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Dec. 19th, 2004 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI didn't get any doily work done yesterday. I didn't work on the shelving, either. I did get a second batch of sand tarts made. Y'know, I fucking rock at these cookies. I really do.
My cousin Sandra stopped in last night. I fed her some cookies, which she seemed to like well enough. We got to chatting about cooking and I realized that I don't do much with impressive ingredients. I don't much buy special or exotic shit to make incredibly complicated hundred-ingredient stuff. For one thing, that gets really expensive. For another, it's a hell of a pain in the ass. I cook with pretty normal ingredients (normal for the cuisine in question. Achayote is normal for Mexico, green cardamom pods are normal for India) -- but I have fine technique.
I *like* technique cooking. There's a certain amount of sick pleasure I get from hearing people wonder what all's in something and knowing that even if I tell them the ingredients and give them step-by-step instructions, they will not be able to replicate what I do without some practice. It's a nice feeling, knowing that people have to earn their chops and cannot simply buy success at Whole Foods or whatever. In technique cooking, if people can make perfect sand tarts, they deserve to have them.
Anyway, we visited for a good while and were on the same page for quite bit of our respective worldviews, which was kind of comforting and kind of discouraging. It's good that someone else thinks the way I do -- means I'm not alone. That was the comforting part. It's discouraging that we both have the same (unfavorable) read on a couple of situations because the odds are good that we may be right on those situations. *sigh* Sometimes (I know this is hard to believe) I don't like being right. Hrm. No, that's not it, not exactly. I always like being right. Sometimes I wish things assorted themselves differently so that I did not have to be right about unpleasant things... but I always like being right. <-- that's more accurate.
Sandra is far less crack-smoking than some of my other relatives, designer handbag fetish notwithstanding. I told her I'd mail her some stuff early next week, so mental note on getting that done.
My cousin Sandra stopped in last night. I fed her some cookies, which she seemed to like well enough. We got to chatting about cooking and I realized that I don't do much with impressive ingredients. I don't much buy special or exotic shit to make incredibly complicated hundred-ingredient stuff. For one thing, that gets really expensive. For another, it's a hell of a pain in the ass. I cook with pretty normal ingredients (normal for the cuisine in question. Achayote is normal for Mexico, green cardamom pods are normal for India) -- but I have fine technique.
I *like* technique cooking. There's a certain amount of sick pleasure I get from hearing people wonder what all's in something and knowing that even if I tell them the ingredients and give them step-by-step instructions, they will not be able to replicate what I do without some practice. It's a nice feeling, knowing that people have to earn their chops and cannot simply buy success at Whole Foods or whatever. In technique cooking, if people can make perfect sand tarts, they deserve to have them.
Anyway, we visited for a good while and were on the same page for quite bit of our respective worldviews, which was kind of comforting and kind of discouraging. It's good that someone else thinks the way I do -- means I'm not alone. That was the comforting part. It's discouraging that we both have the same (unfavorable) read on a couple of situations because the odds are good that we may be right on those situations. *sigh* Sometimes (I know this is hard to believe) I don't like being right. Hrm. No, that's not it, not exactly. I always like being right. Sometimes I wish things assorted themselves differently so that I did not have to be right about unpleasant things... but I always like being right. <-- that's more accurate.
Sandra is far less crack-smoking than some of my other relatives, designer handbag fetish notwithstanding. I told her I'd mail her some stuff early next week, so mental note on getting that done.
