Intentions

I went from Sunday to Saturday without cooking a meal for my family and we weren't travelling. I think that is a personal record for me since becoming a mom, and I didn't like it very much. The reason was that the kids and I were all participating in VBS for the week, them as "campers" and me as a teacher, and dinner was provided there every evening. I was reminded of being at camp as I descended the strairs to the church basement every afternoon, wondering what I might be eating for dinner. It was a strange sensation to have no control over what my choices would be, both for myself and my children, and I discovered that it is not anything I am willing to relinquish. It was a much needed, welcome break that made me appreciate once again the privelege that I have of cooking for my family every night.

My cooking mind was not idle all week though. On our last weekly trip to the library I picked up a few cookbooks that I thought looked interesting. Our library has an extensive selection of cooking and food related books, so I thought I would glean what I could from them and spare myself the cost of buying more cookbooks.

One was entitled The Classic Mediterranean Cookbook and was written by Sarah Woodward. I found it to be informative, and I especially appreciated the photographs of herbs, seafood and produce that I am not quite as familiar with. I thought I would capitalize on my family recently having seen the movie Ratatouille and loving it by making rararouille. Not a big hit, let me assure you (I didn't like it so much myself, but perhaps I added too much thyme - I should have left it out altogether I think). I will jot down several recipes and ideas from this cookbook before I return it.

Another book I borrowed was the Culinary Institute of America's Gourmet Meals in Minutes . This one opened with a lengthy section on stocking a pantry and prepping a kitchen. I sat down and read it as though it was a novel! It was useful, informative, interesting, and most of all, managable and seemed within the range of my abilities and common sense! Armed with my post-it notes for marking interesting pages, I started leafing through the recipes. I soon found that I was about to run out of post-its and realized that I would never copy down all these recipes! I proceeded to log onto my Amazon.com account and add the book to my wish list post haste!

I will go through the entire cookbook again soon (reading) and single out a few recipes to try first, and I fully intend to renew the book for the 16 week duration, unless I purchase my own copy first!

The newest issue of Gourmet which arrived today also had a great many recipes that I wanted to try out right away. Perhaps I am giddy after my week off from cooking, but I should have plenty to write about in the weeks to come! That is if I don't get too sidetracked painting all the bedrooms upstairs while the kids are at day-camps this week...