CookingHoopla.com

Cooking to me is one of the passionate arts, such as playing music or painting a picture. It stimulates so many senses! Cooking to me is all those things you said about wanting to make your guests (and yourself) happy. I feel much more rewarded when I whip up something delicious out of just a few things I have laying around after work in a hurry, and I feel accomplished when I prepare something a bit more elaborate for dinner guests. Cooking to me is a chore, a PITA. I don?t get any enjoyment out of it, although I can see how other people would.

Cooking to me is like music, ingredients are like notes and flavours like chords etc. There seems to be a universal harmony with certain flavours: garlic, onion, tomato, for example, they go well together. Cooking to me is like a chemistry experiment. So I now realize how important proofing is with the lean dough we are using. Cooking to me is definitely a creative act, and an art form. Just like painting, sculpture or cinema, soup has compositional elements such as color, form, texture, and in addition, taste.

Cooking to me is an adventure that I tackle everyday, as most do. I am a farm girl who grew up in my mother’s kitchen learning the “tricks of the trade” and developing my own special recipes. Cooking to me is not a chore; it is in some ways relaxing, therapeutic and even meditative. It is a time that I cherish, when I get to ponder over my thoughts in a much-needed peace and quiet, where I do not have to abide by any rules but can be creative yet pensive. Cooking to me is about having fun. Remember, I started at a small cafe.

Cooking to me is popping a hot dog in my good ol’ Hot Diggity Dogger hot dog cooker (a gift from Mark that has proved invaluable). Other than that, I might fry up an egg or two. Cooking to me is like doing math and I loathe math. My kids have dibs on my patience, which leaves little for something like waiting for a cake to rise or a sauce to simmer. Cooking to me is a way of expressing myself and I enjoy working with someone to create a menu that helps them express their feelings about the occasion. I also enjoy the interacting with the guests and listening to any comments that may arise.

Cooking to me is a great way to be creative while bringing together people you really care about and want to spend good times with. Nothing is better than good food, good wine and great group of people to share it with. Cooking to me is heating a jacket potato and pouring a can of beans over it. A balanced diet comes with pouring yogurt over chopped banana. Cooking to me is family. Nothing brings a family collectively like food, and nothing brings Mother and daughter together like cooking.

Cooking to me is an art form, just as many other art forms and to be good at it, you have to have a natural tal?ent, love to do it, and while learning it, actually be will?ing to suffer for it, just like other artists suffer. A person does not become a good cook by working bankers’ hours and at a leisurely pace. Cooking to me is a little more creative, you can just throw in this and throw in that and see how it works. It all works out very well for our friends when they come over.
Science in The Kitchen: No one thing over which we have control exerts so marked an influence upon our physical prosperity as the food we eat; and it is no exaggeration to say that well-selected and scientifically prepared food renders the partaker whose digestion permits of its being well assimilated, superior to his fellow-mortals in those qualities which will enable him to cope most successfully with life’s difficulties, and to fulfill the purpose of existence in the best and truest manner. The brain and other organs of the body are affected by the quality of the blood which nourishes them, and since the blood is made of the food eaten, it follows that the use of poor food will result in poor blood, poor muscles, poor brains, and poor bodies, incapable of first-class work in any capacity. Very few persons, however, ever stop to inquire what particular foods are best adapted to the manufacture of good blood and the maintenance of perfect health; but whatever gratifies the palate or is most conveniently obtained, is cooked and eat n without regard to its dietetic value. Far too many meals partake of the characteristics of the one described in the story told of a clergyman who, when requested to ask a blessing upon a dinner consisting of bread, hot and tinged with saleratus, meat fried to a crisp, potatoes swimming in grease, mince pie, preserves, and pickles, demurred on the ground that the dinner was “not worth a blessing.” He might with equal propriety have added, “and not worth eating.”

Recipes Tried and True: We may live without poetry, music, and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

Healthy Cooking: You want food you can eat every day, knowing that it is bringing you nearer and nearer to real Fitness, the Fitness which lasts all day, and survives even Sunday or a Summer Holiday.

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