May the blessings of the past year continue into this one and may the joys flood out the sorrows!
I know that it seems like I have been slacking. And maybe I have been a little. But rest assured I have been cooking! Just not in my own kitchen!
Aside from being ill with the ninja death flu (Even after I got a flu shot! The nerve!), traveled up to Spokane this winter to invade a close friends home and wreck his brand new kitchen which he has so graciously opened to me.
May years ago C and I started a tradition together.
Spending a week away at VMworld and eating mass produced food has made me sharply aware of my own food taboos.
I have lots of food taboos, most of which I am willing to break for the sake of politeness. Unless of course those food rules coincide with one of the things I really can’t eat for practical reasons.
Chief among them is “thou shalt not consume cooked fish.”
I do however make an exception for salmon. Planked or smoked preferably, though I suppose that they are not too far apart if I really think about it.
A picture is worth a thousand words….and I am not sure that I can add anything to that one.
I was lucky enough to get several large hunks of sashimi grade tuna! Not the skinny little filets that I get at the farmers market but three inch thick hunks of the most gorgeous, deep red tuna that I could ever hope for.
Sometimes. And only sometimes. My brother is worth the gray hairs.
Of course with Tuna this gorgeous, I couldn’t dare cook. It would have been a crime against god and nature to cook tuna that gorgeous. I did however want to give it some flavor.
In another life I think I must have been a predator because there
is nothing I like better than food with fight.
If there is a chance I might get injured procuring my food,
I am all in favor of it. That is perhaps
why I like crab so much. It is not only
a fight to procure the tidbits of sweet meat but, crab is forever trying to bite
you back with its sharp spines and pointy spikes.
I rarely come out of a crab dinner without a prick or a cut
or some sort, and this is even with my patented technique of attacking the long
leg sections.
That having been said, there are times when you just want to
make something crabby and not worry about flaying open your fingers.
While I often don’t cook from recipes, I have a magpie
approach to recipe ideas. My mind goes
around gathering tidbits of ideas and putting them in little hidey holes until…
one of them overflows and I suddenly HAVE to make what ever it is.
Something it clicks immediately and I have to make something
right away. This was the case with last
weekend’s tuna tartar. But even that
waited for 4 days while I plotted and planned.
Other dishes percolate in my head for months or sometimes
even years before I manage to make them into reality. Sometimes it’s because the last shiny bit
hasn’t dropped into that particular recipe hidey-hole. Other time it’s because I am afraid to try
the recipe and then face a mound of leftovers for days on end that are OK but
everyone seems to just forget to eat.
The bad habit comes into play when an idea suddenly catches
my interest.
