sensual cooking and spiral staircases

Congrats to my music partner Jodi, whose Muse's Muse site was mentioned in this Chicago Sun-Times article yesterday!

Sadly, it looks as if I'm going to have to miss another Irish music session at the Tranzac tonight. I think I may as well give up on going to sessions until after GAfilk. With weekly Urban Tapestry practices and all the prep we're doing these days, I can't keep up my session practice as well. Hopefully I won't forget all my tunes meanwhile! :-)

My current favourite cookbook is the Sofra Cookbook: Modern Turkish and Middle Eastern Cookery by Hüseyin Özer, which I discovered through my friend Justin's mother. Every recipe I've tried from this book has come out wonderfully, and it all looks and tastes so great. My only complaint is that the recipe titles are so dull, but at least you know what you get upfront. :-)



Recently I made Pasta With Aubergine And Red Vegetables (see what I mean?) and a Salad Of Spinach, Feta, Walnut and Pear. Yum. Jeff liked both so much that he asked if he could take leftovers to work today. I especially liked the pasta dish, which included chopped fresh tomatoes, red pepper and crushed chilies. I would have been intimidated by the recipe's call for PEELED tomatoes a couple years ago, but Sibylle Machat showed me an easy shortcut (blanch the tomatoes first, making them super-easy to peel).

My favourite recipe from the book is the Kisir. It's somewhat time-consuming to prepare because of all the chopping, but the resulting bulgur salad mixed with nuts, fresh herbs and fresh vegetables is heavenly, especially when eaten on lettuce leaves or pita.



Plus now that I can chop (a few years ago I couldn't because of tendinitis), I savour the preparation process, making it part of the whole enjoyment of cooking. Especially with kisir, when you're chopping fresh parsley, mint and dill. I've always been a fragrance person. Not as in perfume (which I rarely wear) but as in fresh herbs and spices.

I love the scent of freshly picked basil. Cinnamon sends me dreaming of exotic places. I keep a pot of rosemary in the kitchen; I hope it survives the winter. Every so often when I'm at the sink, I'll reach out an pinch off a leaf or two to sniff. If I lived alone, I'd probably fill the entire garden with herbs and vegetables. My garden would probably look ugly, but the scents (and culinary uses!) would keep me happy.

I'm surprised more cooks aren't poets as well, what with the wonderful sensuality in the whole cooking and eating process. Two side benefits from my doing more cooking and us eating out less often: we're saving a ton of money (we used to eat out a LOT) and also eating much healthier.



I used to consider cooking just a necessary hassle one had to endure in order to eat. My idea of "cooking" was to buy something premade I could just stick in the oven or microwave and hopefully not burn. I still do that sometimes and understand why many busy families rely on this sort of meal on a regular basis, but in the past year I've been purposely taking a bit more time so I can actually enjoy the process. Not just the cooking part, but the choosing of a recipe (I still heavily rely on cookbooks), shopping for fresh ingredients, preparing and serving the food. It also forces me to get outside for some fresh air and exercise. I try to combine the grocery shopping trip with a power walk/run.

And while we're on the topic of cooking, I admit I have a weakness for blog posts that talk in wonderful and excruciating detail about cooking. Like this post by Gwen K. who describes how she fed a family of three for a week on a single chicken.

Tonight I think I'm going to try Ginger-Mint Stir-Fry Chicken, a recipe I found online. I'm intrigued by the idea of combining ginger and mint. I need to find some fish sauce, though; I hope they sell this at my local mega-grocery store in the international section. Unfortunately our new neighbourhood doesn't have a Chinatown nearby.



Photo above: The spiral staircase in our house, which is scheduled for removal today, with Jeff's telescope stored beneath it. It leads upstairs to a library and Jeff's office. The bottom step is a different colour because Jeff was experimenting with paint hues. The staircase was one of the attractive features of the house when we first saw it.



After living here over a year now, however, we've decided that as cool as the staircase might be, we could really use the space more effectively. We rarely use the stairs because there is a regular set of stairs only a few feet away. If the staircase was removed, then we could put shelves along that wall, plus closing up the ceiling would give Jeff more room to work with upstairs in his home office.

I'll take some "after" shots as well and post them in an upcoming Blathering.

Links and Miscstuff:

Looks like Peter Jackson won't be directing The Hobbit :-(
(thanks to Craig for the link)

Store Wars
(thanks to Reid for the link)

And here's a nice e-mail I received recently about my daily comics on NaNoWriMo:

---
"Just got to say that I love your cartoons for nanowrimo... and reading your
homepage I see that you were Inkspot! I loved Inkspot and in the way of
many things web I had no idea where it went when one day it wasn't.
Now I know. So thank you. :-) Must get back to the insane nanoing.""
---

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