Cooking

I have an endless collection of wonderful recipes. So many, in fact, that sometimes I forget as I gaze into the refrigerator trying to decide what to make for dinner.

My refrigerator is full of seasonal fresh vegetables and fruits from the farmer's market.

So what is my dilemma?

Olivier Said and Chef Mikec address it perfectly in the first few lines of their book, Kitchen on Fire, "Let's face it, America is addicted to recipes. No generation has been better equipped for greatness in the kitchen than today's home cook. We have the tools, the finest farm-fresh and imported ingredients, access to an unparalled wealth of how-to information, and a million or so recipes."

And then they pose the question, "Yet how many of us can compose a delicious dish from scratch?"

Honestly, this is my problem. I do not have the confidence to merely create. If I don't have the recipe in hand and all the ingredients, I feel like the task is overwhelming. I stand and look in the refrigerator calculating all the ingredients I am missing and dread another trip to the grocery store because so many of my recipes do not take advantage of seasonal produce or else it combines non-seasonal produce. It is overwhelming and crazy. I spend hours trying to find healthy recipes that include the ingredients I have.

Frankly, it is time I do not have, and suddenly the kitchen I used to love feels suffocating.

Last summer, I watched my cousin create glorious food in her kitchen. She chops. She stirs. She tastes. She tosses in a bit of this and bit of that all while chatting comfortably. It is like watching an artist. Afterwards, I am awestruck by the end result, and I am left wondering how she really did it? She makes it look so easy.

I went home inspired to use my recipes as guidelines, but I soon returned to my comfort zone carefully following my recipes.

Then last fall, my aunt was reminiscing about my grandmother's cooking. She didn't even use recipes, she merely used her hands to measure, and the end result was utterly masterful! Just the memory of her food makes me smile. As a child, I remember traipsing out to the garden with her. The lush green plants were heavy with produce. Brusquely, she would begin harvesting with a knowing snap here and there. Soon her arms and mine were full. Then back in the kitchen she would go, and I would scamper off to play, but slowly the tantalizing aroma of cooking food would waft from the kitchen and we would drift back into the savory kitchen. Our little tummies were hungry and grandma's food never failed to satisfy--even her green vegetables were good!

With these things mulling in my mind, I was browsing the food section in the paper one morning when the "addicted to recipes" quote above popped out at me, so I proceeded to read about the cooking school across the bay that is trying to revolutionize the way we cook by teaching the science of cooking. The foundation is built upon understanding the scientific reactions in the different methods of cooking. As I flip through their book (which I promptly found at the library), I am fascinated about what I have already learned in the beginning chapters and curious what will unfold in the pages ahead.

The potential freedom to be creative once I understand the formulas is lifting the oppressive bonds of cooking in my mind.

So, I sit here reading what my grandmother probably already understood about cooking at a young age and contemplating the irony that I could have learned more from her when I was younger if I hadn't thought I already knew so much more.