I'm Just Here for the Food

So I want to admit: I know nothing about cooking. I know how to look at a recipe and do exactly as it tells me. But even then I run into problems (brine it? What does that mean?) then I have to go and look it up on wikipedia or something. I didn’t really know how to season a cast iron pan until I just looked it up. Hell, I didn’t even know that cast iron pots were still silver when you bought them (I guess I should have assumed, though).


(OK, so I'm not this bad, but close)

So I purchased a book yesterday that I thought might teach me some of the basics. I want to be able to look at a list of ingredients and say, “hey, I have an idea what to do with those,” rather than, “I have a recipe, I better go buy the ingredients.” The book is “I’m Just Here for the Food” by Alton Brown. It looks kind of cartoony, and I am sure there are better books out there, but so far I have learned a lot from it and I am only 10 pages in. If you know of any other books that would be good, I would be happy to hear about them (or get them for Christmas *wink wink*).

Aside from learning how to cook, I did bake something today. I made Lekach. A traditional Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake. It has cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom (that I had to grind on a cutting board with a bread roller. I don’t have a stone and pestle), allspice, honey, orange rind, orange juice, ground ginger, and grated ginger. When it comes out of the oven (it’s still in there now), I am supposed to let it sit for a couple days to “let the flavors mature.” I think I will try a little bit of it now and a little bit of it in two days and see if I can tell the difference.

I also made Panzanella last night. It’s panzanella. It was good, though nothing too exciting. Just different from my normal diet.


(This one is a little prettier than mine)

Other than that, the weekend was filled with enjoyment. On Friday I went to Taylor’s Falls and had a little picnic (we ate a baguette with brie and prosciutto, chicken wings, wine, and some tomato salad) , went hiking (for a very short while – it was getting dark), had a fire, came home and watched "Fracture" (good movie, you should check it out). Saturday I just took care of some chores during the day, but got to go to A Prairie Home Companion in the evening with two of my Aunts and Uncles and Jenna. They bought us dinner and I got to keep the Stella Artois glass that my beer was served in. I also watched the best zombie movie of all time Saturday night: Army of Darkness. Today, I made cake and pancakes. Very lazy day.