Yum!
Today was baking day. Made several batches of madelines - some to take to work, some to give to my brother's family and some to keep at home. Also broke out the bread machine for the first time in a few years (it still works!) and baked two loaves of buttermilk bread. Everything is yummy and right now the whole house smells of lemons, vanilla and yeast.
It's funny when I hear other people talking about cooking like it's a huge chore. Sure, when I come home from work and I'm exhausted it can be an enormous pain in the ass to try to figure out what to cook (as well as try to think of something that is good but quick to make since I don't get home until late). But when I really have time to spend all day in the kitchen? I love that. I find it so relaxing. It doesn't matter what I'm making - a pot of chili, pasta sauce, soup or a full holiday dinner. It's amost meditative for me.
When I travel, my favorite thing is to visit local markets and get a real sense of what people like to eat there and what things are important to them. And the running gag in my family is that when anyone else travels, they bring home tee shirts. I bring home groceries. Sometimes I break out something that I bought overseas and it just brings me back - the saffron I bought in Spain, the tea from Japan, the tea from Ireland... Some of my fondest vacation memories were at the markets. Like when I found the San Miguel market in Madrid and spent the afternoon sampling different cheeses and sausages or the morning market in Takayama where this sweet little woman sold me a bag of the biggest and sweetest apple slices I ever had.
Think that next week, I'm going to make a big pot of my grandmother's vegetable soup. We call it "garbage soup" because it can be pretty much made with whatever vegetables are cluttering the vegetable bin in the fridge (she used it as a way of clearing out old stuff before it went bad). It's just the thing to enjoy on a cold winter day.
Darn... now am getting hungry.
It's funny when I hear other people talking about cooking like it's a huge chore. Sure, when I come home from work and I'm exhausted it can be an enormous pain in the ass to try to figure out what to cook (as well as try to think of something that is good but quick to make since I don't get home until late). But when I really have time to spend all day in the kitchen? I love that. I find it so relaxing. It doesn't matter what I'm making - a pot of chili, pasta sauce, soup or a full holiday dinner. It's amost meditative for me.
When I travel, my favorite thing is to visit local markets and get a real sense of what people like to eat there and what things are important to them. And the running gag in my family is that when anyone else travels, they bring home tee shirts. I bring home groceries. Sometimes I break out something that I bought overseas and it just brings me back - the saffron I bought in Spain, the tea from Japan, the tea from Ireland... Some of my fondest vacation memories were at the markets. Like when I found the San Miguel market in Madrid and spent the afternoon sampling different cheeses and sausages or the morning market in Takayama where this sweet little woman sold me a bag of the biggest and sweetest apple slices I ever had.
Think that next week, I'm going to make a big pot of my grandmother's vegetable soup. We call it "garbage soup" because it can be pretty much made with whatever vegetables are cluttering the vegetable bin in the fridge (she used it as a way of clearing out old stuff before it went bad). It's just the thing to enjoy on a cold winter day.
Darn... now am getting hungry.