In Defense of Food

Lately I haven't posted much.  I started to spend a lot of time worrying about what food I was making, how pretty the picture could be, or what sources I got my recipes from.  But all that started to make cooking much less enjoyable for me, to the point where it became a hassle.

But in the last few weeks, I've slowed started to step away from that a little.  Instead of worrying about what magazine to glean inspiration from, we simply walked around the farmers' market and saw what looked interesting.  Swiss chard?  I didn't like it last time, but let's try braising it with onion and garlic and see what that's like.  Turns out it has a nice texture and the bitterness went away; I figured that it might.  Brussel sprouts?  Let's do the same sort of treatment but sautee them at the end.  Not bad.  I bet I can take that oven softened squash and sautee it to the point where it's a little crispy on the exterior and soft on the inside.  Oh, and throw on some sage.  This seems vastly more interesting than the mad science or chemistry experiments the magazines and books can often provide.  It's food from its simplest and you can see how the parts fit together.

Add to this that my wife and I started to change how we ate: instead of trying to make five courses arrive at the same time, we started taking to making a dish and then snacking on it and talking about it as we prepared another.  Dinner turned into a five course meal that we ate standing up -- yet it was far more fun than sitting at the table with mounds of food we stressed about coordinating.

This was all going on while I had begun to read Michael Pollan's book, "In Defense of Food".  It's a sometimes dry book that basically states that food should be enjoyed, should not be processed and sitting on a shelf, and should be a very conscious aspect of our lives.  A lot of science is thrown into the mix, some of it (as he admits) probably tenuous.  But after having fun and success cooking simple things in simple ways, it makes me want to put down those books and fancy preparations, and roam my local farmers' market even more.  It makes me want a patch of land to grow something on -- to start to cut out that middle man, even if they're a local farmer.