Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Spring Break!!!



I’ve been on break for over a week and I’m loving life. Aside from going on a road trip over the weekend (more on that in a separate post), I’ve gotten a chance to immerse myself in my other hobbies – climbing, baseball, and… FOOD!!! 



I love to eat.  And, over the past few years I have come to love cooking just as much as eating.  Only, I’m not REALLY a chef.  For the most part, I really don’t know what I’m doing... and in that regard, it’s almost like teaching.  I might go in with an idea of what I want the end result to be, but how I get there is dependant on:

1)      A lot of adapting to what resources (or ingredients) I have;
2)      Improvisation; and
3)      What I can pull out of my imagination.  

Aside from the art of teaching, cooking is my only foray into the creative sciences.  This is something that’s abundantly clear if you’ve ever seen any of the posters I’ve attempted to design for my classroom or watched as I’ve drawn out pictures to help students visualize math problems.  It’s also obvious to anyone that has seen me cook.  I call what I do in the kitchen ‘gangster gourmet.’  I look in the pantry/fridge to see what’s there, and improvise to come up with something that is (hopefully) edible. 

Out of necessity – starvation is a really bad way to go out - I’ve gotten better at cooking over the last 10+ years of bachelorhood.  This is very fortuitous to those that I’ve made things for during the past week.  My culinary adventures this past week thus far include:

1)      Cheddarburger supermelt with rosemary smashed potatoes
2)      Spinach and romano orzo with sundried tomatoes
3)      Mushroom, caramelized onion, spinach, and bacon strata
4)      Yogurt served with grilled bread triangles (buttered and covered with powdered sugar) and strawberry-banana compote.  I still have no idea what to call this, but I needed to get rid of the things in my fridge that were gonna spoil when I was gone.
5)      Steak fajitas
6)      And, today’s lunch…

Seafood-mushroom risotto served with sauvignon blanc.


Now if only my lessons – and my students – can come out as successfully as this!!!

2 comments:

  1. Just checked out this post. "starvation is a really bad way to go out" = hilarious. When I make food out of whatever is in the house, it rarely goes down like that. Strawberry-banana compote? Show off.

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