After a long week of having a long week, it was decided, tonight would be manicotti night.
I was introduced to it by my brother, who returned to Ohio from stints in the Navy and California with his wife Maria and cooking skills. I next encountered it at Italian Isles, a restaurant near UNC-Charlotte owned by an old probably Greek guy with hair growing out of his ears. Itie Isles' was served as two pasta tubes, stuffed to overflowing with herby ricotta, in an oval stainless steel dish, smothered in their spicy marinara. Along with their home-baked bread and house rosé, it was perfect.
Tonight I made the tomato sauce a little less spicy in deference to Lauren's iffy tum, but I don't think this detracted. As we ate, it occurred to me how much pleasure I take in the fact that I can basically cook most things reasonably well. If I feel like roasted pork tenderloin with sauce Robert, I can cook it. If I want filet mignon with perigeux sauce, I can cook it. If I want oatmeal, I can cook it.
It's sort of like constantly being on the wacky Japanese cooking show Iron Chef. Iron Chef is the source of a fantasy of mine - nothing too outrageous, don't worry - of playing their game, having someone bring me some ingredient and having to make a meal out of it. Being flexible, being able, feels awfully good.
It's strange and sad to me that so few people can or do cook for themselves. I started cooking when I was around 10, and committed to cooking for myself as a lifetime endeavor in my first or second year of grad school, when I heard a talk at the American Philosophical Association meeting offering a neo-Marxist account of household consumption and production. That talk critiqued the fairly typical American home-life pattern of bringing prepared food into the house, making the house a place of consumption and not production. It's alienating us from some of the most significant and simple pleasures, I thought. Making my own tomato sauce was suddenly important to me.
I'm much busier now, but the time I take to cook is if anything even more important. Nothing compares to the joy I get cooking for Lauren. And if my students get annoyed that I'm always bringing up cooking (I sometimes think it's the one thing they're going to retain from my classes), it's still a handy illustration from time to time.
In sum, cooking good. Cook more. Good.
I was introduced to it by my brother, who returned to Ohio from stints in the Navy and California with his wife Maria and cooking skills. I next encountered it at Italian Isles, a restaurant near UNC-Charlotte owned by an old probably Greek guy with hair growing out of his ears. Itie Isles' was served as two pasta tubes, stuffed to overflowing with herby ricotta, in an oval stainless steel dish, smothered in their spicy marinara. Along with their home-baked bread and house rosé, it was perfect.
Tonight I made the tomato sauce a little less spicy in deference to Lauren's iffy tum, but I don't think this detracted. As we ate, it occurred to me how much pleasure I take in the fact that I can basically cook most things reasonably well. If I feel like roasted pork tenderloin with sauce Robert, I can cook it. If I want filet mignon with perigeux sauce, I can cook it. If I want oatmeal, I can cook it.
It's sort of like constantly being on the wacky Japanese cooking show Iron Chef. Iron Chef is the source of a fantasy of mine - nothing too outrageous, don't worry - of playing their game, having someone bring me some ingredient and having to make a meal out of it. Being flexible, being able, feels awfully good.
It's strange and sad to me that so few people can or do cook for themselves. I started cooking when I was around 10, and committed to cooking for myself as a lifetime endeavor in my first or second year of grad school, when I heard a talk at the American Philosophical Association meeting offering a neo-Marxist account of household consumption and production. That talk critiqued the fairly typical American home-life pattern of bringing prepared food into the house, making the house a place of consumption and not production. It's alienating us from some of the most significant and simple pleasures, I thought. Making my own tomato sauce was suddenly important to me.
I'm much busier now, but the time I take to cook is if anything even more important. Nothing compares to the joy I get cooking for Lauren. And if my students get annoyed that I'm always bringing up cooking (I sometimes think it's the one thing they're going to retain from my classes), it's still a handy illustration from time to time.
In sum, cooking good. Cook more. Good.
I can cook Oatmeal!
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