“For starters, learn how to cook.” That’s the advice that poet laureate Charles Simic offered in last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine (2/3/08) to those who are looking to be happy.
Being happy is a condition that is on many of writer’s minds. Maybe on the GP (General Public’s) mind, too. Today the Times “Style” section about “Modern Love” mused about the notion that only the very young (twenties) and the very old (seventy-plus) are happy, and that middle age is a time of unhappiness. That may be truer today when most people postpone having children and reach middle age with kids at home and aging parents and stale careers and big mortgages and all those worries. Marriage, if you can make it past twenty years, actually improves when the kids leave home. You can be a couple again. If you stayed married and are still speaking. Whatever.
What intrigued me was Simic’s statement that happy people cook. Or maybe are married to a cook. I have to confess that cooking makes me happy. Never thought of it before. Is it nurturing and nourishing others? Dunno. Cooking a lamb chop and some fresh asparagus for moi also makes me happy. Does eating decent food at home make us happy? The ancient idea of gathering around the warm hearth? Something to that effect.
My friend (who does not seem a terribly happy person) and I used to assume cooking duties every summer at an Easthampton house party. The non-cooks were always amazed that we were happy (sic) in the kitchen so many hours a day. We were very happy, almost delerious. Everyone, (almost) contributed. S.O. made his specialty drink, the host whipped up a key lime pie, others chipped in. And we were happy. The hostess was almost never happy and she didn’t cook. Strange, isn’t it. And the broth was never spoiled. Idyllic summer days, now gone.
My grandma sang old hymns in the kitchen while she cooked and did the dishes. She was, I think, happy.
This morning we had the Schaller and Weber bacon and eggs with cherry tomatoes, shallots, mushrooms and chives. Good bread and good jam. And I was happy.
Cooking is a creative act, with manual effort. It engages our mind, our imagination and our hands. Perhaps that makes us happy. “For starters, learn how to cook.”
My protagonist, Emma Lee Spence, likes to cook. Even at Burning Man when she has to deal with picky eaters and primitive facilities, she’s a happy cook. Instinctively.
Treat the cook well. There is an old saying, “she was a good cook, as cooks go, and as cooks go, she went.”
Food for thought.
Showing posts with label Easthampton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easthampton. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Potato Salad Season
Ratatouille, Tomato Bread Salad, Insalata Capreses, and Potato Salad are all wonderful tastes of summer.
Cooking up a storm this week with the house guests. Catering to 3 people, one of whom is a super-picky vegetarian kid who doesn't like macaroni and cheese and spurns a lot of vegetables--a real challenge. I have basically given up pleasing everyone, but the adults were blown away by this potato salad:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105282
I started making it years ago when we went to an annual house party in Easthampton. It never failed to please. Flavors are robust, so if Annie's macaroni and cheese is your idea of flavorful, go for something blander. Nothing against Annie, except that hers was most most tasteless, as in no taste, product I had ever eaten. Hold the cheese, hold the salt, hold the seasonings. Oh well, I guess that's why two year olds only eat plain plain plain. I say give them curry and salsa and Sichuan.
A new movie someone might consider is Toddlers on A Plane, sort of like Snakes on a Plane. They all scream and refuse to sit down and disrupt the safety instruction and pour their sippy cups down the flight attendants shirt fronts. I travelled with toddlers once, and they were taught how to behave.
The most amazing sight I ever saw was a woman alone boarding an overseas flight with four kids, a baby, a toddler and two older (9 - 13 year old) kids. Well, this will be fun, I thought, as they were sitting very close by. What happened was that the 13 year old took the baby, the nine (or thereabouts) took the toddler, and the mom read a magazine. It took a while to figure out that this was a military family, and the kids had always travelled, and the older ones took care of the younger ones. Not that Mom was uninvolved, but she had her leisure to read and there was not a single squawk, screech, or bawl all the way across the Atlantic. There was certainly no holding up of the aircraft's takeoff while the parents "tried to calm" the child. So not every toddler is a terror. I blame the parents for raising a little tyrant.
And it all started with potato salad. Now I am out into the garden to transplant some petunias who really don't like the shade and there is still a bare sunny spot in the garden.
Tonight we are eating potato pancakes (latkes)which everyone likes a lot. With bacon, sour cream and applesauce. Not exactly low cal. I'm making a cherry caflouti for dessert.
Last night we chowed down at Vinny T's in Dedham. Good food and lots of it at reasonable prices. We brought home about two meals worth. It's a good place to take kids, by the way. The salad with blue cheese, apples, walnuts and romaine got four stars in my book. Yum!
Onward with trowel and determination.
Grapeshot
Cooking up a storm this week with the house guests. Catering to 3 people, one of whom is a super-picky vegetarian kid who doesn't like macaroni and cheese and spurns a lot of vegetables--a real challenge. I have basically given up pleasing everyone, but the adults were blown away by this potato salad:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105282
I started making it years ago when we went to an annual house party in Easthampton. It never failed to please. Flavors are robust, so if Annie's macaroni and cheese is your idea of flavorful, go for something blander. Nothing against Annie, except that hers was most most tasteless, as in no taste, product I had ever eaten. Hold the cheese, hold the salt, hold the seasonings. Oh well, I guess that's why two year olds only eat plain plain plain. I say give them curry and salsa and Sichuan.
A new movie someone might consider is Toddlers on A Plane, sort of like Snakes on a Plane. They all scream and refuse to sit down and disrupt the safety instruction and pour their sippy cups down the flight attendants shirt fronts. I travelled with toddlers once, and they were taught how to behave.
The most amazing sight I ever saw was a woman alone boarding an overseas flight with four kids, a baby, a toddler and two older (9 - 13 year old) kids. Well, this will be fun, I thought, as they were sitting very close by. What happened was that the 13 year old took the baby, the nine (or thereabouts) took the toddler, and the mom read a magazine. It took a while to figure out that this was a military family, and the kids had always travelled, and the older ones took care of the younger ones. Not that Mom was uninvolved, but she had her leisure to read and there was not a single squawk, screech, or bawl all the way across the Atlantic. There was certainly no holding up of the aircraft's takeoff while the parents "tried to calm" the child. So not every toddler is a terror. I blame the parents for raising a little tyrant.
And it all started with potato salad. Now I am out into the garden to transplant some petunias who really don't like the shade and there is still a bare sunny spot in the garden.
Tonight we are eating potato pancakes (latkes)which everyone likes a lot. With bacon, sour cream and applesauce. Not exactly low cal. I'm making a cherry caflouti for dessert.
Last night we chowed down at Vinny T's in Dedham. Good food and lots of it at reasonable prices. We brought home about two meals worth. It's a good place to take kids, by the way. The salad with blue cheese, apples, walnuts and romaine got four stars in my book. Yum!
Onward with trowel and determination.
Grapeshot
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