I never cared for food, in the sense that it drove me to learn how to craft the skill. I had a house full of kids, and kept working those tired old food patterns from my upbringing. I married an Italian, and so all of a sudden it was lots of pasta and bread and cheese because it was cheap and filling, and let’s face it, easy to do. Once you get noodles down and a basic red sauce, you’ve got spaghetti, lasagna, raviolis, cannelloni, and chicken cacciatore.
I'm not sure I'd describe myself as a basic cook. There was no heart in it. So although some things were made more from scratch, the usual tacos involved opening cans, adding a flavor packet, stirring in some sautéed meat, adding shredded cheese and lettuce and dicing a tomato. I’d never even lived with anyone who had raised a garden.
So when I was laid off in 2009, it became an ideal time to learn to cook. By then the internet had a lot of resources, and it was easy to read what others had to say, those who had tried the recipes first.
The news was full of GMOs around then, and how fast- and processed- and sugary – and salty – and fatty – foods had become in America. We were on the slow crawl away from the old meals needing to have a starch, a protein and a veggie for every meal. The better the skill, the bigger the options. Who knew that cooking was a confidence game?
City life with a swimming pool and an all-concrete back yard had started to lose its allure and change and I we began to yearn for a place where we could live in a more natural and peaceful, self sustaining way. I especially wanted a little elbow room, as the Hubs puts it. We found ourselves taking long drives in the country and chatting about the homesteads we’d pass … wouldn’t it be nice to have a place like that with room for — anything we wanted ? It seemed the most natural thing in the world for city kids to want chickens and a goat… and a place a ways out of town.
And then one day there was this little forgotten farmhouse from a foreclosure and sitting on an acre of beautiful workable soil. I wanted it. Bad. We took a crash course in wells, septic systems and propane, and put up the first-ever garage and workshop, and the first thing I did after settling in was plant a garden.
I'm not sure I'd describe myself as a basic cook. There was no heart in it. So although some things were made more from scratch, the usual tacos involved opening cans, adding a flavor packet, stirring in some sautéed meat, adding shredded cheese and lettuce and dicing a tomato. I’d never even lived with anyone who had raised a garden.
So when I was laid off in 2009, it became an ideal time to learn to cook. By then the internet had a lot of resources, and it was easy to read what others had to say, those who had tried the recipes first.
The news was full of GMOs around then, and how fast- and processed- and sugary – and salty – and fatty – foods had become in America. We were on the slow crawl away from the old meals needing to have a starch, a protein and a veggie for every meal. The better the skill, the bigger the options. Who knew that cooking was a confidence game?
City life with a swimming pool and an all-concrete back yard had started to lose its allure and change and I we began to yearn for a place where we could live in a more natural and peaceful, self sustaining way. I especially wanted a little elbow room, as the Hubs puts it. We found ourselves taking long drives in the country and chatting about the homesteads we’d pass … wouldn’t it be nice to have a place like that with room for — anything we wanted ? It seemed the most natural thing in the world for city kids to want chickens and a goat… and a place a ways out of town.And then one day there was this little forgotten farmhouse from a foreclosure and sitting on an acre of beautiful workable soil. I wanted it. Bad. We took a crash course in wells, septic systems and propane, and put up the first-ever garage and workshop, and the first thing I did after settling in was plant a garden.
