Photo Credit: Yolanda De Rock
The wife person and I have reached that stage in our relationship/ marriage where buying a present to surprise one another just doesn’t seem to work anymore. We now know exactly what we want and make sure we give very strong hints towards that certain product or service with the intension of getting it as a gift. Even saying “if you need an idea of what to buy me, buy me this”
The wife person, the kind soul that she is, recently bought me a cook book – Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients – Quick and Easy Foods, which you can purchase from Amazon.
The motto for the book is –
“Cooking does not have to be complicated”
and I love that. Not one to follow cooking or recipe books, as I normally cook what my grandmother or mother cooked around the house while I was growing up and I just add different ingredients.
Their generations seemed to love meat, chicken, potatoes and rice. I’d use the same recipes but add seafood or pasta just to change it up.
I love cooking and I would probably want to be a chef if I didn’t hate cooking for others so much. Don’t get me wrong I love cooking for my family and close friends I just can’t see myself running or working in a kitchen making food for 50-100 people at a time. The buzz would most probably be amazing but when I cook I like taking my time and getting everything right the first time.
The freedom of choosing your own ingredients especially different herbs and spices gets me going. I enjoy the fact that all products; be it vegetables, meats, chickens, fish and fruit, all have their own flavours that we know all too well but when you mix them with the right herbs, spices, sauces and/or oils it takes on a whole new character and flavour.
I guess I am blessed in this regard, not that I have any leg to stand on as I only cook for family and friends, who besides the wife person, haven’t critiqued me yet but I always manage to mix the right herbs and spices with the correct products.
The wife person isn’t all that bad; she’s more helpful than anything else. She would say things like “I think it needs more salt my baby” or “the potatoes are a bit too hard babe”
Interesting fact when you become a home chef, there are certain dishes you lean towards. Potatoes, along with bread and chocolate, are my biggest vices but my cooking for some reason lean towards pasta dishes, tomatoes dishes and seafood dishes. If I can have them all in one dish even better and I actually have a dish that includes all 3. It’s my Mussels in tomato and basil sauce served with linguine, which I will share with you at a later stage.
I cook best when I’ve had a hard day at work and just need to release any built up tension or anxiety. I’d come home and think of something to make and just quietly start cooking, similar to meditation I guess, I’d just be taking in deep soothing breathes of good smelling food. These days are hardly stressful and I’ve actually taken a step back as I enjoy the meals the wife person has been creating, as you can see above with the sweet potato gnocchi she made.
But I guess it’s time for me to open those cooking ‘swipe files’ and get cooking because I still enjoy cooking, the smells and tastes I get to create, the look on the wife person’s face when she smells and tastes my food for the first time and the look of absolute satisfaction on my kids’ faces when they are done eating.
Everyone relates to good tasting food and I’m sure if you’ve read this far you have some thoughts on home cooking as well. Let me know in the comments below, would like to hear from you.
