Dear Internet,
Hello!
I know. I know. I'm bad at communicating. That isn't to say I don't still love you, of course, I've just been very, very lazy. Sometimes I get too lost in reality to really sit down and write to everyone - I get distracted by other things like video games, or outings, or the cat. My brain is fickle; sometimes I want to talk for hours, other times I want to be left alone and allowed to think quietly, without having people knowing I'm thinking.
I never said I made sense.
However, recently thanks to a forum I like to frequent I've got back up on the talkative horse again. I decided that I would participate in one of the Goons with Spoons challenges - they call it 'Iron Chef Something Awful'. I entered in the Newbie category, where the challenge was 'breakfast'. Unlike the real show, one just has to create and take pictures of the process of cooking and creating your entry, and do a little write-up. The forum votes on which entry they like best, and then the winner (and a couple runners-up) get prizes provided by the 'Chairman' of that contest.
This was a lot of fun, if not hard (you'll see why after the jump). I don't know if I'll win or not. In fact, I'm fairly certain I won't because there were a LOT of really great entries with great recipes and ideas, but it was fun to try. And this was all over the course of a late morning/early afternoon. Not the hour that a real Iron Chef gets, but hey... I'm new.
This is a transcript of the exact post I put up for my entry. The title was 'I am full of crepe'. Also, this post is full of bad words and silly comments and terrible pictures because I am not a photographer, and I'm sure I'm going to offend people with it. You've been warned!
More after the cut!
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Meat + Fire = Good
"There're no instructions," my husband informed me with a small frown, surrounded by a sea of parts - some black, some chrome, and all of them inconveniently not looking like a barbeque.
"What?" I said, snorting quietly as I looked up over my laptop's screen. I'd come out to the living room to offer moral support - I only say 'moral support' because I can be really annoying when it comes to assembling various household items and it drives him batty. "That's ridiculous. There has to be."
"Not anywhere. This book just has general care guidelines and recipes in three languages," he said, holding the offending bit of newsprint aloft. "Aw, it'll be all right. It's not that hard."
These, as you know, are famous last words. I felt my blood run cold, as if he'd just invited disaster to come sweeping through the apartment and crash on our sofa for an uncomfortably long period of time.
"Are you sure?" I asked, squinting at him.
"Yeah, all I need to do is snap this into here..."
"Let me Google for an instruction manual."
"... and this into here..."
"Lessee... Weber charcoal grill..." Click, click.
"... this goes over here..."
"What the hell?" I stared at my screen, gesturing at it in disgust. "All the links for the instruction manuals on the manufacturer's site are pointing back to the main page!"
"Uh oh. Where does this go?" He frowned at a piece of aluminum in his hand.
"I mean, seriously! Look at this! How stupid is their website maintainer?"
"This doesn't fit." His face scrunched up in dismay as he tried to figure out where to attach, screw, or snap the offending piece.
"If I click on this instruction manual, I expect to be taken to the instruction manual, not the table of contents for all the manuals they have!" I huffed indignantly.
"Hm." *BANG BANG BANG* "Nope. Still doesn't fit."
"I should write a letter."
"Hon?"
"Yeah?"
"This doesn't fit."
Now please don't get the wrong idea, oh gentle reader. The husband and I are not stupid. In fact, we are university educated people - which means that a lot of people with more letters after their names than letters in their names established that we should have functioning brains between our ears, and gave us very expensive bits of paper to hang on our walls and show off at dinner parties (if we had them) and start off the best stories with, "This one time when I was in university...".
However, we could not put together a barbeque without an instruction manual.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
vv More after the jump! vv
Cooking: Dark Chocolate Tart with Gingersnap Crust + Fresh Raspberry Sauce
I love to cook. It's not like I come from a long line of incredible culinary wizards, or anything like that - my family made good, homecooked meals that you long for at the end of a bad day, or look forward to excitedly every holiday season.
For example, my Oma makes incredible schnitzel and dumplings that can make me drool just by thinking about them, and the rest of the family swears by her potato salad (although I'm not a fan of potato salad in general). My Grandma made the most amazing icebox cookies that I remember loving at Christmas because of the red and green maraschino cherries in them, and how good they tasted with walnuts in the brown-sugar based dough. I have lots of fond memories of baking Christmas cookies with my mom (twelve kinds for the twelve days of Christmas, you know). We still have my great-grandmother's recipe on its original hand-written card for 'marzipan' - which isn't marzipan at all, but it is a rice-flour based cake that tastes like almonds.
There is very little I enjoy more than cooking for others. I love that little surge of pride when someone tells me they've enjoyed something I've created for them, or they ask for the recipe. Even those incoherent 'mmm!' noises make me smile, because I brought a little spot of enjoyment for even a moment.
Now there are a million blogs out there that talk about cooking and food far more eloquently than I ever could. They also have a better point of view, and are probably more talented and driven than I am. They also take beautiful pictures that I can't even start to dream of composing. I freely admit that I am a kitchen dabbler in comparison to them. My knifework isn't something legendary, and when I decorate cakes and the like I usually run out of patience before I run out of frosting simply because I lack knowledge, and imperfections in my work bother me to death. I am a perfectionist who discourages herself because if it doesn't turn out just SO, then clearly I am a failure!
I never said it made sense.
I cook because I enjoy the process of taking ingredients and turning them into something delicious, of the bonding that comes over a good meal. It's why we remember the awkward family dinners during the holidays more than we remember the day-to-day ones: somewhere in there are memories, and at the end of the day, that's all we have to take with us.
Now, just because I'm waxing philosophical about family gatherings and the like doesn't mean I grew up in a Leave It To Beaver idyllic family - God, no, we were as dysfunctional as they come! Lots of dinners were uncomfortable affairs no one wanted to be at when I was younger, because the adults were not happy with one another for a variety of reasons, and generations constantly butted heads. But even so, there's always that little gremlin of memory that pops up and reminds you that 'hey, sure, this event was rough but there's this one thing that was really pretty cool'.
In recent years, as I grow older and ostensibly wiser, I remember family dinners far more fondly now - maybe I've developed an appreciation for it that I didn't have as a child. You take a lot for granted when you're little, and you don't think a whole lot about ten years in the future when you've got a plate of roast turkey and stuffing in front of you, you're surrounded by your favourite people in the world, and you know there's dessert waiting. It's about the 'now', instead of the 'later' when you're younger.
That's enough navel-gazing for now, I think.
Let's go on to the whole point of this post: recipes! I just made this delicious dessert last night, and although I don't have pictures of it, it turned out and sounded as elegant as you think it might. The in-laws seemed to appreciate it, and even though the husband and I have been together a long time, there's always that little nudge of pressure to have something turn out just so to impress the other side of the recently-joined family tree.
vv Recipe after the jump! vv
For example, my Oma makes incredible schnitzel and dumplings that can make me drool just by thinking about them, and the rest of the family swears by her potato salad (although I'm not a fan of potato salad in general). My Grandma made the most amazing icebox cookies that I remember loving at Christmas because of the red and green maraschino cherries in them, and how good they tasted with walnuts in the brown-sugar based dough. I have lots of fond memories of baking Christmas cookies with my mom (twelve kinds for the twelve days of Christmas, you know). We still have my great-grandmother's recipe on its original hand-written card for 'marzipan' - which isn't marzipan at all, but it is a rice-flour based cake that tastes like almonds.
There is very little I enjoy more than cooking for others. I love that little surge of pride when someone tells me they've enjoyed something I've created for them, or they ask for the recipe. Even those incoherent 'mmm!' noises make me smile, because I brought a little spot of enjoyment for even a moment.
Now there are a million blogs out there that talk about cooking and food far more eloquently than I ever could. They also have a better point of view, and are probably more talented and driven than I am. They also take beautiful pictures that I can't even start to dream of composing. I freely admit that I am a kitchen dabbler in comparison to them. My knifework isn't something legendary, and when I decorate cakes and the like I usually run out of patience before I run out of frosting simply because I lack knowledge, and imperfections in my work bother me to death. I am a perfectionist who discourages herself because if it doesn't turn out just SO, then clearly I am a failure!
I never said it made sense.
I cook because I enjoy the process of taking ingredients and turning them into something delicious, of the bonding that comes over a good meal. It's why we remember the awkward family dinners during the holidays more than we remember the day-to-day ones: somewhere in there are memories, and at the end of the day, that's all we have to take with us.
Now, just because I'm waxing philosophical about family gatherings and the like doesn't mean I grew up in a Leave It To Beaver idyllic family - God, no, we were as dysfunctional as they come! Lots of dinners were uncomfortable affairs no one wanted to be at when I was younger, because the adults were not happy with one another for a variety of reasons, and generations constantly butted heads. But even so, there's always that little gremlin of memory that pops up and reminds you that 'hey, sure, this event was rough but there's this one thing that was really pretty cool'.
In recent years, as I grow older and ostensibly wiser, I remember family dinners far more fondly now - maybe I've developed an appreciation for it that I didn't have as a child. You take a lot for granted when you're little, and you don't think a whole lot about ten years in the future when you've got a plate of roast turkey and stuffing in front of you, you're surrounded by your favourite people in the world, and you know there's dessert waiting. It's about the 'now', instead of the 'later' when you're younger.
That's enough navel-gazing for now, I think.
Let's go on to the whole point of this post: recipes! I just made this delicious dessert last night, and although I don't have pictures of it, it turned out and sounded as elegant as you think it might. The in-laws seemed to appreciate it, and even though the husband and I have been together a long time, there's always that little nudge of pressure to have something turn out just so to impress the other side of the recently-joined family tree.
vv Recipe after the jump! vv
