food

I love food.
I love everything about it.
I love to shop the market, love the grocery store, the gourmet shop, the baking supply store, the cheese shop, the butcher, the farm.
I love to take a collection of disparate ingredients and put them together
to make something beautiful and delicious.
I love fresh, in season, quality food. I love to develop its flavour. I love to serve food.
I love to make people happy with meals, desserts.
I might not always hit the mark, but I really try.
It's an ever increasing passion.

I love to watch chefs prepare food, this is a longstanding fixation. . from watching Julia Child on PBS in the early 70s, to Food Network's molecular gastronomists like Heston Blumenthal, the Rubino brothers from Rain, i watch and watch. . there is almost nothing I love more than seeing things stirred, sauteed, melted, poured, ladeled, browned, chopped, minced, kneaded and glazed.
I love to think of cooking.
I love to pore over my food magazines, cookbooks. I love to plan menus.
I try not to waste food, that makes me sad.
I get giddy thinking about buying a new knife.
I love my sharpening steel.
I love my copper bottomed, heavy gauge stainless cookware.
I love tongs.
I love my microplane grater.
I love smoked paprika.
I love grey salt.
I love thyme and parsley.
I love vanilla beans.
I love melting chocolate over simmering water.
I love fresh pineapple.
I love cinnamon and fresh ginger.
I love to work with. .
a fresh cut of meat,
a fragrant, piney bunch of rosemary,
fresh, ruby coloured berries,
a dense loaf of bread,
beautiful 'rainbow' carrots with lacy green tops,
golden paper-wrapped bars of french bittersweet chocolate,
amber jars of melon blossom honey,
blocks of pale yellow butter,
the most wonderful things I can afford . it makes such a difference.

You can't make bad food taste good, but you can make great food taste amazing, if you respect it, respect the gift of the ingredients, respect the preparation techniques and respect the people you will be serving.

I don't really enjoy eating at restaurants. . I feel too removed from the process, I don't know what they're doing to the food. I don't know what kind of ingredients they're working with. Do they care about quality? Are they fry happy? Do they nuke everything? Do they use frozen, canned, packaged? Do they care? Are they handling food safely? There are too many unknowns. Makes me angry when people don't care. I'd rather go hungry. I want to go into their kitchens, their walk in fridges, their freezers . .or maybe I don't? Cooking at home is the way to go. . unless you can find those people out there who love good food, who can do it justice.

I spend pretty much every day daydreaming of recipes, ingredients.
I work at my job, but my mind is always dreaming of running a shop,
baking, serving, catering, planning events, talking to customers. .

Who knows, some day I might take a giant risk and go for it?!
In the meantime there are cookbooks to collect, food to make, new ingredients to try.
*smile*