Cooking cheers me

Ravioli dinner with
pear/radish/blue cheese salad
One of my few truly gourmet meals

A friend posted recently that after a spell of illness and no energy, she was now back to cooking again and surprised at how much better and more energetic she felt. I think that’s true for me. Cooking renews me.

A confession: I had a pity party yesterday. It had been three days since I had seen another human being, except for two minutes when Jordan, masked, whisked in to deposit grocery bags and once when she came to stand on the patio and talk across the distance, which doesn’t make for easy conversation. It’s clear to all who read my blog that I adore my dog, but her company is not the same as seeing another human, talking with someone. Plainly, I had cabin fever. I was mad at Covid, mad at the cold weather which keeps patio guests away, mad at the rodeo which exposes my family (or so I’m convinced) to omicron, mad at the world in general.

And I wasn’t cooking. I was tired of “pick up” dinners—scrambled eggs, leftover soup from the freezer, a salmon platter. Those things are okay for lunch, but I want a proper dinner. The last good dinner I cooked was meatballs and gravy for the family last Sunday—I kept a portion for me, sent most of it into the main house, and got back enough for leftovers for Monday lunch. I have to say they were extraordinarily good.

It all changed today. In the early afternoon, Jordan and Jacob, masked, brought out the toaster oven/air fryer the children gave me for Christmas. While they unpacked and installed, Jordan made me sit far across the room. The Breville (that’s the brand)  now sits in splendid glory on my counter, unused, because I haven’t had time to read the directions. But the first thing I will fix is lemony chicken drumettes. I can hardly wait. But first I have to read and digest the directions.

My new toaster oven/air fryer
Hoping it ups my cooking game

Tonight, Jean came for dinner, and I got to cook. For some reason I had a dozen wild mushroom/truffle ravioli in the freezer—Christian won’t eat mushrooms, and Jordan’s diet doesn’t allow pasta. Jean got the brunt of my experimenting again. After much online exploration, I decided to serve them with brown butter, something I’d never made before. My report is that if you brown it slowly, as I did, it takes a long time and a lot of stirring, but I was leery of burning it. My big mistake: I added the garlic, didn’t have the tiny bit of spinach suggested, though it would have been good, didn’t want the chopped walnuts (to me they would have been the wrong texture), and—big goof! —forgot the rubbed sage that should have gone in the butter. Still, it was really good, although I could have cooked the ravioli just a tad longer. We ate six, so I have six to cook another time and add the sage.

I accompanied this with a salad of sliced pears, sliced radishes, and blue cheese in a lemon/olive oil dressing and garnished with watercress. I did that particularly for Christian because he loves radishes. I thought it was terrific. Waiting for Christian’s verdict, since I sent some into the house for them.

But I was energized, enjoyed Jean’s company, felt good about the evening.

I have set myself a goal of a thousand words a day on the third Irene story that I’m working on. That, of course, depends on whether or not I have a thousand words worth of inspiration. Today, with having to proof the 28-page neighborhood newsletter and keep up with emails, I managed 991 words. I don’t think I’ll agonize over those last nine words. Maybe tomorrow I can do 1009. Then again, I have set myself another goal—clean out those two out-of-control drawers in my closet. And sometime, I have to do my tax stuff.

Tomorrow, per request, I’m going to cook a beef stew. I am now a convert to an air fryer, but don’t talk to me about InstaPot. I have no room for it, and no patience for the learning curve. I will cook the stew the old-fashioned way—long and slow, all day. I’ll use a recipe I adapted from a popular mystery series set in a coffee house. Yes, it calls for marinating the beef in coffee. Since I don’t drink or make coffee these days, I’ll have to have the Burtons run two cups out to me. But I made this last year and remember that it was good.

I wouldn’t say the world looks better to me tonight. I have a lot of loud opinions on the political scene in America—and the crimes. I may feel I need to rant someday soon but meantime I suggest all of you who are on Facebook read the columns of Heather Cox Richardson, a historian from Boston University. Her last three columns will make you realize how close we came to a coup, how extensive the planning for that was (no, it was not at all spontaneous), and—wait for it—what a roaring success Biden’s first year has been. I can’t repeat that too often!

And me? I’ll be making stew. Long and slow.