It likely comes from spending so much of my life in “cerebral” pursuits, but ever since graduate school I’ve enjoyed escaping into several more tangible activities, and none more than cooking.
As an oldest child with parents who were largely absent due to their complex careers, I started cooking back in high school. It was something of a chore in those days. Then again, the ‘70s weren’t exactly known for their cuisine, sigh... In any event, I began to genuinely enjoy the activity in college (particularly due to the inspiration of a good friend and talented cook himself, John Trustman. At about the same time my mother, who during my childhood seemed to consider hot dogs a food group, herself turned into an amazing cook. Mom was almost entirely what I call a “recipe cook” in that over the years she compiled detailed recipes for thousands of interesting dishes from newspapers, cookbooks — she probably had over a thousand at her death — friends and magazines.
I lean more (a lot more) towards being an “ingredients cook,” meaning someone who can throw things — particularly the sorts of fresh ingredients you can find in the PNW and at Farmer’s Markets — together without a specific plan and have it (usually) come out well . Still, over the years I’ve compiled my own extensive set of recipes, some of which I “made up” from messing with ingredients and many of which mom passed on to me (whether I wanted them or not at the time).
A lot of these recipes just live in my head, or scratched on pieces of paper in my mom’s hard to read script, so rather than let them be lost to time I’m going to make an effort to post at least one a month going forward. Enjoy!
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