apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

There is one moment, which looking back on it, is probably the best example of my obsession with delicious food. I'd had microsurgery on my right index finger that morning, and thus very limited use of my primary hand. As I left the hospital, I found a blizzard just starting up, with several inches of snow already on the ground. Then I got a flat tire on my way home. There was no way I could put the spare on in my condition, so I just drove to a garage on the flat tire to have it replaced. Despite all this, I decided it would be a good day to roast a whole chicken for the first time in my life.

I took my free range bird, cleaned it a bit, dried it, salted it, coated it in olive oil, stuffed lemon, rosemary, and celery in the cavity, and trussed it. All done very clumsily. I roasted it (breast down) in a nice hot oven for a while, with some carrots, onions, and potatoes underneath to soak up the juices. I struggled to flip the chicken on its back when the time came. The smell was almost intoxicating. Finally, I removed it from the oven and, after an excruciating 10 minute rest, tore into it.

It may have been my mood after an unpleasant day, but it was all I could do to resist messily devouring the whole chicken by myself. The wings, thighs, and drumsticks were gone almost before I realized what I was doing. The vegetables, caramelized and infused with chicken fat and juices, never stood a chance.

I didn't quite realize how ridiculous it was to attempt this in the condition I was in at the time; maybe I was still under the effect of the drugs they gave me. But this story is probably the best example of just how much I enjoy cooking and (even more) eating good food.

I wouldn't really say it was a defining moment, as I've always liked cooking and baking, but a couple of months ago I realized that I had come home from a long (11 ish hours plus commute) day at work and gone straight to the kitchen. I don't even remember what I made, probably something simple with whatever was in the fridge but I remember thinking that I hadn't been in my living room in a week. I'd spent all my free time in my kitchen, either cooking or slipping into the zen of doing dishes by hand. It became very clear to me that cooking had gone from something I enjoy to a full blown hobby at that point. Good thing I always have willing guinea pigs for new recipes!

I had several:
-Cooking my first big dinner--Easter dinner--7 years ago. It was the first time I'd ever baked a ham, and my friends and family loved it.
-Baking my first pie--an apple pie--5 years ago. I didn't realize baking a double-crust pie was a big deal until some friends I had over to help eat it told me so.
-My first cooking class--laminated dough--2 1/2 years ago. After a some successful cooking attempts and a recently acquired cooking show addiction, I decided to try a class at a kitchen store near work. Between my classmates, my instructor, and the danish, croissants, and strudel, It was incredibly fun. After that, I started taking classes at a local community college and enthusiastically dedicated myself to cooking all the time.

I think every time I travel to another city or another country I have another defining moment in my life as a cook.

No single "learning to cook" moment for me, just realizing when I moved in with my boyfriend that cooking and eating was something to be shared, not a chore to be dispatched with.

Learning about the beauty of food moment: in little rustic restaurant in the little town of Mérida (Spain), eating locally produced ham, lamb, cheese and wine and realizing what the concept of terroir was all about.

The really big one for me was the first time I had a dish in a restaraunt and just knew that I could make it better. I think it was a chicken or pork dish at a "family style" restaraunt near my parents' house.

I was just out of college. Until that point, I knew when food was good or not so good, but that moment of clarity where I knew I could do it better was astonishing.

I grew up in a house full of foodies (it's the only thing we all have in common) so I always had a deep appreciation for it. I think my catalyst moment to become deeply in love with all processes of food (growth, preparation, and of course enjoyment) was when I read Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma. It really changed my life and I lost 30 pounds from just looking at what I ate instead of going by it's taste or complexity.

My parents always cooked at home, but their food was not "gourmet." The cooking experience for them was also necessary, not for enjoyment.

When I was in college I spent a year living with a family in Florence, Italy, and there I discovered that the most wonderful food could be made (and enjoyed!) at home with the simplest (high quality) ingredients. I spent hours watching my host mother work in the kitchen, and returned to the States inspired. It took a while till I had a kitchen, pots and the freedom to buy my own ingredients, but I've never looked back.

Teaching my sweetie to cook when we first moved in together (six years ago last week--time flies!). His mother and grandmother are fantastic cooks, but also fairly traditional in their gender roles, so he never really learned to cook for himself. Poor guy had lived on sandwiches and brown, dry scrambled eggs for years.

Just being able to answer his questions (why sift dry ingredients? how do I know when the sauce has thickened enough? what do I do if I run out of X?) gave me confidence in my own knowledge, and going back to the basics reminded me why I loved cooking to begin with. There's something very relaxing about chopping vegetables, and it's very easy to lose sight of that when cooking turns into a daily chore. Cooking with someone for whom the process is new and magical completely changes your focus.

Long before "Martha" became an adjective, my mother was cooking and sewing and hostessing with the best of 'em. She is a fearless homemaker and an adventurous cook, making crepes on Wednesday nights for my Dad, my four brothers and sisters, and me. We never once ate Hamburger Helper. When my sister asked to be married at our family home on Long Island, my mother cooked the food - seafood newburg, chicken marsala, and some amazing beef dish for 145 people - and at the end of the night the caterer requested the recipes.

Thank God, I inherited Mom's cooking gene. My husband and I lived in NYC for 13 years, with the typical windowless, galley kitchen. While I never really got excited about baking in it, I cooked up a storm five nights a week.

The culinary high point of those 13 years was a pre-Christmas dinner for eight - my husband and I plus my two best friends and their signficant others. Every year one of us would host the group to exchange gifts before the holidays, it was my year and I decided to go all out and cook a full meal instead of the usual cocktails. No one realized it was a full dinner until they asked what to bring, and the fellas were overjoyed by the prospect of red meat. I made a wonderful roast purchased at Tom's Meats along with baby green beans and an incredibly decadent scalloped potato recipe I got from Food and Wine. My husband picked out the wines and guests supplied dessert.

The food was simple but well prepared. Everything came out great, and as I served the meal one of the male guests looked adoringly at the his plate, then at me, then at group and then deapan pronounced, "I'm so turned on right now". Mission Accomplished!!

The evening was a joy from beginning to end. Even planning it was fun. The butchers at Tom's demanded to know how I planned to cook their pristine product, and when I told them, they gave enthusiastic approval. It was one of our first real dinner parties since getting married, and for me that night held the promise of many more wonderful nights to come.

when I was 14, I made a 6 layer torte, with two flavours of buttercream and layers of daquoise.

The equipment I needed was beyond that available in my very un-domesticated mother's kitchen, so I had to first go searching for cake pans, candy thermometers, and cake stands. This in the days before Martha, before the ubiquitous kitchen stores. Once procured, I started. The first batch of buttercream didn't work out, so I started again (I learned to make sure that the sugar was exactly the right temperature); I wasn't going to let the recipe intimidate me. It turned out to be a divine cake, if a little crooked, in the end.

I haven't looked back since. From that point on, I was responsible for family holiday meals. I remember one Christmas when my mother and I battled over stuffing -- hers versus mine. We gave my boyfriend samples of each in order to pick a winner -- he famously tasted each, and then looked me in the eye, proclaiming that he preferred my mother's. He had assumed that the lumpier one was my mother's, but it was mine... Once all that was cleared up, I had a clear field at home.

My husband (no, not that boyfriend) and I have together made wedding cakes for friends, and have made 6- course Christmas dinners for his extended family.

When his mother came to me to teach her how to make scrambled eggs and later, how to make oatmeal, well, those were equally defining moments.

Living in Geneva, and buying our food in France, is bringing a whole new level to my cooking and appreciation of food. I am afraid that I will not want to go back home... (the Poulet de Bresse, the peches de Rousillion, the greens, the cheeses, the wines....)