitchen as we grew. Culture and ethnicity have a huge influence on the types of cooks we become. I grew up the daughter of a Boston Brahmin and Romanian immigrant. Both cultures have influenced and shaped me in ways that include and also reach beyond this blog. Food is important for both of my heritages. This year will include Boston Baked Beans and Mummulega with Tweka.

What crazy dishes did you grow up eating?

I went to work today and began to share about my cooking resolution for 2008. It was met with excitement, curiosity, doubt, and whole heap of advice. One of my friends asked if my plan was to cook for only two, all year long. I immediately responded with a resounding- no. In fact, I plan on letting my friends know in advance what the recipe is being prepared, and asking if they are interested in joining.

Cooking goes hand in hand with eating, and eating goes hand in hand with conversation, connection, and love. Conversation, connection and love is what makes life worth it. It is the relationships we have with others that delights, disappoints, and fulfills. I cannot wait to share this year long resolution with the people I care about. I am looking forward to learning new skills and recipes. I am excited to have the knowledge that I can make this dish, or that one. I cannot wait for the trial and error. I am fully enjoying the research. However, I am most looking forward to the shared times I will experience with my friends and family.

If we look back on our lives, so many of our memories are wrapped up in food. I carry snapshots in my heart of laughter over shared meals. I remember the taste of the mussels my husband and I shared the night we got engaged. The smell of chicken kiev instantly transports me back to my Romanian grandmother’s small kitchen. Every time I make eggs, I think of my Dad and the omelet he named for me. I think of the conversations and joy we shared as I watched him cook. My father has been dead for almost 10 years.

Food brings people together and keeps them alive in our memories. I look forward to whatever the year has in store and know that this year will be full of memories that I (and hopefully those I care about) get to carry forever.

Are there memories associated with food that you would like to share?

After blogging yesterday, I began to get really excited about my cooking challenge. From here on out, I am calling it ’For the Love of Cooking.’

Last night I pulled many of my favorite cook books off the shelves and began reading. It is nearly 24 hours later and I am still at it. Not only have I read 200 pages of Julia Childs The Art of French Cooking, but I also bought two more cook books at Barnes and Nobles this afternoon. Believe me when I tell you that the last thing I need is another cook book. In the internet world of today, one rarely needs to buy books anymore. There are countless sites to find recipes and advice. I pulled most of the recipes for our Thanksgiving dinner off of Food Network and Fresh Direct. However, what the internet does not have, is the authors voice. In my books, his or her opinion is present on every page. As you read the recipes, you can almost hear and feel the person all around. Through the introductions, acknowledgements, and commentary another’s love of food comes alive. As I read these books, I am often moved to read out loud to my husband.

I will leave with you with this quote from the introduction of Julia Childs, The Art of French Cooking;

“Cooking is not a particularly difficult art, and the more you cook and learn about cooking, the more sense it makes. But like any art it requires practice and experience. The most important ingredient you can bring to it is love of cooking for its own sake.”

I like to cook. There is an awesome power in the ability to buy seemingly unrelated items in a grocery store, and transform those ingredients into something new, unique, and delicious. Don’t get me wrong, there are always disasters that require calling for pizza or recipes in which you would have done it differently. Cooking at its best is trial and error until one achieves a dish that defies description in its sheer yumminess. I lied earlier- I love to cook. There is something to be said about the luxury of spending an hour in solitude. As I chop, sauté, broil, and bake I get to think and nurture the side of me that sometimes needs to simply be alone.

All that being said, there are probably a lot of things you might be thinking. Does she ever share the kitchen, cooking with others can be fun? You are right- cooking with others is fun. I enjoy the camaraderie that is created in shared moments of cooking and eating. That is what makes cooking so amazing. It exists for the individual, and for the group. How many of us still make dishes because our mother made it that way, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. I still make several of my father’s signature dishes. It is in cooking together that we move ourselves forward. I am not currently a parent (but working towards that goal) and the most needy pets I have are three fish. I don’t have anyone screaming or demanding my attention (except for my husband). I have the luxury of being able to spend hours in the kitchen traveling on the road to my own personal culinary greatness.

While this status quo stays the way it is- even though life rarely has given me what I have asked- I am embarking in 2008 on a journey. For every one of the 52 weeks in 2008 I am going to cook a brand new meal- from start to finish. A meal I have never even thought of, let alone cooked. At this point in my life I am a pretty good chef, but I am ready for more. I am willing and eager to step far outside of my culinary comfort zone. I need your help. What recipes do you recommend? What are your favorites? Let me know so that I may begin research. 2008 is right around the corner and I am so excited. I think it will be challenging and fantastic. There will be weeks in which I do not feel like cooking- but I am making this promise to myself. And really it is not that hard- I love to cook.