I Love to Cook. Really.

I love the idea of cooking. Flipping pages of cookbooks and old issues of Cooking Light, talking over recipes with friends, planning dinner parties. I get so lost in this that time passes and I get hungry and I can’t wait to get ingredients and cook and THEN eat, so I don’t actually cook. I go buy something ready-made.

Today I went to the farmer’s market in Silver Spring and bought a miniature quiche from Praline (yum) and vowed that eventually I will make one myself. Later. I’ve even chosen the recipe, thanks to my lovely neighbor, Claire, who has loaned me the original Julia Child cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Claire has had it since her college days. It is food-splattered and wobbly on its spine, so she is especially generous to loan it out. I picked it up after I saw the movie Julie and Julia -- the libraries and book stores are clean out of copies. I’m giving it a sort of trial run – if I like it, I might splurge and order a copy of my own. Actually, I’d be sharing it with Clara, who was so inspired after the movie she was ready to go to the store for ingredients at 8 p.m. I took her to Mon Ami Gabi instead. We’ll cook with Julia next week.

BTW, the Silver Spring market has gorgeous produce, and today it had tomato tastings hosted by Washington Gardener magazine. But it’s more expensive than our Takoma Park market, which is hands down the best one in the area.

A beginning

Why blog?

I have a lot to say.

Like how I love my kids (don’t believe teenagers are awful, who started that rumour anyway?) And how music can move me to tears (Don, are you listening?). How joyful dance can feel. How lovely it is to walk to the farmer’s market and chat with five people I know on the way, in a community where I know shopkeepers by name and can walk to just about everything I need.

And bad stuff, too: let’s talk about the toilet that requires four flushes to do the job, and the girl who got to hand her dad the tools but never learned how to fix things herself (that would be me). Then there are the yawningly empty nights when it’s just me and the dog and – well, and now a blog.

But this will not be a me-fest.

Or at least not entirely. Mostly I hope you will see some little piece of yourself here, that something will resonate and make you say, yes, what she said.

That is what I would like to do best.