Bread

Bread is transformative. That’s the word that keeps recurring in the literature, “transformative”. It’s true. There is, on the face of it, no way it could not be. Bread does not occur in nature. It is artificial. It is an artifact. It is ancient, and therefore in a sense an ancient artifact, one from which we still have a huge amount to learn about the past. About our past as humans.

Easy Lemon Tarragon Chicken with Broccoli and Cauliflower “en suite”

This is one of those dishes that didn’t evolve from another recipe, it was just improvised from what was on-hand one evening. The light presence of lemon on the chicken and more pronounced presence on the veggies gives it sort of a light, summer-dish feel.

Not much art or skill required, but the results have been very pleasing.

Verjus… Verjuice

Basically it’s the bottled juice of unripe grapes, used in place of vinegar or citrus juice in recipes. One of the supposed advantages is that it doesn’t clash with wine. That typically applies for me only every few weeks (fewer if I’m cooking for myself, I’m likely to order wine with meals in restaurants) but I like it better than vinegar or citrus in general, it just seems to add a less jarring, or even harsh flavor note. I’m impressed.

The Essential Great-Start Zero-Status Zero-Snob-Appeal Cooking Tool List

A word about the status and snob appeal: it’s tempting, when starting out, to equate expensive tools with great results and assume that they’ll improve your cooking. It’s tempting to “celebrate” gains in proficiency by buying gadgets (and people tend to give you gifts) that you/they hope will make things a lot easier in the kitchen.

By and large they don’t, much.

Blue Apron

Far later in life than I should have I decided to try to LIBERATE myself from having to have other people feed me, prepare my food for me, whether personally or through the pay-as-you-go food infrastructure of our society, which tends to be expensive and/or notoriously not healthy.

The move was prompted by some changes in my life corresponding to the debut of Blue Apron, and it became the keystone of my strategy in learning how to cook decently. I figured it would reduce the barriers-to-entry, make cooking entire meals with good ingredients more accessible, and hopefully, eventually, be a stepping stone away from dependence on their service as well.

It’s worked… I’ve gone from not being able to cook much at all to being pretty decent at it, and I don’t plan to stop there.