What Goes In....

I read a short story in a brilliant Film class I took two semesters (wow time goes by fast) ago. It was written by Virgina Woolf, who I never cared to read until that moment. Most of the story was about how she was asked to speak at Oxford about "women in literature" and yet she had to be escorted around the campus by a male faculty member, and wasn't even allowed inside their library, being a woman. But a small part of the story was about the differences in food between the lavish meal she received after her speech at the university, and the meager dinner at a friend's house the following night.Of course I'm probably demeaning the entire work when I focus on this bit, because she was highlighting the plight of women and their individual poverty at the time, but her words stick with me. She described in detail this exquisite set of courses at the first meal, citing scents and sounds, tastes and textures... and ended with relating the bliss she felt afterward, sitting on a velvet cushion by a window, having experienced such wonderful sensations. Later she laments at the stale bread, unseasoned meat, and small portions had at a female colleague's house the next day, and draws the conclusion that food and comfort fuel a being like the difference between newspaper and logs to a fire, and the flames don't last long when the tinder is meager.

With this being said, I've started actually cooking at home. Like an adult. It is a lot harder than it looks. I vaguely remember the first time my mom asked me to help her trim the fat off of chicken breasts, and I only remember the slimy, sticky skin of the chicken, but not how freaking difficult it is to keep the stupid chicken from sliding all over the place. Anyway...

This whole escapade started out with the discovery of WHOLE FOODS. It is my mecca. You can get granola, olives, and spices from little containers where you can get just enough for a snack or enough for a month... which is always the case with their Country Spice Granola (drool). So after going there a few times and walking around in wonder with Chris, we discovered applewood smoked bacon. And after that, breakfast became gourmet. Suddenly it was fifty times easier to wake up to coffee, guava juice, scrambled eggs and a few slices of applewood bacon. Do you know how freaking good it feels to actually eat breakfast? FREAKING AMAZING, that's what.




The next great leap in Chris and my quest to eat real food came when I was at the end of recovering from my tonsil surgery, and he rented Julie and Julia. Great movie, very cute, but I absolutely hate Amy Adams' haircut. The pixie doesn't look good on anyone, even on Julia Roberts when she played a pixie in Hook. Anyway, Meryl Streep can knock the acting socks off of anyone, and I fell in love with her side of the story and kind of ignored the main plot line, waiting for her flamboyant intrusion into french cooking to come on the screen again. After the movie, I was yearning for some striped french wallpaper in my apartment, but nothing more than that. Chris, however, was already looking at prices for Julia Child's cookbook, and whisked me off to CostCo, dizzy from the codine.

We ended up buying Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and an Italian cookbook. We salivated going through the recipes, even though most of them we couldn't even afford (let alone attempt) to make. But I really wanted to try crepes....



It started out a little rough....

But in the end it was really good... but I don't think I'll make it with cheese sauce again :) Dessert crepes American style would probably be better. No offense Julia child.




Wine with crepes? I think so. I think so very much. Even though my tonsil wounds were a little angered. :P

After that success... I decided to jump in. Abandoning Julia Child for the moment (I can't afford $80 of supplies for one meal!) I searched for really healthy, cheap recipes on the Cooking Light website and looked for all the five-star ones, so that anything wierd tasting would just be my fault :) And the salmon was a HUGE hit. I can't get Chris to eat anything, but he downed that salmon. I also made grilled asparagus to go with it, but of course chris avoids anything green, so I got them all to myself!

So... since then I've made some really successful dinners - baked parmesan chicken, light enchiladas, chicken casseroles... and all of them have been winner :D So in closing, I guess Virginia Woolf would have said I was a very inspired individual, and looking at the amount of photography work I have to do this semester, i certainly hope so.