Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.
Craig Claiborne
I began cooking as a very young girl. Of course, we all have to cook to eat and to keep our bodies fed. For the most part, I enjoy cooking and baking and find it’s another creative outlet.
Something I seldom write about is cooking, which is unusual since it’s something I do every single day and I’ve always approached it as another aspect of creativity.
I tend to enjoy using a lot of herbs and spices, which is why I enjoy making foods with a variety of ethnic origins. In fact, something we’re eating with some frequency these days are Korean pancakes which are nothing like North American ones, other than they are flat and made in a hot pan. These are savoury pancakes with a minimal amount of flour, entirely loaded with vegetables and often also include seafood such as shrimp.
I make my own Asian dumplings (pork, beef, shrimp); won ton soup; Pho using my own bone broth; breads; pickles; fermented sauerkraut; European pyrohy {often spelled pyrogies}; Indian curries; plus an assortment of Italian, Greek, German, Thai, Indian and many other ethnic-based dishes. Now in retirement, it’s even easier to make some of these things because I have more time available.
Sure, there are days when I’d love to not have to cook. Yet I get excited and look forward to cooking when we have friends or family coming over. It’s creative yet I look at it as a form of love. I’m one of those who shows my love by cooking for you.
I don’t use recipes for most of my food though, when making something unfamiliar, I do use a recipe as a guide and make changes/adjustments as I choose. With baking being so scientific I do use a recipe for things like cookies and cakes though, even then, I sometimes make adjustments and always reduce the amount of sugar in recipes.
Despite seldom using a recipe for lunches or dinners, I absolutely love cook books. My mom actually collected cookbooks. She loved to pore over them the way some people might do with a magazine. But, as mentioned, I use my cookbooks for ideas or inspiration. Sometimes I’ll see something in a cookbook and decide to make something similar and away I go. Other times it sparks an idea for something entirely different while maybe one or two ingredients in a recipe may spark my imagination and so I create.
Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors—it’s how you combine them that sets you apart.
Wolfgang Puck
Oh these are beautiful images of food, Diane.
I didn’t grow up cooking but I was born into a food loving family and culture. I loved eating right from the start. I started cooking after we moved countries and I realized I’ll need to cook to eat the food I grew up eating. Long story short, the love for eating has blossomed into a love for all aspects of food: from thinking, planning, shopping, cooking, eating, to feeding friends and family.
I totally related with what you said at the start: cooking takes up a sizeable amount of my mental and physical energy but I don’t really write about it that much. I have written a few posts in the past, around it, but never really about cooking per se. . . . maybe, I will. (I also do Instagram for food related stuff so that could be another reason!)
I actually do look up recipes. I generally don’t follow them to a T, adjusting them according to what I know we will like, and mixing and substituting but I think of a recipe as a general framework that’s helpful. I don’t use any recipe for a lot of the Indian food I cook, or even for a lot of thai curries, and pastas. . . but. . . even for Indian food, I’m discovering so many regional dishes that I have no idea about, it’s always fun to follow a recipe the first time to see what flavor profile develops.
Oh, dear, this response itself is developing into an essay!
I love cookbooks too, and have some favorite resources, smitten kitchen, and nytimes’s cooking section being two!
Oh, I’m also a vegetarian, and so we cook vegetarian food though my husband cooks the occasional chicken dish once every two months or so! Anyway, I love food too and this was fun to read! And what absolutely gorgeous pictures, as always!!
i love cooking and like you, began as a young girl. actually, my sisters and i were in the kitchen helping our mother when we had to stand on a stool to reach the counter. your images are incredible. particularly, the first one. my daughter and granddaughter both cook, but the girls marrying into our family don’t cook and don’t want to learn. their mothers don’t cook so they don’t see the importance. i can’t even imagine living in a home where the woman has no desire to cook and keep a kitchen. even though my kitchen is a gathering place, it is also my intimate space. love, love the quote here.
I don’t cook very much these days, but when I do, I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Your pictures are mouth-watering!
Mmm, I am imagining how great your house must smell at meal time!
What a revelation to learn about another passion of yours that leads to such a fruitful yield! And what a great feeling when that yield is shared with others. A beautiful collage of photos showcasing your talent.
I don’t cook as much these days.
We are not big meat-eaters, though not vegetarian. But most meals feature a salad. We’re in the tropics – who want a great plateful of Brussels sprouts and mashed potato!
But even the cooked food is lighter. Dosa, made with lentil flour, is a fine substitute for toasted bread.
And, yes, I have some cook books. I keep them because, well, they’re lovely to look through! Sometimes, I even use their recipes!