Sometimes I'm just bowled over at what my food blogging friends manage to churn out in their quests for culinary excellence: olive pasties, potato cabbage pie, parmesan basil chicken, almond-crusted shrimp... who would have thought of such concoctions, who would've dreamt of such combinations? Only a master chef, I would believe...
I'm more of the food-blogging-is-a-hard-thing-to-do type. If I post a new blog, it's bound to have a funny food story attached to it, rather than the most amazing, original wow-she-can-cook kind of recipe. As a mother of two young children cooking for six people on a daily basis, I often have to have a meal ready on the table for hungry busy people. I may be in the kitchen all day, but only because I have to be, rather than want to be, and after all that effort I put into cooking, I end up eating my meal standing up while I'm cooking and tasting it (except when I have lunchtime English lessons - I can't eat at all then until I return home in the evening). I don't take part in foodblog events, because I don't have enough time to create new recipes, and I daren't make even slight variations to my regular recipes for fear of confusing or putting off my regular eaters, who are going to have to eat that meal. We cook to eat here, not to dazzle!
The meals I cook tend to reflect the kind of food that everyone expects to eat, even if it's not their favorite meal, or they'd rather have something else. I cook the same kinds of food on a weekly basis: one week, we'll have fakes, the next week fasolada, the following black-eyed bean soup, while the next it's fakes again. There's a staple pita on a weekly basis, as well as a pizza. I'm more of a 'this is what I cooked, and this is what you're gonna eat' type of mama. And if there are any 'but-I-don't-like-it' dissenters, there's only bread dipped in oil as an alternative, something which many people survived on during the second world war, according to my mother-in-law. The minute you start offering alternative meals, they won't eat the ones you originally cooked. (very bad way to raise children, if you ask me.) I really can't wait till the children are old enough to prepare their own meals. And I would love to have a meal prepared for me some time.
That's why I was bowled over when Maggie awarded me an E for Excellent award when she saw my spiral leek pie - which wasn't my recipe in the first place (it was Laurie's)!
Thank you everyone for appreciating my efforts!
Being creative is fun, and can be one type of excellence.
ReplyDeleteBut making delicious, healthy food for loved ones, especially children, who really thrive on routine even though they don't always totally appreciate it, well, that's another type of excellence. And to do this, this cooking for a family according to a schedule, but with the variations that make it interesting, well, that's beyond excellence!
Maria, I admire the fact that you even want to cook or write anything with 2 children and 6 people to cook for every day. I whine about the fact my athletic fiance eats tons of food, and often not anything I eat or at the time I eat anymore, so I end up making two separate meals. And just for the record, he ate absolutely everything when we were dating; he "changed" (or reverted) after we got engaged. I told him he better get with the program because he can't be setting this bad example when we have kids. I definitely agree with you about not offering alternatives to dissenters.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of what one of my best friends in California says, "I'm not hungry, why do I need to cook anything?" LOL. Well, at least he does the dishes.
Ah, I am far from a master chef - I just like to try new things. But even my new things are within a fairly narrow flavor range - i.e. mostly Mediterranean - because if I deviate too far I have the same problem you do with confusing my regular eater. Congrats on your Excellence award - your blog is wonderful and definitely deserves recognition. Story telling is a wonderful skill, and you do it so well.
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