Cookin' Up Some Love....

I took an unplanned and unexpected vacation day today. Hell, the opportunity arose, and I grabbed it. So I spent the day alternating between scrubbing the accumulated crud off my floors and working on case studies for my nutrition course. Oh, and I cooked a bit.

Some days I cook with blogging in mind, carefully pondering the ratio of spices and choosing ingredients that other folks would be likely to have in their cupboards. Sometimes I cook with the future in mind, whipping up dishes that will be good for work lunches and freeze well for busy days down the road.

Today, I cooked for the sheer love of cooking, tossing ingredients around willy-nilly, splashing and stirring with wild abandon. The heck with writing anything down! I had the music playing loud and clouds of flour hung in the air as I danced around the kitchen in a steamy frenzy of deliciousness.

And when the dust settled, I had some yummy bread made with Grape-Nut flakes. This bread is soooo tender, I might not be able to wait for breakfast to have some peanut butter toast.

I also came up with some vegetable soup with some new noodles I found...they sure are yummy, but they look like a bad case of pinworms...

For supper, since I was home on a week day, was a bit more extravagant that an average day. I made up some chicken style seitan, breaded it with panko and spices and fried it. On the side, we had sour cream whipped potatoes, gravy and a mixture of root vegetables. In short, one of our favourite "special" weekend dinners, except it was a Tuesday. Nothing new or special, so I skipped the photo.

We had another boy at the table for supper, a friend of my son's. He helped himself to a little bit of everything, even the seitan, (despite the fact that this kid's father is such a virulent meat-eater that he likely eats vegans for breakfast.) About three minutes into the meal, the kid lays down his fork and looks at me. "Wow." he says to me. "Wow."

"What's wrong?", says I. "Is there something you don't like?"

"No way," says the kid. "It's just that this is so good. We don't get good stuff like this at home. We get beans and hot dogs and Kraft Dinner."

All I could think of it, what a sin. What kind of a life is that, when all you eat is cheap, processed crap? Is that any way to feed a growing child? And it's not even the fact that the food is nutrientless crap that bothers me about this comment. Food is not just about calories in, it's about getting closer to the ultimate source that nourishes you, having a relationship with food, a healthy appreciation for what food can do for you. A good, healthy, home-cooked meal does more than feed the body, it feeds the soul. It says to everyone at the table, Hey! I appreciate you. I love you enough to take the time to nourish you, to honour you with my stirring and chopping and dicing, to delight your tastebuds with the gift of my time. Who doesn't leave the table after that kind of a meal feeling refreshed in more ways than just the physical?

The lesson here, folks, is that you should get your ass in the kitchen once in a while and cook something from scratch. You're cheating yourself, and those you love, if you don't.

That's all for me today. Hugs and kisses, peeps!