Just a pretty picture?

From Trisha Coffman — Blog by Trisha Coffman

March 18, 2010

Nothing makes me want to cook something daring and complicated than does reading that such activity is still in peril. I thought we were cooking more frequently during these tough economic times in America, but to hear the New York Times’ Kim Severson tell it (reporting from the International Home & Housewares Show in Chicago), we still equate “cooking” with pushing a button or turning a dial. Or at least that’s the definition that appliance and gadget manufacturers are going for.

The author and culinary historian Betty Fussell is worried that another kind of button –- the one that powers up a computer –- is getting in the way of our cooking. She writes in the current issue of Gastronomica that we’re all so caught up in clicking through and critiquing the glut of photos and videos of food on the Internet, that we’re distancing ourselves from all of food’s other sensory experiences.

And it’s probably true –- I know I’ve gazed at more prettily confected cupcakes on the web than I’ve actually baked. Maybe I do need to spend more time swiping sweet finger-fuls of cake batter or letting my girls mix up too many colors of icing. But if anything, regarding what other cooks and bakers are putting together in their own kitchens, before all the thoughtful posing and photographing, inspires me to get cooking in mine. It’s not just a well-lit shot of golden flatbread; it’s a suggestion that there’s satisfaction to be had requiring action on my part –- not just in slathering finished flatbread with hummus, but in learning how to get that chewy mouthful from a precise heap of flour, some water, salt and perhaps a little olive oil.

Making food and eating the food we’ve made will always be a far more fulfilling human experience than sifting through a worldwide web of food photography. For me, that fulfillment always reaches completeness when I share it with others –- first with the people across from me at the table, the ones whose nightly job it is to put forks at each place and fill the water glasses, who tell me what they like –- or don’t –- about the soup in between dissertations on the worthlessness of math or who chased whom at recess.

Then, every now and then, I share what we eat with the world. I’d rather do it with words than with my own lousy photography, but either way it’s less about show-and-tell and more about speaking up, about adding my voice and my passion to the broad conversation we’re having about food. I don’t want to just tell you what I made for brunch, but I want to tell you about it. All of our breathless blogging and picture posting isn’t in itself detrimental to the art of eating. It’s just another way of expressing that food is so much more than food.

Market day

From Trisha Coffman — Blog by Trisha Coffman

April 21, 2009

I had my reasons for going to the farmer’s market. Sure, my vegetable bin needed a little restocking. And yes, there’s that whole “eat local” thing I’ve made progress on. But what I was really going for was the pickles.

And the farmer’s cheese. And the tortillas. As well as a half-dozen other items that weren’t on the mental list, but that I picked up anyway because they looked so pretty. Things like Red Russian kale and purple carrots, their moppy tops intact.

It was right about then -- as I ran my fingers over that leafy mop that protruded from my stuffed bag -- that I realized what I’d really come to the market for. I’d come to get a taste of the season not as it feels and looks from a weather standpoint (end of April, creeping heat, not a cloud in sight), but how it looks and feels from the standpoint of food.

Our high 90s temperatures may sound good to some, especially those who are still batting away winter’s last waves. But here, in the desert southwest, it’s very much the status quo. It’s almost always warm here. Rarely do clouds show up as anything but wisps. And I never get to thrill at a snowflake.

But I can find feel the air shift when I take in the parade of rainbow beets on a farmer’s market stand. I can get a whiff of winter/early spring when I find bundles of Swiss chard or discover Toscano. The flip-flops I’m wearing may say basil and tomatoes, but all around me are signs that somewhere close by, the ground was cold enough in recent months to nurture all of these winter greens into being and into my bag.

It’s not summer just yet.

Just beet it

From Trisha Coffman — Blog by Trisha Coffman

March 31, 2009

I stick my knife in -- just my paring knife, nothing more menacing -- and slowly back it out, watching hot, purple ooze seep from the stabbing site. I know beets can stain, yet here I am in a favorite t-shirt and khakis, my apron hanging 20 steps away on its hook.

It’s with similar daring that I’m even making these beets. They’re for tonight’s dinner. Not one of us, including me, is especially taken with beets.

I’ve tried, really I have. I want to like them, in particular for their color. I’ve nibbled them in salads at favorite restaurants. I’ve sipped borscht delicately from a spoon. But even when they’re on top of baby greens, in close proximity of marcona almonds, I can’t find much to love about beets’ sweet earthy flavor. This is one food of which I can’t seem to rid myself of a childhood bias.

But when beets appear -- greens and all -- in the weekly produce co-op basket, it’s beets that get another chance.

I’ve wrapped them one by one in foil and roasted them until I can smoothly insert and remove the knife. Later will come a smother of goat cheese (enter the incentive: “Try it! It has goat cheese on top!”)and browning by broiler.

And then we’ll see what the consensus is: to eat or not to eat the beet. I’m just hoping my dinnertime rep won’t be forever stained.

Must...cook...now

From Trisha Coffman — Blog by Trisha Coffman

March 18, 2009

I don’t know why I insist on making dinner. Surely there are more pressing uses for my time, my hands, my energy: the pile of laundry on the bed, research for a story I’m working on, mail in the to-be-sorted basket.

Our evenings have changed. They used to hold leisurely dinners, a few bath times a week, three bedtime stories, and kids asleep by 8. Now we’ve joined the ranks of families whose dinners are wedged between French class and soccer, between homework and work brought home.

Tonight I may have a 6 o’clock appointment, but I also have a butternut squash in my pantry and mixed greens in my crisper. The cooking part of my day is compulsory, but hardly feels obligatory. If nothing has simmered on my stove or roasted in my oven or even been gathered into a mixing bowl, I feel a little out of balance -- no matter how many fifth grade vocabulary problems I helped with or what I went through at the gym.

I may only have 30 minutes to my name, but that’s enough to figure something out. Enough to whisk and reduce a warm vinaigrette from cider, vinegar, olive oil and shallots. Enough to turn the butternut once, to divy greens among four plates, to pile them high with squash, golden raisins, chopped pecans and the slightest scatter of sage and Parmesan.

It’s dinner. It’s together. And that’s enough.