I get so antsy sometimes. And in a life long ago, I would tamper the antsy-ness with baking. Which then turned into cooking after I got smart and purchased some out of this world cooking books. Discovering recipes that were extremely challenging and had lists of ingredients I never heard of before, were an utter joy. A challenge to accept. A reason to drink a bottle of wine and dance around the kitchen!
Anyway, my loving man has found a new favorite thing - cooking. You would have never guessed it. I would have never guessed it! But coming home and busting out his defrosted protein and whipping up an accompanying veggie is his new favorite thing. As such, mine too! But then comes a time when the itch starts to kick in again and all I want to do is cook. I want to chop and wiggle my hips and stir and mix, and sting my eyes with the scent of onion and hydrate my face with steam from beneath the lid. I want to YouTube "how to slice fennel" and wait not-so-patiently as the seeds brown in the oil. I want to stir six times, let sit, spin twice, add one egg, stir, add one more. It's so fun! Following the directions, reading along with Senora Child, following her train of thought and ending up with a concoction I never imagined I could produce. It's the greatest feeling of accomplishment. Having something tangible, (tastable even!) to show after your efforts. And you learn so much. You start to build a relationship with food. Understand how it all works together - the flavors, the science, the art of mixing, cooking, boiling, basting.
So, tonight, I got to cook. And it just brings back all the feel goods. And I won't stop. Dinner is in the oven and I'm starting on the dessert - most of which will go to work tomorrow to avoid the over-indulging of pumpkin and sugar-infused cream cheese. But tonight, we bake. We make. We dance and we drink. Our wedding certainly doesn't boast the budget for foodies, but hopefully our guests will pick up on how much we like to indulge our senses through food and beverages. We spend hours, probably a product of no kids, enjoying, discussing and making noises indicative of how much we love the food! It brings people together and is incredibly fun to share.
With some free time coming up for the weekend and only so many miles a girl can hike, I am pretty confident I'll be fulfilling my desire for cooking and baking. Which is a win because last year I had planned on delivering baskets of goodies to friends and neighbors on accord of the holiday, but ran out of time. This will be on the tails of Thanksgiving, but at least the peeps at work won't mind :)
