{"id":2759,"date":"2014-11-18T21:17:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T05:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=2759"},"modified":"2016-02-16T14:14:20","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:14:20","slug":"november-18-2014-doubt-cook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/november-18-2014-doubt-cook\/","title":{"rendered":"November 18, 2014 – When in doubt, cook!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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To listen to this post:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/20141118-211624.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

\"mushroom<\/a>My dad took over cooking our family dinners when I was in junior high. My mom started two businesses and he was teaching at a special high school, where the kids had a shorter than normal day.\u00a0 He found himself with more time and picked up cooking dinner. \u00a0\u00a0He shopped every day and came home. Then he and I made dinner together.\u00a0 I learned how to handle knives, cut up a chicken, chop an onion and make a white sauce.\u00a0 It seems to me, unless we eat out somewhere, I\u2019ve been part of making dinner nearly every night of my life since.\u00a0 In a lot of ways, cooking is much more natural and intuitive to me than painting.\u00a0 Though I love to peruse cookbooks, I most often cook without a recipe. I have a sense of what\u2019s in the house without looking in the cupboards and refrigerator.\u00a0 When asked what my specialty is, I say it\u2019s cooking a nice meal with what\u2019s in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

When I was 14, I baby-sat for a woman in Woodacre who had three kids.\u00a0 I stayed overnight while she went on a yoga retreat \u2013 in the days when no one<\/em> went on yoga retreats.\u00a0 This included making dinner for the kids and me.\u00a0 Seems she forgot to leave much food in the house. I remember scraping the last bits of chicken of a carcass for tacos and roasting raw cashews in a skillet with a bit of butter and salt for extra warm protein.\u00a0 I was fourteen!<\/em>\u00a0 Though it\u2019s inconceivable to me now that she left her kids with me overnight (did I mention the toilet was backed up, meaning we had to go next door to use the bathroom, and that I ended up with poison oak from having slept in her sheets?), it\u2019s good story to tell – and I now look back and see the start of my \u201cspecialty.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become who I am. I cook. I find myself saying \u201cwhen in doubt, cook\u201d and I have a Penzey\u2019s<\/a> spices bumper sticker on my car that says \u201cLove People. Cook them Tasty Food.\u201d\u00a0 I just love that it doesn\u2019t say Penzey\u2019s spices anywhere on it. They aren\u2019t marketing themselves, they are marketing cooking!<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve recently been working with an amazing coach (everyone could use one!). Recently when we were talking about my cooking, she shared with me something she read in a book called \u201cBuilt to Last.\u201d\u00a0 All\u00a0the\u00a0people profiled in the book, people who had built sustainable bodies of work that have endured \u2013 every one of them has a passion that seems unrelated to their main work. And if they didn\u2019t devote time to this other passion, their work would suffer.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a hobby, it\u2019s a necessity. \u00a0It\u2019s not a luxury, It\u2019s a foundational practice that makes the rest of their work possible.<\/p>\n

For me, this is cooking.\u00a0 The Tuesday after this year\u2019s Sausalito Art Festival, I got all the art and festival gear put away, I checked in with my husband\u2019s office. I came home about 3:00 and actually let myself have a little nap. I woke up at 3:30, went into the kitchen and cooked. I processed the mountain of tomatoes from my parents\u2019 huge vegetable garden that had been accusing me of neglecting them, lest they get overripe and go bad. I made an eggplant Parmigiana with the two eggplants that had just started to shrivel.\u00a0 I stuffed one of the gigantic zucchini with a ground chicken mixture and sauced it with some of the tomatoes.\u00a0 I cooked for three hours, in bare feet, the house quiet, Bo lying on the floor waiting for goodies to fall.\u00a0 I felt back inside myself<\/em> again.\u00a0 Cooking does that for me.<\/p>\n

Late last week, I was headed home. Joe wasn\u2019t going to be home for dinner. In the car at a stop light, I was thinking about what I\u2019d make myself. I wanted something like spaghetti carbonara, but I wasn\u2019t in the mood for meat (I often eat meatless when I\u2019m on my own).\u00a0 I immediately thought of the cremini mushrooms at home, fresh rosemary and garlic.\u00a0 Mushrooms and eggs are wonderful together, so why not?\u00a0 When I got home I did a quick web search for vegetarian carbonara and found one with tomato (?) and asparagus (not!) and another with zucchini, better, but not what I had in mind.\u00a0 So I made it up. And it was delicious, warm, satisfying, savory, creamy but not too heavy or rich. \u00a0I\u2019d absolutely make it again.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I did, including my yet-untested improvements (basically more garlic and rosemary). Let me know if you make it and if so, if you changed it \u2013 made it your own – and how you liked it.\u00a0 I learned the method of cooking the not-quite-done pasta with some of the pasta water in a saut\u00e9 pan from Michael Chiraello.\u00a0 The results are delicious. If you\u2019ve never done so, give it a try.\u00a0 Buon appetito!<\/p>\n

Spaghetti Mushroom Carbonara<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n