I’m a very hungry girl. What this means is a few things, but primarily it boils down to: I am NEVER full. I have an insatiable appetite for food and, since I consider food to be one of the most important things in life, I suppose I have an insatiable appetitie for life as well.
Love, family, entertainment, experience…..food encompasses all of these things. And what else, really, is there?! I know I’m not alone, which is why you’re reading this, right?
This love affair with food was a recent event. Growing up, I never was too crazy about cooking. Though I’ve always, like a true Pisces, tended towards the creative aspect of things, I never saw the creativity that goes hand -in -hand with cooking, presenting, and entertaining. Honestly, I thought all that jazz just got in the way of what I was really concerned with, which was eating. This is not to say that I didn’t have any examples of the joy that cooking can produce growing up- my mother is 100% Italian and is a wonderful cook who shaped many a tradition with her food. But when I say I was just a food slob, not snob, trust me- if you were to page through family photo albums, you would spend a large portion of the time laughing and exclaiming “What a hungry girl you were!” and “Oh my god, look at that mess!”, and then eventually, with concern, “Jesus, do you ever stop?!” Not really…..but sort of.
Lucky for me (& my waistline), my tastes have always been more on the healthy, organic side; more wheat bread than white, more raw sugar than refined sugar. I’ve always held the belief that the closer a food is to it’s natural form,the better it is for you. And the healthier version always tastes better to me anyway.
So here I was, hungry, healthy, and hopeless in the kitchen.Then I met my husband, and things changed. Well, a lot changed, but this is a love story about food, not my husband.
My entire mindset about cooking changed. I remember the first dinner I ever made for him.
It was my sophomore year of college. I was living with 3 girls at the time, next to our group of 5 guy friends. We were a melange of personalties. A motley crew. Not exactly gourmet types, myself included. Canned tuna and microwaveable Gardenburgers was about the extent of it.
I had just met this great guy (whom I was not-so-secretively infatuated with) and he was coming over for dinner. My roommates and the guys-next-door would be gone for awhile, so I would have the house to myself. I had actually never made a “dinner” for a guy up until this point, and visions of appetizers and soups and steaks and sides and cakes danced through my head like a 1950’s housewives’ nightmare. How the hell was I supposed to make a Thanksgiving-caliber feast in just a few hours?!
Then I calmed down. As usual, I was making things a much bigger deal in my head than they would end up being in reality. I figured a nice Italian-style roasted chicken, some (boxed) whole wheat stuffing, some mashed sweet potatoes, and salad with cranberries and walnuts would do well, with (boxed, Dr. Oetker’s) carrot muffins for dessert. It was spring, by the way, not fall.
So I set out. And upon commencing preparation for my “gourmet” meal for my new boyfriend, I found myself with my hand up a chicken’s ass. Yep. I took out all the gizzards myself, on my first try.
When you’re first starting out cooking, you find yourself looking at a recipe every 3 minutes, just to make sure you’re not missing anything- miscalcualting an ingredient…..baking a salad……you know the drill. I was so nervous about impressing this new guy; making him think I’m the “perfect girl.”
I don’t exactly remember any of the mistakes, if any, I made while preparing that first dinner for the man that would become my husband. But he became my husband, so obviously the chicken, at least, was on par. And I seem to remember a kissing frenzy before he even finished his muffin…..
Thus began my love affair with food. There were a few years where I took a brief sabbatical from the kitchen, due mostly to the fact that my husband and I lived in downtown Buffalo for 3 years and thus never ceased to want to frequent the chic restaurants that seemed to crop up endlessly. My oven didn’t speak to me for months thereafter. This is a real relationship, remember.
I seemed to kick into high gear, cooking-wise, when we bought our house 3 years ago. I felt that now I really was somewhat of a housewife (simply in that I hadn’t heard of such a thing as “apartmentwife”). I wanted to make nice meals that would, somewhere down the road, be associated with a great memory, if not just the great span of years that were the first years of our marriage- sans kids.
I began clipping out recipes from magazines like Real Simple, Coastal Living…always recipes that were simple, easy, and healthy. I made my own cookbook with these recipes, and found great joy in having found a new hobby.
I began trying out these recipes on my husband. I found some winners (Angel hair pasta with lump crabmeat and sauteed zucchini, shrimp and fennel pot pie, proscuitto-wrapped pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes and pears) and some losers ,whose accompanying recipe was tossed with disgust and spite after the disappointment of it’s execution.
I liked that I could no longer count on my hands the number of good dinners I had made for my husband. I liked that I now wanted to entertain, and no longer looked at the prospect as a nightmarish affair of people judging my poor cooking skills, and roasting me and my non-existent culinary skills amongst each other in the car ride home. I liked that I was finding my own palate and my own style (simple yet elegant, if I do say so myself).
Food has infiltrated almost every minute of my free time. Food network is on 24/7 in my house. My husband may not come home to “Hey babe”; rather, Giada De Laurentiis greeting him via satellite with Ricotta Gnocchi and Basil sauce (she’s not bad to look at, so it works out well.) I scour Edible Buffalo looking for local Harvest Dinners to attend during the fall and find recipes for Squash Buttermilk soup. I immediately check urbanspoon.com for the top 25 restaurants in an area I’m about to visit upon booking the trip.
Along with this blossoming love affair with food comes a complete appreciation for ingredients. I love the fresh herbs I potted this year (basil, chives, cilantro, parsley, and mint), and use them morning, noon, and night (and late night- fresh mint for my mojito? Don’t mind if I do). My morning breakfast has gone from plain yogurt with granola to an egg on a multigrain sandwich thin with apricot preserves,a little butter, fresh chives, tomato, and arugula (try it- it’s soooo good). And, perhaps because of the care and thought I put into what I eat now, I actually sit down and take the time to enjoy it, rather than eating while I’m walking up a flight of stairs, as was the usual for a very long time.
I feel like, once you have a real appreciation for food (and those who grow it, cook it, etc), everything is elevated. A dinner isn’t just a means to feed oneself, it’s a chance to experience something new, to maybe open your eyes to an ingredient you might use in your next great dish. It’s not just about shovelling food in your mouth, though, ask anyone, I’m still the first to finish their dish at the table and move on to that of my poor, unassuming husband. It’s about enjoying what may be in season locally, or trying a dish from a different country and getting a taste of what it’s like there.
Though it is certainly on trend to be “into” food right now (aka the term “foodie”), and though I’ve always hated to lump myself in with everyone else and with whatever is trendy at the movement, I like to think of my graduation from microwaveable food products to shrimp and fennel pot pie as a natural, personal growth that just so happened to coincide with the advent of the food truck.
Once a hungry girl, always a hungry girl. So, those of you who know what it means to be more excited about Prosciutto and Melon pizza than the newest ipod app, let’s sit down, have a glass of wine, and knock forks. Here’s to love, life, and the pursuit of halibut.