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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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