Cooking

My friend Nance has been tagged in a meme, and she has taken it and twisted it in her own way.  The meme is a series of questions, and instead of popping them all into one long list with quick answers, she is using each question as a blog post of its own, and telling an entire story around that question.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I’ve noticed.  I don’t know why, but I do know that when I get out of the habit of blogging daily, or at least a couple of times a week, my mindset changes, and I forget all about my poor blog, and I stop looking at the world as blog post material.  So, in an effort to blog more, and since I don’t have any ideas of my own right now, and because I like the questions Nance is answering, I’m going to grab some of them and answer them here.

Here goes:  Is there anything you don’t or won’t cook?

There are different ways to look at this question.  Things I don’t cook, but might if I lived a different life.  And things I won’t cook, because I refuse.

For example, I (generally) don’t cook pork chops, because neither Ted nor Maya like them, and I can always order them at a restaurant if I so choose.  I (generally) don’t cook Brussels sprouts, for the same reason.  Last week, however, I decided I really wanted pork chops and Brussels sprouts for dinner, so I made them for myself, and I made hamburgers and onion rings for Ted and Maya.  Everyone was happy.  I may revise this don’t and make it a do, and repeat this method of getting what I want.

Another thing I don’t cook often is dishes with raisins.  Ted doesn’t like any dried fruit, so why torture him?  I don’t cook zucchini very often because Maya doesn’t like it, and why torture her?  I am sometimeish about zucchini myself.  Once in awhile I’ll have it and it’s very good, and other times it just tastes bitter to me.  I don’t cook bok choy very often, because I don’t like it, and why torture myself?  Sometimes Ted has it and Maya and I have something else that we enjoy.

Neither Ted nor Maya are big fans of pork.  They’ll make an exception for sausage, and sometimes I’ll make a soup that includes bacon, but that’s about as far as they want to go.  They’re weird that way.

I won’t cook liver, because, duh.  Gross.  Same with other organ meats.  Too gross.

My weirdest won’t cook thing is probably that I refuse to cook with a crock pot or slow cooker or whatever else one might call that contraption.  We had one when I was a kid, and I never liked the food that came out of it.  Perhaps it was cheap.  Perhaps we did something wrong.  But it seems to me that all too often, the dish would scorch at the bottom, and perfume the entire meal with that nasty scorched flavor.  Nasty.  I’ve heard that crock pots have come a long way in the last 30 years, and perhaps this is true.  I am unlikely to ever find out.  Never say never.  I could find myself working at a job where I don’t get home until 6:30, and the idea of having a crock pot simmering away my meal throughout the day sounds heavenly to me.  I’ve never had that life.  I’ve been fortunate enough that I have always had somewhat flexible schedules, and at the present, I work from home.  So I can easily cook whenever and whatever I desire.  I’ve found a few crock pot type recipes in my day that I just have to try, and I just put them in my dutch oven, double cover it (cover with foil, and then the lid), and put it in the oven on a low heat for hours.  This is not economical, as running the oven for hours SURELY takes a lot more energy than a crock pot.  So if I were to fall in love with enough of these recipes, I guess I would break down and buy one.  But I doubt it.

Aside from not wanting to cook with a crock pot, and not often making things that we don’t like, I really enjoy cooking.  It’s relaxing to me, and I enjoy the time in the kitchen listening to my iPod and drinking a glass of wine while preparing a meal for my family.  I’m not an intuitive cook, so I tend to go by recipes.  But sometimes that’s half the fun, going out and finding a recipe that looks interesting, and giving it a try.