HedwigStrange

I love love to cook! This is, however, not to say that I am not a hazard in the kitchen. I burnt Aloo Gobi the other week, which made my apartment smell hideously of burnt cauliflower for ages.

I think I love cooking because cooking and enjoying good meals has been a huge part of my childhood. My mother is an excellent baker, my father is an all-round excellent cook, as is my stepmother, who was even a culinary school instructor. All my parents included my sister and I in the cooking process, so it was a family thing.

A lot of my best childhood memories have to do with food. My dad introduced me to pate when I was 7 (?) and I still remember loving it. And he used to make me and my sister bananas foster with huge scoops of vanilla icecream for weekend breakfasts. On the other hand, there were times when we were so poor we ate fried beans and that was it. I still remember my father's mother's cooking - I was astounded one year by this perfect Christmas ham with peas and carrots in spirals down from the top into the pan. She also put half and half in our breakfast cereal. My mom has always made the best lasagna (sausage, none of that ground beef crap) and baking cakes and banana bread with her has always been special to me.

And luckily my boy-toy (themoot? I forget his name on this forum) loves to cook too, so we have all sorts of cooking adventures together. Lately it has been from-scratch cinnamon rolls. It means a lot to me that he shares the things I love.

I don't like to have other people cook for me unless it's something I really can't cook myself - I'm hopeless with steak, since I'm practically vegetarian by expense and taste. Instead, I much prefer to cook in groups - funnily enough, tomorrow night I'm going to a friend's house to celebrate my victory over indian food. I seemed to have a bit of a block about indian food - I just couldn't get anything right, until Friday, when I made glorious saag tofu (tofu being an excellent substitute for fatty and pricey paneer). So we're making eggplant curry, saag tofu, mango lassis, and gulab jamun, and probably numerous other things. It's a great relaxing way to hang out with friends.

Usually I don't bother too much with whether foods are "healthy" or not, at least fat wise. I make sure to buy plenty of fresh fruits and veggies, and I don't eat much meat. I love dairy products - cheese, milk, butter, cream, all of it! I buy organic when I can because I'm really not fond of endocrine disrupters, but I am unwilling to pay $8 for pasta sauce.

And strange though it maybe, when I'm all stressed out about homework and exams, I find that the rhythm of chopping carrots, creaming butter for cookies or cakes, washing dishes, etc, really calms me down.