Ok, so I've got some changes going on in my life, and probably won't be posting totally regularly for a while (if at all). I think Mom is still going to post every Wednesday (last I heard, anyway), and I'll just post when I can. At the moment I'm trying to get through some leftovers before they turn, so I haven't been cooking a lot, but when I have a new recipe, I'll post. :)
In the meantime though, I'm trying to move and study for law school entrance exams (woo-hoo!) at the same time, so my posting will be sporadic while my life shifts and moves. I'll still post new recipes as I come up with them, but I make no promises to post every Sunday! :)
Showing posts with label Waxing Rhapsodic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waxing Rhapsodic. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Guest Post and Sneak Peek recipes!!!
Today, the fantastic MizFit is featuring Mom and me over at her site! Go check it out - we included a couple of sneak peek recipes that won't post here for another week or two, so if Eggplant Parmigiana or Bouillabaisse-ish Stew sound good, head over! And then make sure and stick around; she's full of good stuff over there. ;)
If you're here from Miz's site, welcome! We hope you stick around and check out what looks good. And if you have any special requests, drop us a line at tomeatornottomeat (at) gmail (dot) com. Or just leave it in the comments. Either way. ;)
Later today, I'll have Savory Butternut Squash Soup (as opposed to the sweet kind) up in this space. :)
If you're here from Miz's site, welcome! We hope you stick around and check out what looks good. And if you have any special requests, drop us a line at tomeatornottomeat (at) gmail (dot) com. Or just leave it in the comments. Either way. ;)
Later today, I'll have Savory Butternut Squash Soup (as opposed to the sweet kind) up in this space. :)
Saturday, February 7, 2009
If You Eat, You Can Cook
No, really. You CAN. I'm not kidding. You! Over there! STOP LAUGHING!!! ;)
I know there are people reading this (or who WILL read this) who already know how to cook. But I've talked to innumerable people over the last few months who really profess that they don't know how to cook. So if you're one of those people, listen up. You can cook. I promise.
Humans have been cooking for thousands of years. Ever since Grog threw a leftover mastodon rib on the fire to incinerate it, and came out of the cave a few hours later grunting, "Hey, that smells GOOD," we have been cooking. It's surprisingly easy to learn. I am of the firm (and totally unscientific opinion) that it's probably encoded somewhere in our DNA at this point. It's CERTAINLY more instinctive than reading or writing, and yet most of us learn to both read AND write, but a lot of us (at least here in the U.S.) never learn to cook.
But here's the big secret: if you eat - if you've ever eaten anything, ANYTHING AT ALL, that you LIKED - you can cook.
Because 99% of cooking just boils down to knowing what you like. Hate nuts? DON'T COOK WITH THEM. Ta-da! Cooking lesson the first, right there. ;) Even if you aren't familiar with cooking, you probably know of at least a few things that you like or dislike. Fresh tuna. Canned tuna. Tomatoes. Eggplant. Beef. Pork. Tofu. Soy sauce. Pasta. At least one or two of those things elicited either a YUM response or an EW, NO WAY response. That's the first step. Beyond that, think about what you like and WHY you like it. Like Thai food? Why? Because it's spicy? Then you will probably like other spicy food: chili sauce, jalapenos, buffalo wing sauce, etc. Hate spicy food? Then you know you WON'T cook with those ingredients, no matter what the recipe says.
See, here's the thing: the surest way to cook something that tastes good, is to cook what YOU think will taste good. Yeah, ok, we all have individual preferences (when I'm just cooking for myself I add WAY more garlic than I would otherwise because I LOVE IT - no, really: I can eat it RAW), but you'd be amazed to discover how many people like the same things that you do. (But not raw garlic. Unless you're cooking for me. Most other people don't like it so much. Who knew?)
And the only way to figure out what you like? Is to eat. And then cook. Try it. Experiment. If you don't have an ingredient, imagine what that ingredient tastes like (sweet? salty? sour? tangy? creamy?) and see if you have something else in the fridge that is similar. Swap it out and see what happens.
Cooking is a gloriously messy endeavor. No, not in the too-many-pots-and-pans sense (dude, I'd never do it if I had to dirty every pan in the house). It's messy in the sense that you can swap out ingredients, tinker with cooking times and methods, alter amounts, WHATEVER, and it usually stands a reasonably good chance of tasting just fine. Sometimes it'll taste better than other times, but it will really be the rare dish that is totally inedible. (Don't try this with baking. Baking is SERIOUS, people. Mess with the amount of yeast in your bread dough and it WILL NOT BE PRETTY. I'M NOT KIDDING. Follow baking directions to the LETTER. See how many capital letters I used? That's because I'M SERIOUS. ;D)
And let's be honest. In the Western world, cooking is love. Think about coming home from school, or camping out at the kitchen table with your homework, while the smell of dinner cooking permeates the air. I still can't smell onions frying without feeling like a little kid. My whole body relaxes: it's like a drug. I know I'm in a HOME when I smell cooking onions.
And cooking for yourself is LOVING yourself. Cooking for others is loving them too, in ways they will always remember. Seriously. Think about eating cookies at your grandma's house, or tuna noodle casserole (if like me, you had family from the Midwest and South U.S.). Certain holidays wouldn't be holidays without certain dishes. What's Thanksgiving without turkey? For me, Christmas will always mean Shrimp fra Diavolo, even though we only made it once, because it was such an ordeal. (Do not EVER decide to devein 5 pounds of shrimp at once, even when your mom thinks it's a good idea. It takes FOREVER.) I hear folks in England cook goose on Christmas (that's on my list of things to try; I've never had goose and I'm SO CURIOUS).
Food is our connection to our family, our culture, our SELVES. All the way back to Grog in the cave. When I roast a chicken, in some primal way, I'm reaching back through time to touch hands with my grandmother, my great-grandmother, with my great-GREAT-grandmother, all the way back, through generations I don't even remember, parent after parent, all placing a bird over a heat source in order to feed a family.
There are not many things like that left. Not many things that connect us all the way back to ancestors who have long since faded out of time and memory. But placing a foodstuff over a fire, or even slicing it up and eating it raw . . . those things are as embedded in us as the fight-or-flight instinct.
If you can eat, you can cook. And you will never be sorry you learned how.
I know there are people reading this (or who WILL read this) who already know how to cook. But I've talked to innumerable people over the last few months who really profess that they don't know how to cook. So if you're one of those people, listen up. You can cook. I promise.
Humans have been cooking for thousands of years. Ever since Grog threw a leftover mastodon rib on the fire to incinerate it, and came out of the cave a few hours later grunting, "Hey, that smells GOOD," we have been cooking. It's surprisingly easy to learn. I am of the firm (and totally unscientific opinion) that it's probably encoded somewhere in our DNA at this point. It's CERTAINLY more instinctive than reading or writing, and yet most of us learn to both read AND write, but a lot of us (at least here in the U.S.) never learn to cook.
But here's the big secret: if you eat - if you've ever eaten anything, ANYTHING AT ALL, that you LIKED - you can cook.
Because 99% of cooking just boils down to knowing what you like. Hate nuts? DON'T COOK WITH THEM. Ta-da! Cooking lesson the first, right there. ;) Even if you aren't familiar with cooking, you probably know of at least a few things that you like or dislike. Fresh tuna. Canned tuna. Tomatoes. Eggplant. Beef. Pork. Tofu. Soy sauce. Pasta. At least one or two of those things elicited either a YUM response or an EW, NO WAY response. That's the first step. Beyond that, think about what you like and WHY you like it. Like Thai food? Why? Because it's spicy? Then you will probably like other spicy food: chili sauce, jalapenos, buffalo wing sauce, etc. Hate spicy food? Then you know you WON'T cook with those ingredients, no matter what the recipe says.
See, here's the thing: the surest way to cook something that tastes good, is to cook what YOU think will taste good. Yeah, ok, we all have individual preferences (when I'm just cooking for myself I add WAY more garlic than I would otherwise because I LOVE IT - no, really: I can eat it RAW), but you'd be amazed to discover how many people like the same things that you do. (But not raw garlic. Unless you're cooking for me. Most other people don't like it so much. Who knew?)
And the only way to figure out what you like? Is to eat. And then cook. Try it. Experiment. If you don't have an ingredient, imagine what that ingredient tastes like (sweet? salty? sour? tangy? creamy?) and see if you have something else in the fridge that is similar. Swap it out and see what happens.
Cooking is a gloriously messy endeavor. No, not in the too-many-pots-and-pans sense (dude, I'd never do it if I had to dirty every pan in the house). It's messy in the sense that you can swap out ingredients, tinker with cooking times and methods, alter amounts, WHATEVER, and it usually stands a reasonably good chance of tasting just fine. Sometimes it'll taste better than other times, but it will really be the rare dish that is totally inedible. (Don't try this with baking. Baking is SERIOUS, people. Mess with the amount of yeast in your bread dough and it WILL NOT BE PRETTY. I'M NOT KIDDING. Follow baking directions to the LETTER. See how many capital letters I used? That's because I'M SERIOUS. ;D)
And let's be honest. In the Western world, cooking is love. Think about coming home from school, or camping out at the kitchen table with your homework, while the smell of dinner cooking permeates the air. I still can't smell onions frying without feeling like a little kid. My whole body relaxes: it's like a drug. I know I'm in a HOME when I smell cooking onions.
And cooking for yourself is LOVING yourself. Cooking for others is loving them too, in ways they will always remember. Seriously. Think about eating cookies at your grandma's house, or tuna noodle casserole (if like me, you had family from the Midwest and South U.S.). Certain holidays wouldn't be holidays without certain dishes. What's Thanksgiving without turkey? For me, Christmas will always mean Shrimp fra Diavolo, even though we only made it once, because it was such an ordeal. (Do not EVER decide to devein 5 pounds of shrimp at once, even when your mom thinks it's a good idea. It takes FOREVER.) I hear folks in England cook goose on Christmas (that's on my list of things to try; I've never had goose and I'm SO CURIOUS).
Food is our connection to our family, our culture, our SELVES. All the way back to Grog in the cave. When I roast a chicken, in some primal way, I'm reaching back through time to touch hands with my grandmother, my great-grandmother, with my great-GREAT-grandmother, all the way back, through generations I don't even remember, parent after parent, all placing a bird over a heat source in order to feed a family.
There are not many things like that left. Not many things that connect us all the way back to ancestors who have long since faded out of time and memory. But placing a foodstuff over a fire, or even slicing it up and eating it raw . . . those things are as embedded in us as the fight-or-flight instinct.
If you can eat, you can cook. And you will never be sorry you learned how.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Hello and welcome!
So a while back, Mom and I decided to write a bunch of recipes and launch a cooking show. But that was too much work. Mostly work that we didn't really know how to go about doing, even though I live in LA and work in the film industry. So we decided to write a cookbook. But . . . it turns out that writing? Is a lot of work - without a lot of feedback. And I can't speak for Mom, but I LIVE for feedback. Seriously. And the thought of writing a cookbook, all those recipes, for a year or a year and a half without hearing people tell me how fantastic we were or how horrible we were? The stuff of nightmares, I tell you! ;)
No, really. We like to cook. I eat meat, and she doesn't. And not to toot my mom's horn for her, but her recipes? ROCK. They're not all grain- and pasta-based, so you won't overload on simple carbs while trying to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle, and they ACTUALLY TASTE GOOD. I know, I know. Vegetarian food usually tastes like health food. (Well, in my opinion, anyway.) But hers does NOT. Even meat-eaters like my mom's food. Even *I* like my mom's food!
And as for me, well, I learned from the best. (I wonder if that will get me a good birthday present? Mom? No? Crap.) I do usually cook with meat, although a lot of my recipes are alterable to fit a veggie lifestyle.
And the reason for a blog? Well, eventually we hope to use the content from here to launch a cooking website that will include everything from advanced recipes to easy, throw-it-together-in-10-minutes dinners. (If that last subject is your preference, search labels for "What I Ate For Dinner.")
ANYWAY. I'll stop rambling now. Things you should know:
I'll post a new recipe every Sunday.
Mom will post a new recipe every Wednesday.
In between we might post extra recipes, funny stories about dinners (and dinner disasters - ask Mom about my Minute Rice), random soapbox essays, whatever.
We probably won't post every day (at least in the beginning), but you're guaranteed new content Sunday and Wednesday.
We hope you'll come back and tell us how the recipes worked out for you! :)
No, really. We like to cook. I eat meat, and she doesn't. And not to toot my mom's horn for her, but her recipes? ROCK. They're not all grain- and pasta-based, so you won't overload on simple carbs while trying to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle, and they ACTUALLY TASTE GOOD. I know, I know. Vegetarian food usually tastes like health food. (Well, in my opinion, anyway.) But hers does NOT. Even meat-eaters like my mom's food. Even *I* like my mom's food!
And as for me, well, I learned from the best. (I wonder if that will get me a good birthday present? Mom? No? Crap.) I do usually cook with meat, although a lot of my recipes are alterable to fit a veggie lifestyle.
And the reason for a blog? Well, eventually we hope to use the content from here to launch a cooking website that will include everything from advanced recipes to easy, throw-it-together-in-10-minutes dinners. (If that last subject is your preference, search labels for "What I Ate For Dinner.")
ANYWAY. I'll stop rambling now. Things you should know:
I'll post a new recipe every Sunday.
Mom will post a new recipe every Wednesday.
In between we might post extra recipes, funny stories about dinners (and dinner disasters - ask Mom about my Minute Rice), random soapbox essays, whatever.
We probably won't post every day (at least in the beginning), but you're guaranteed new content Sunday and Wednesday.
We hope you'll come back and tell us how the recipes worked out for you! :)
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