October 30, 2010
I think half the fun of life is in embarking on adventures you’ve never done before, just to see what they would be like. Sometimes those are the scariest moments (like say, moving halfway across the world to a country where you knew nothing of the local language? ha), but sometimes they are also the moments best suited for growth and development. Not just in technique/skills, but also a personal evolution. I like to imagine a plate as a canvas, just waiting for flavors to come together and blend into new colors to paint the palate on the tongue. Comfort is tasty, and the ritualism that comes with the cherished and familiar always works. But that’s the thing. It’s safe, precisely because of its familiarity. The adrenaline from the rush of doing the unexpected isn’t present in comfort food – it is the very definition of the expected, and there is immense value in that. However, if I only ever did what was safe and comfortable, where would I be as a cook? As a person? Someone who only looks to past successes becomes very boring very quickly.
October 13, 2010
Wow can you believe Daring Cooks is on to their 18th challenge already?? It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were all attempting ricotta gnocchi for the first time… Well here we are, one and a half years in. So far I’ve had a lot of fun with this group. Some challenges have been better than others, but you’ll have that with just about any blogging group. My favorite challenges so far up to this point have been the paella and sushi challenges. Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. If you can’t tell from the photo above, I didn’t stuff grape leaves. In fact, neither grape leaves nor Middle Eastern cuisine were anywhere related to what I chose to do. But I did stuff and roll leaves. Instead I made Vietnamese cabbage roll soup, also known as Canh Bap Cai Cuon Thit.
But that same morning, while the snow laid unmelted on the streets and the Alps were capped in their familiar white vestiges, I cooked for myself a different sort of breakfast. A savory one, with spinach, celeriac, sausage and eggs.
