The Most Important Thing

There are so many elements that contribute to making a great dish and to being a thoughtful cook. Time is one element, but really it is not so important because I believe you can make the most exquisite grilled cheese sandwich. Quality, locally grown ingredients are paramount and nowadays most of us have access to farmer's markets with locally grown produce and interesting tidbits to pick up and experiment with - the jar of homemade jam, a great salsa, an odd melon you had never seen before. The local bookstore carries a super abundance and variety of cookbooks and cooking magazines sure to inspire you to creativity.

The real thing, the most important thing is care and love. Like any hobby or activity, one can just do it - we all need to eat for sustenance and you can mindless place food in mouth and chew. Ever since I became aware of good cooking and the creative process of planning, preparing and serving a great dinner or loaf of bread to my family, I have felt that there is nothing more satisfing I could do with myself. There is nothing so gratifying and whole-making as this endeveour. I love the act of it, the science of it, the healing nature and calming effect it has, and the sweet wholesomeness of being in my kitchen DOING. Life is very good.

The Sanctity of Watermelon

I would like to sing an ode to the watermelon. On Saturday, K and I bought a watermelon at the farmer's market in town and bought it home with the other various vegetables and fruits we found. Last night after dinner, K cut it. From the moment he sliced it, from the sound it and the sweet fragrance, we knew this was it. Like the Polar Express cry "The First Present of Christmas!", everything about this watermelon sang "The Best Melon of Summer!" It was perfectly sweet and red, none of that tang and white-pinkness associated with a non-ripe melon, and the crunch was firm and refreshing. It was remarkable also in that it was seedless because usually seedless watermelons are less sweet. It will be breakfast and lunch because we could not let this perfection sit in the refridgerator and turn to watery slush. Summer distilled into the essence of a square bite of melon.

Initial Inspiration

When I was 16 years old I decided I would become a vegetarian. My mom told me she was not going to cook a bunch of weird food, so I made a pot of lentils and that is what I ate for a week. Things have gotten better since then.

Inspiration can come from so many places. Sometimes I can just look at my pie shelf full of cookbooks and remember a recipe idea, or sometimes it is seeing an ingredient at the farmers market that invokes a dish. I remained a vegetarian from the age of 16 until I was pregnant at 29, very occasionally eating crab or shrimp, and this was due to realization of the actuality of meat, and that just did not inspire me at all. In Biology class a friend and I had hatched chicks for our project, and her family had a family farm, mostly horses but some poultry. All summer we went north and visited the chicks and named them. In the fall her grandfather slaughtered them and she showed them to me in the freezer.

My first cookbook in college was the wonderful "The Vegetarian Epicure" by Anna Thomas. It extolled the delights of vegetarianism with amazing recipes, some of which I still use thirty five years later. It was also a brand of vegetarianism laden with cheese, lots of fats, so was not really healthy for every day cooking. Still, the mood of the book set my cooking style, and I was young and poor and pretty thin so at that point it really did not matter that I ate cheese and cream. In Iowa, where I went to college, I even joined a co-op for the raw unpasteurized milk with the cream on top. What I wanted most in the world when I was 18 was a good set of cookware and I lusted after Le Cruset, French enameled cast iron.

Back then I made cakes without a mixer, beating by hand, experiment after fun cooking experiment. I moved to Lexington, Massachusetts to live with my family again for a while to save for my wedding. I traded in my big van and bought a car and worked at a local bank in the charming little town of Concord, absolutely delightful. I made treats for my family and collected my beloved Le Cruset and other kitchen items from a shop in Concord. That Christmas I made for my family my first plum pudding and because it had meat, I did not partake but took a lot of pleasure in my parents and sisters enjoyment of it.

There was an incredible Chinese restaurant in town where we went to lunch from the bank, superior quality food that in itself inspired. There was also a great health food store in town that I enjoyed that had unique ingredients and whole grains. How exciting! I bought a cast iron grinder to make my own flour. I envisioned myself as a pioneer farm wife, an Amish woman, an independent thinker who could survive anywhere by shear force of my cooking skills. I admired the strong woman of literature but at the time I was traditional and really subserviant in my own life. I had the outlet of books and dreams, but I was getting ready to get married "because that is what you do next."

Hello World!

This is my first blog and I have a few trepidations. It feels somewhat to me like writing in a diary or journal and then letting the world have open access to your intimate thoughts. I am trying to channel my yoga teacher, "No judgement," so here goes. I am Kim and for my entire life I have expressed myself through my kitchen. Mostly it has been love and nurturing of my loved ones, because to me cooking is primarily an expression of care and at it's most extravagant, of love. At times I have wondered if I should have gone to culinary school but part of me hesitates to take it that far for fear it would exhaust me and then I would have cut off one of the greatest joys in my life. I am most content in the kitchen. I am purely happy when baking, but since my husband and I have restricted sweets to once per week, our waistlines have benefited (especially his, darn those female hormones!)this particular outlet has been curtailed.

I intend for this to be an experiment, because another primary source of "outletting" for me has been writing. I have always loved the written word and have always expressed myself better with the written word than the spoken word. I have always loved the transporting that a good book does for me.

One of the motivators for writing this is first of all, to see how it all works. Putting your words down on a page for others to read and possibly comment on - scary! Having those same people have a positive reaction to the particular way I put those words down - pretty great.

It is late June and a Sunday. K and I are relaxing after a bit of morning busyness -running at the park with our "baby" Murphy, who is a darling 4 1/2 year old golden retriever, and a quick stop at the grocery. I am experimenting tonight with turkery burgers which K is going to grill. We use a charcoal grill for flavor - vastly superior to gas. I am mixing roasted eggplant into the ground turkey for moisture, and adding soy sauce and Marmite for umami. Kind of excited about this! We bought those real thin new buns that only have a hundred or so calories and they are so good and moist, so as not to detract from the meat. Also I made potato salad from my Mom's tried and true recipe - red potatoes, celery, onion, hard boiled eggs and I used a bit of sour cream this time.

K has the baseball game on, which is his particular love. He is a fantasy baseball rockstar and he truly loves all aspects of this.

Well, that is it for now, here goes, I am hitting "publish".....