Cooking: My new love and passport

Cooking. One word that I am now actively doing. A verb to be exact and in the few short weeks of holiday break till now I have been consuming blogs and books and films all about it while actually doing it as well. And in just my few short days of realizing how big this world of cooking is I think I have ventured into a new world...like my passport has been stamped and I am amazed. It is like a kiss from the world of creativity and spirit to sit down and wonder what will I create today? And when its created I have this sweet understanding about how all these pieces ended up on my plate. Especially the closer I get to it being local. I absolutely cannot wait to meet farmers and shake their hands with the on coming of farmer's market seasons.

I also have come to the realization that participating in the world of cooking is not just a passport into a world of the present day adventures of cooks and chefs and gourmands but it is actually the journey into relationship with the women in my life whom I love so much. This world of sharing recipes and passing favorites back and forth is nothing short of sharing the lore of time and history. Looking at the changing ingredients and those that stay impecably in place, the taste-buds of time and the tradition of keeping certain recipes and foods on holidays and celebrations. Let alone the journey of what a family decides is its favorite foods.

My grandmother passed away in July 2009. And while she was no professed food gourmand she came from a time where women cooked for their families...and used a lot of butter. When the women's rights movement came along she gladly through on her trousers but she never lost her adoration for cooking up a meal for those she loved. Up to her last year of life she still cooked for her 60 + year old son when he visited. And when she did give up some of the habits my mother grew a new relationship with her mother by doing her own "meals on wheels", cooking double batches of everything and dropping off food on grandma's doorstep so she always had something either fresh or frozen that would make her happy. These are my women. And in my generation I have my own additions to add: local and fresh eating. And still I must keep cooking the food of my women with any alteration that seems appropriate and minor enough not to alter the food. It would be sacrilege to remove the butter from a recipe or the whole milk from baking. Please, one doesn't create a good pie crust from skim this and reduced fat that. One creates true flavor and if the concern is a waistline than we all must learn to eat a little less or go for a longer post dinner walk. Saying that I do think there are some things we could learn to make ourselves or use fresher ingredients instead of say lard or cream cheese...these things seem to be creations in place of known foods that don't include all sorts of crazy preservative and additives.

So in the midst of sharing healthy and fresh creations from the local goodness of the Pacific Northwest I presume that this year will include the recipes I unearth from my grandmother's note card box which cover about 50 years of life. Also there will be the tastes I will never stop loving: my mother's pork chops and chocolate cake.

Sublimely in love -

Courtney