I am a man who likes to eat. No, really. People think everyone likes to eat. Not true. What many people want is a tasting experience. Meaning these people look for quality, not quantity. Food presented to them must be fresh, crisp, oozing with tantalizing sauces, and color coordinated. And it has to be in tiny portions: it shows that these people are not gluttons.
If you’re wondering, I do have a wife who cooks but she belongs to the category of people who wants a tasting experience. She would decorate a string bean because it would otherwise be unpalatable. She is, like many millions of wives in this country, liberated, health-oriented, and dieting. She has been dieting forever and, by my calculations, should have disappeared into the ether years ago. Since we are two people with two different eating habits, under the same roof, eating on the same kitchen table, at the same time, face to face, is it any wonder that we are always on the brink of divorce?
I use to eat anything edible and in large proportions. If it’s tasteless, I would just add ketchup and sprinkle salt on it. If it’s really tasteless, I will resort to MSG (It may cause heart palpitations, and that experience might scare you, but, contrary to popular belief, MSG isn't a threat to your health). I usually end up with plastic plates to hold my food but in a pinch, paper will do. Also, I didn't mind using plastic folks...but all that has changed. I've changed. Not as drastic as to become one of those fine food aficionados. Somewhere in the middle, I would say.
Getting back to the subject of cooking for one and not knowing how, I was forced to eat at mom and pop restaurants, chain restaurants, elegant restaurants that couldn’t have been a chain…but were (they disguise them so well), pizza joints, and rib joints (that advertise baby back ribs, with young people in the background having a hilarious time munching on them). I discovered, in due time, that restaurant meals will inevitably taste the same. With the exception of a few taco stands, I began dreading to eat out. Traveling salesmen will know what I mean.
So, to improve my cooking for one, I went out and purchased a cookbook. Then, in the normal course of my life, I ended up with seventeen of them, starting with the plaided red and white cover of a Betty Crocker Better Homes and Garden, and ending with Julia Child's “French Cooking". They're all on the shelf in my library (I call it a library because it sounds so much better than a do-over closet off the main bedroom),
Betty Crocker was the very first one I used when I wanted to cook for one. The meal was a challenging slice of raw pot roast. My wife was engorged with stifled laughter as I attempted to follow the recipe. It was the worst cook book I have ever read. It was written in a foreign language. Most of the recipes were for the feeding of an army of Vikings on a bivouac (5 lbs. of chuck roast, 3lbs. of carrots peeled and sliced, three whole onions, 3 lbs. of potatoes, etc., and separate instructions of how to mix the portions together so it looks edible). I ratio the amount to a serving for one and, even after I followed the instructions to the letter, the meat turned out ugly,tough and pathetic. Jesus, all I wanted to do is prepare a slice of raw meat for a dinner for one. What's so difficult about that?
But having difficulties with cookbooks didn’t stop me from purchasing more, all bound up in hard, colorful, very attractive covers. They smelled like new cars, alluring to the touch, and begging to be used. And the bookstores have them displayed on the table with that big, red, special reduced price stickers on the front covers. It became irresistible. Borders and Barns and Noble are masters of cookbook displays, and I have the cash register receipts to prove it.
I
kept hoping, but I never found one that didn't require spices from the four corners of the earth, plus dried seaweed
and five measuring spoons made of blue plastic.
Since I cannot find one, I will, instead, write my
own. So after years of experimentation in front of my Viking stove, I
managed to write down my very own cookbook, with tried and true recipes, especially concocted for those who
is still struggling to cook for one. I followed the usual format and started off on the first page with:
.
THINGS YOU
NEED.
You need a microwave. You need a good scale. You need a large bowl. You need a dull knife. You need a dull knife so you won't cut yourself or stab your toes when you slip or drop the knife accidently, and you know you will, eventually. You need the standard utensils unless you plan to go native and eat with your hands, which is okay except some people, like me, have really ugly hands.
Speaking of eating with ones own hands, in the Middle Ages (around 1200-1500 AD) most of the people in
According to some historians, the main cooking was done in a large iron kettle that was kept constantly boiling day and night. Whatever edibles scrounged up by the peasants, small birds, minus the feathers, whole carrots, greens, wild rabbits, some alive, some dead (some dead maybe for a long, long time), very strange herbs, salt if available, was toss unceremoniously into that boiling cauldron. Items were cooked into a stew-like substance which was then doled out to the waiting bowls made from this hard bread. There doesn't seem to be any records of complaints when these bread bowls were used, so it must have been all good. Or it could be that those medieval peasants couldn’t read or write about how sometimes the bread bowls would break in the center, due to faulty bakers, and very hot food ends up in their laps.
Tragically, there were no lawyers present, and incompetent bakers were allowed to thrive.
It was easy to see that these large medieval food kettle was very much like our own refrigerator. It is the center of the family’s activities and serves as the centerpiece of our daily communion with each other, and so forth, and so on. Medieval peasants are in touch with each other by gathering around the huge pot to keep warm, while we modernist leave message and photos of loved ones magnetized on the fridge door. Anyway, I don’t want to get started on that, so let us begin with the serious business of cooking for one……but I can see that, if you’ve come this far, your eyes must be really tired, and I apologize for that, so I’ll stop. I'll just give you one of my recipe on:
sometime in the future….thank you.
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