Sharing things is always dicey, and dicing while cooking together is definitely no exception. The kitchen can morph into a metallic boxing ring. One of you is the wild, inventive cook and the other is the chop-a-holic, compulsive one. But one thing I’ve realized after decades of co-cooking is that both co-chef-partners are actually doing the same things, just at different moments.
Take me, for example. I am not a compulsive dicer and slicer, but I do like my implements put back in their proper places. My co-cooker partner likes to splatter garlic when throwing it with wild abandon into a pan, but follows recipes as if his children’s lives depended on it.
The trick is to find a way to have our mutating cooking styles come together rather than clash. In formal holiday moments, I have learned to stand back and let him plan away.
Admit it, no one has gotten to this point in their life having had one gleeful Valentine's celebration after another. Unlike the envelope of dime store Valentines from everyone in your fifth grade class things have probably changed over the years. Perhaps there is no one "special" in your life except for some close friends or co-workers or maybe this is the year that you can't wait for that solid red holiday of love and chocolate! What do I fantasize about, what would rock my world?
I do love a good holiday and any holiday that gives me an excuse to bake with a theme is fine by me. This year, dinner is at home with my four boys (M is included as he is in fact still a boy). Making all of their favorites; grilled lamb chops with a delicious marinade (parsley, basil, garlic, shallots, and coconut oil), asparagus tart, stuffed tomatoes, and chocolate lava cakes for dessert.
As a little girl, my favorite candies were Twizzlers and black jelly beans. Every Easter I would pick all the black jelly beans out of the bowl and leave the rest for everybody else. Though I rarely eat jelly beans any more, I love to cook with fennel, which has a distinctive licorice scent and flavor.
I have a distinct memory of being eight years old at my mother’s friend’s pool party. They were pretty great parties, all actors, writers and cops. My sister and I had our feet dangling in the Jacuzzi and someone came up to us and said, “You girls look so jaded.”