I take a demented pleasure in creating these little pre-dinner tableaux. Assembling ingredients, especially for a colorful dish like this one, makes me understand the appeal of raw-foodism a bit more. There's also an orderly appeal in doing a super-thorough mise en place, which is a cooking lesson it took me FAR too long to learn: that "two cups chopped onion" means that you, the cook, need to actually chop two cups of onion before you even begin step one of the recipe in order to avoid manic and dangerous mid-recipe chopping and potential disruption of the entire enterprise. My cooking is now discretely divided into chopping mode and cooking mode, and when it comes to a Thai dish like this one, the former is orders of magnitude lengthier than the latter, the prime example being pad thai, which takes about an hour to chop and prep and five minutes to cook. Ike has already informed me that he is "allergic" to two of the ingredients in this dish - red peppers and tofu - so I'm pessimistic about its success and considering changing the name of this blog to "Cooking Despite Two Dudes." My kitchen looks much gloomier in this picture than it actually is, but for those of you who dislike the heartless objectification of food you can clearly see my knife, cutting board and cookbook in the background of this slightly ominous still life.
1 comment:
This looks fabulous! I relate completely to your process obsession...I share it...and really love your little tableaux.
You really must post recipes if the dudes, their dad, or you deem the dish worthy, like this one. So what's the recipe?
Today's cooking agenda for me: chicken enchilladas, quinoa with black beans, tomatoes and lime; jicama salad with oranges and cilantro (meal one); mjudra, a wonderful protein-rich vegetarian Lebanese pilaf which should be in your rotation if it isn't already; and potato leek soup, using the chicken stock I'll make when I cook the chicken for enchilladas. Food for the week, many guests at my splendid table (do you listen?)
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