A Year of Improvising
En Cuisine, comme dans tous les arts, la simplicité est le signe de la perfection. (“In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection”)
Richard Olney - Simple French Food
The Eleventh Muse
If Judith Jones considers the tenth muse ‘Gasterea the Muse of Taste’ I am going to draw my own conclusions and award the eleventh Muse to the love of Books. Always there is the simple joy of books and how they open one to a labyrinth of possibilities.
Pity and Awe, Cooking with Massimo & Friends Part 5
What really moves me is spending time sharing and creating food that teaches me a new way to be in the kitchen. I really like thinking about a recipe for a day or two. Today I was offered some grapefruit from a homegrown garden, yes I will make the Fennel and Grapefruit Salad with the Anchovy dressing. Great I can’t wait. That’s what its all about. I am with Gwyneth (Paltrow) anchovies on anything. It’s a shame my kids don’t eat them, but maybe in time they might. (I love G.P’s cookbooks too) So this is the heart of the kitchen, the coming and the going, and the turning up again to do it all over again.
Poor Mans Feast, Cooking with Massimo & Friends Part 3
No less, food has become the back bone for days spent at home, no distractions. I have been cooking, gardening, weeding, growing things like kale and spring onions, leek and delphiniums, pots of sweet peas....my own dreams of a row or two are coming to life. Somewhere in between I have returned to a few days at work and the rest is just the domestic and the creative and a cook book to ponder. A blue one since the beautiful cream cover I have set aside. I am still cooking from ‘Bread is Gold’ and trying out recipes and gaining a whole new way of looking at food and the possibilities of simple ingredients and what is possible in the day to day.
How Big is a Sprig? Cooking with Massimo & Friends Part 2
How is it that this cooking project is now the anchor for days at home? A lifeline of sorts and perhaps a welcome distraction in the middle of navigating new territory in lifestyle, family time and communications. Lucky for me slow living and slow food has been my happy place over the years, its almost the perfect foundation for this time we now find ourselves in.