A Good Cook?

I have finally figured out that I am not so much a good cook as I am a tenacious recipe collector who loves to cook.  If I eat a particular food that I think is wonderful, tasty, beautiful, etc. then I go after that recipe until I have it. Sometimes it is a matter of asking someone over and over for it, sometimes I look through cookbooks and online to find a recipe I want to try, sometimes I try something new from a favorite cookbook, sometimes I have asked someone to show me how they make a particular recipe, sometimes I keep asking enough questions that I can figure it out and sometimes I just happen to find a great recipe by serendipity!


In October I was at Baker's Cash and Carry and they had some very fine chocolate sprinkles that are real Guittard chocolate.  They reminded me of the Bordeaux chocolate that See's Candies makes.  It has a light brown cream center with nuts, dipped in chocolate and covered with these fine sprinkles.   I bought the sprinkles and started looking for a recipe that seemed comparable.  Of course, it is possible to find lots of copycat recipes but they didn't look great.  I kept seeing reference to panuche fudge.  I looked that up in my candy cookbook and gave it a try. I found a great center for chocolates that I like quite a bit and will make again.  (And I like it better than the See's version)  Just a little recipe serendipity there.

So, being a great cook is a lot about having great recipes.  It is about having friends who are great cooks.  It is about not being afraid to try something new, asking lots of questions and not worrying if something doesn't turn out.  Sometimes that happens.  It is all about sharing good food with family and friends and enjoying it. And in the end, sharing good food with family and friends is the best reason for cooking.

Simple Pleasures

Mary Ann Creer brought me this journal a few weeks ago when they came for dinner.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it but I set it aside to think about.  A few days later I was reading in a book Simple Pleasures and it said:

"In the kitchen at my husband's family summer home in Maine, there's a shelf full of black and white notebooks.  His grandmother kept a page for every dinner she hosted at the house, listing what she served as well as the guests.  We love to flip through the pages which read like a portrait of the family in food over several decades.  Although I only met his grandmother in the last years of her life, her notebooks make me feel like I know her better."

I immediately knew what to do with the journal.  I have started writing down meals and who comes and a thought or two about the dinner or visiting or whatever.  I wish I would have started doing this thirty years ago.  It would have been so interesting looking back.

It is a busy time right now getting Stephen ready and on his mission.  I am hoping to post a lot of favorite recipes going into the fall.