A preface to recipes

To understand my recipes you don't need very much. To appropriately appreciate them (and, perhaps, to find them entertaining) you need to understand a bit about where they're coming from, and, in the process, understand me—or at least, understand how I cook.

I'm extremely intelligent and very right-brained. What this means is that I'm highly creative, think in sensations (images, impressions, scents, sounds, and emotions), and am more concerned with “now” than with either the past or the present. I think and reason abstractly instead of concretely and in parallel instead of linearly. Yes, this does make it more difficult to make a coherent and effective narrative, since my first instinct is to tell the reader absolutely everything at once. Yes, it also looks a hell of a lot like ADD without actually being ADD.

But what it also does is lend itself marvelously well towards art and cooking. I am an artist, raised by an artist, and am naturally inclined to be an artist. This is much less a thing of production of art (which requires discipline and planning and focus and more discipline) as it is of the artistic process. When I say “I am an artist” I mean I apply the artistic process to pretty much everything.

This looks an awful lot like being a nut. It is an awful lot like being a nut, or perhaps a flake, or just living inside a bowl of granola.

Which brings us back to cooking.

I cook by the senses. How things look, how they feel, how they smell, how they taste. I time the adding of ingredients by these things and, because we're being honest, by making a lot of mistakes and, from time to time, remembering not to repeat them. (For example, eventually I learned not to cook zuchinni and meat at the same time. You may, if you wish, but be prepared for your vegetable to turn into a gelatinous slurry and for nobody with any self-respect to eat it.)

I have been cooking for a very long time. Since before I could reach the counter, in fact, and given how tall I am that was a long time ago. Some things become part of muscle memory after a while. Like cutting off the tip of one's finger because the TV was on, again.

I am horrifically guilty of using that ancient and traditional mystery of ingredient measure, the legendary “some.” I use it in everything. Lucky for you all I'm connected enough to reality not to expect you to be able to follow the “some,” and so, despite rarely using measurements in the things I make most often, I've made the effort for you all. I hope you appreciate it, because I am here to tell you that translating “some” into cups and teaspoons and pounds is a pain in the ass even to the person doing the cooking.

Recipes are like language—they change over time, and change on the situation. Who's eating, the tastes of the cook and the diners, availability of ingredients, amount of time to spend cooking, the current societal fashion. If you think home cooking doesn't follow fashion you have never seen a recipe book from the seventies. (If you'd like to be horrified and fascinated all at once, go for it. Anything between 1950 and 1980 is fair game. Anything older and you'll either be already familiar with such things, if you hunt or fish, or be too confused by cooking processes no longer in use to be properly appalled at what they found suitable for cooking.)

Finally, I am in love with leftovers. I like instant gratification, love appropriate shortcuts, and have better things to spend my money on. Use leftovers whenever appropriate, and hunting for where on earth you put the mayonnaise is an excellent excuse to throw away everything fuzzy, slimy, forgotten, unidentifiable, or capable of self-government. Cleaning out the refrigerator is less onerous when done often.

Ingredients I would rather not do without (in no particular order)
bay leaves
salt
black pepper
red pepper (ground)
turmeric (ground)
cumin (ground)
Little Green Flakes (basil, oregano, parsley, marjoram, herbes de Provence, and/or Italian seasoning mix)
cinnamon
vanilla
nutmeg (ground, but it's simple to grate it)
eggs
onion
garlic
olive oil
sesame oil
vinegar (rice, balsamic, and apple cider)
rice

Things I would rather not do without (in no particular order)
A cutting board
A good large knife
A good small knife
food processor (with cheese grater attachment)
frying pan
stock pot
soup pan
roasting pan (it's like a cookie sheet with a lip)
good large spoon
spatula

Things that are really nice (again in no particular order)
beer
wine
oven bags
someone else to do the dishes