Cooking, Schmooking

 via Bev at Sunday Stealing

1.  How often do you make food and eat it?

If coffee counts, then twice a day.  Toast for my husband and myself in the morning and the bread has at least been made by my own hands. One of the very few lockdown skills learned.

2.  Do you consider toasting bread, preparing instant noodles, or boiling an egg to be cooking? Why or why not?

Can't see why not. If some sort of heat has been applied to a food instead of merely just opening a packet and eating the contents 'as is', then yes, that's cooking.

3.  What’s your favorite dish to make?

As a main course - spaghetti bolognese. It's the ultimate comfort food and I could eat it at least twice a week and be content.  There's loads of other more exciting and posher foods too, but, at a pinch, if spaghetti bolognese is what's for dinner, I'm always smiling.  AND always wearing two paper-roll napkins down my front to catch the sauce I splatter everywhere when slurping up the spaghetti.  It's a particularly attractive look for Dean, he tells me.

Desserts - baked cheesecakes, tiramisu, ANZAC biscuits, choc chip cookies, pavlova, Eton mess, carrot cake.... We don't eat desserts on an average day, so it's fun to bake something deliciously sweet for a dinner party (hello, I'm in France on the third lockdown - what are dinner parties, again?) or special occasion.

4.  Cooking or baking: what’s more fun? What’s more difficult?

Baking is the most fun because it's an activity that you can do when you're in the mood for it and, unlike what is depicted on TV shows, there's no urgent rush for it.  Think of a rainy afternoon, your favourite music on and baking something that's not very healthy but very fun to eat.  The difficulty is in getting the measurements and baking time correct, but that's a minor issue.

Cooking a sensible evening meal is extremely un-fun. My mother would agree.  On a budget in the 1970s with a husband and three growing kids to feed, lamb chops were then the cheapest meat and we had them done via the electric frypan at least four nights a week accompanied by the predictable boiled peas and carrots and mashed potato.  Her other standby was 'stew.'  She wasn't one to sex things up by calling it a 'casserole' or 'surprise.'

I'd like to think that I'm a bit more adventurous, but really that's only due to several decades of increased and expansive culinary trends, availability of more interesting ingredients and the joy of 'one pot' meals.  If I can do a pasta, curry, soup or stir fry in one pot and slop it into a bowl, then that's my work done.  Creativity in the kitchen is something lacking in me.  Looking in the fridge never provides an inspiration other than to take a bite out of the cheese.  Cooking is much more difficult as it has to be done every. damn. night. and somehow be nutritious, interesting and appealing.  The level of gratitude I have for my scientific husband to express his creative skills in cooking extraordinary dinners nearly every night can not be overestimated.

5.  Who did most of the cooking in your house when you were growing up?

Mum. She was a housewife in the 70s but even as a child it was obvious that she would have liked to have spent the necessary time on meals doing something else.  She was (is) a brilliant gardener, singer, sewer, charity participant and is always willing to help others.  As her children found partners, she'd gladly say, 'My kitchen is your kitchen.  Go for it!'

6.  How have you learned the cooking skills that you have?

Not via Home Economics at school or due to natural curiosity, that's for sure.  Necessity after leaving home, then watching Dean.  I've maybe gained 2% of his abilities but none of his enthusiasm.

7.   Have you ever taken a cooking course? If so, what did you learn? If not, would you like to do one? What would you like to learn?

Nope.  I did a bar and waiting course to land a summer job during uni, but a gift voucher for a cooking class would be my idea of an evil joke.  Breadmaking during lockdown is different because it's so simple and kneading it yourself is a sort of soothing 'being in the moment' meditative gesture.  The smell of it baking is also utterly wonderful.  Sometimes I've fantasised about being rich enough to take Dean to a crumbling old castle in Tuscany to learn from an Italian chef, but even he has not taken this idle idea into consideration.  

8.   Have you tried cooking food from another culture? What did you prepare? How was it?

Depends on what you mean by 'another culture' because the recipes I've followed have been by English peeps like Jamie or Nigella or old Women's Weekly cut outs.  These would all be slightly anglicised so that we can get our hands on the ingredients.  Dean has been impressed with the naan breads I made, but, again, I had to thank Mr Oliver's online recipe for that!

9.   Is it cost-effective to do your own cooking? Can you save money by cooking?

Of course! Ingredients and the time taken to cook your own meals is a far cheaper than eating out. However, I don't want to put down anyone who orders more than their fair share of Uber Eats.  My Italian neighbour lives on his own and in his third lockdown, the Uber driver is appearing more often at our front gate.  Claudio told me that it just got tiring and depressing having to cook lunch and dinner day after day, for one person for so long.  Despite having an extended curfew of 7pm (it was 6pm but daylight saving has been taken into account), from tomorrow we are no longer permitted to order food deliveries after 10pm.  That will most definitely reduce the sound of scooters on the street below at midnight!

10.  Would you rather do the cooking or do the washing up afterwards?

Wash up. Every time.  My personal OCD involves constantly putting away vegetable peelings straight into the bin, stacking the dishwasher, soaking pots and wiping down counters; tidying up on the go. Sometimes I put the chopping board or knife in the dishwasher and Dean has to say 'Hey! I'm still using that!' He's been lovingly honest about telling me to stay OUT of the kitchen until the meal is served and only then I can enter and work my OCD magic.  With the incredible meals he makes, this arrangement is perfect.

11.  Do you use recipes to cook? If so, where do you get the best recipes? Do you get them from friends, family, online, or from cookbooks?

I think all Aussies had the famous Women's Weekly cookbook which every person who left home usually got given as a particularly useful present.  I don't have many cookbooks, but do have plastic folders of recipes handwritten by friends or family, printed off the 'net or ripped out of magazines.  The ones that are actually slotted into a separate plastic insert are the holiest of holies because they're the ones that I use and can rely on.

12.  Have you ever tried to prepare some food and just totally ruined it? What happened?

Oh, there's so little time.....  I once nearly broke my flatmate's blender by smooshing raw carrot, onion, tomatoes and celery and then heated up the muck in the microwave until it was boiling.  That it tasted like garden dirt helped me learn that patience and long cooking is key.

Trying out a traybake for American-style macaroni cheese resulted in an unedifying claggy mess that sucked the saliva out of your mouth after the first bite.  Even the dog refused it. Would have made a handy cement for a garden wall though.

Easter hot cross buns in last year's lockdown.  The mixture was supposed to be 'sticky' after the first leavening, but it still seemed too wet and I added more flour.  The results were not dissimilar to office 'stress balls' but studded with a few sad sultanas.  If thrown from our balcony they could have seriously hurt somebody.

13. Do you prefer cooking at home or eating out at a restaurant? Why?

Home. Because it's Dean's cooking.  He doesn't follow recipes, but when we do eat out (again, 'eat out' what's that again?) he takes note of what he's enjoying and then tries it his own way at home. Even in Italy, the pasta dishes we tasted were no better than his. His roasts are spectacular, curries fragrant and varied and when our vegetarian daughter is home his standards of cooking almost seem to improve. His eggplant parmigiana makes me drool just typing about it.

Also, restaurants (places I dimly remember) mean that you can't be yourself, often have to shout to be overheard by the music and can sometimes feel like the lady at the tiny table wedged in next to yours is closer to you than your partner seated opposite you.  The wine list prices are also out of control, especially if you know what they cost at the supermarket.  Plus, it means I have to dress up, which is a pain.

14. Is cooking a social activity for you? Do you like to do it with other people, or do your prefer to do it alone?

Nope.  Not social, not fun, just a chore.   Unless I'm baking, which I do prefer to do alone with music of my choice that is out of earshot (and therefore ridicule) of anyone else in the house.

15. Do you have a lot of cooking equipment? How often do you use it all? Do you have any pieces of equipment that you rarely ever use?

Not as much as you’d think, considering Dean’s talents.  Our apartment is not large, so every appliance has to be really worth it in order to take up precious space.  We have a bamix-style stick blender, coffee machine, kettle, sandwich press and handheld beaters.  All are well used.  Utensils are mainly from IKEA or Swiss supermarkets and do us just fine.

Items such as slow cookers, rice cookers or juicers seem like they’d quickly end up in the storage unit right next to the raclette machine bought on a whim a few years ago.

I'll sign off by 'gifting' you this picture below.  Source unable to be found, but it seems to be from the time when setting anything in jello was the grooviest of party foods, baby. I can truly swear that even my mother ignored this trend, as have I.