Events: February 2004 Archives

So I'm always feeling a little bereft when I read about some famous chef, like Jacques Pepin or Anthony Bourdain, who grew up around great food, soaking up all this information when their brains and taste buds were like little sponges, learning from toddlerhood from moms and dads who could cook. I grew up on frozen fish sticks, chicken nuggets and pizza, tuna salad, spaghetti from a box with sauce from a jar, rice and pancake mixes, condensed-soup casseroles, canned peaches over cottage cheese. Mmmm, it makes me nostalgic just thinking about it - but it also makes me a novice about what makes for really good food.

So you can maybe understand how excited I was when the intros to two of my new books both revealed that the authors kind of fell into an interest in food relatively late in life, and both lament for a moment their non-food beginnings before going on to either 1) impart a huge amount of information on how to identify fantastic ingredients or 2) share recipes for homey, delicious, beautiful bistro-type dishes. There's hope for me yet.

Todd brought the food section of the Atlanta newspaper back from his trip there last week, and they had a big article on the book Solo Suppers, with a handful of excerpted recipes. I haven't tried any of them yet, but a couple of them, like asparagus with poached eggs, looked good. The recipes really seemed to embrace cooking for one, taking advantage of benefits of shopping for just yourself instead of dwelling on the difficulties. Maybe I'll have to pick up the actual book.

It was appropriate, too, since his trip left me solo dining three nights last week, and now that school's started back up it's going to be a regular event again. While he was gone I cooked one serving of dried pasta, adding a handful of frozen bay scallops at the end of the cooking time, then drained them and tossed them with butter and thyme. Another night I had cheesy polenta topped with warmed bottled eggplant tapenade I got for my birthday. Neither was a lot of trouble, but they were good enough that I felt like I was pampering myself.