Eating my words

A popular question I used to ask people was whether they lived to eat, or ate to live. Ie., is eating pleasurable for you? As a student, it was easy to answer that. If anyone else did the cooking (and of course, if it did not cost me much), eating was certainly pleasurable. Then as a young upwardly-mobile professional with expendable income, I found my answer becoming more and more a function of how good the chef was (because I always ate out or take-away or delivery). I still remember that era with fondness. My favourite delivery service in 2001 was Afghan House #5. Being single in New York and having neither the time nor inclination to cook, it was on my speed-dial. I comforted myself with the thought I might be keeping their business afloat (plausible, as this was just after 9/11).

After getting married to a Frenchman and having resolved to save money for the future, the question became a function of the taste-to-cost ratio. I have to admit, even if he had just thrown together what was left in the fridge, it seemed like everything Hubbie cooked turned out so very nice. After all, he was born and bred in la cuisine ! Okay okay, morelike in the same house as one. But me, on the other hand? In uni, I had been guilty of stealing my dorm-mates' food to survive because I (literally) couldn't cook to save my life. I was able to cook spaghetti bolognese, but you can't survive a semester on that. I was a one-dish wonder relying on students for food!

It's true, early in our marriage, I tried as much as possible not to cook. I tried to get Hubbie to cook all the meals because I hated cooking, and I hated what ended up on our plates when I was done.

It was only after I saw Hubbie cook a 4-course dinner for our friends, that cooking started to look interesting. And challenging. It looked so challenging that I swore I would never cook for guests. Especially not French guests.

You see, a 4-course meal takes a lot of preparation and timing. Two things I'm not good at. In the kitchen, Hubbie becomes a tornado (Tasmanian Devil-size), well before the guests arrive, and you don't want to get in his way. "What is he doing in there?" "Oh no, he's cursing at the sauce." It all appears to be going horribly wrong. But at the right time, out comes the steaming entrée, and it tastes divine. Then the main dish with a flourish, then the salad with a cheese platter, finally the pretty desserts in glass cups. And he still somehow finds time to follow the conversation and, well, to eat.

After the guests had gone home, Hubbie was typically pleased with his efforts and wanted me to critique his cooking. I marvel at his ability to watch the time and cook most things "live" during an evening. Cooking "live" means cooking the dish just before eating it, rather than simply re-heating something that he already cooked.

So I was inspired to learn, because I knew timing was not my thing and also to take some pressue off of Hubbie. What helped to a large degree were the British cooking shows on Saturday mornings. Yes, it's true! Through them I learned why some foods were better grilled than pan-fried, why you had to fold egg whites in rather than squash them in to a mixture, and just general basics. It was a brave new world of cooking that would bring me back to "live to eat" rather than "eat to live".

So I finally cooked for real French people a couple months ago. However, it was a bit of a cop-out because I cooked Moroccan food rather than anything close to French. I made a Harissa soup a la Nigella Lawson ahead of time and re-heated it for the starter. For the main, we had lamb tagine with apricots over couscous with an orange relish on the side. One of our guests brought a galette for dessert, to my relief, so it wasn't in fact a 4-course show, or even a 3-course one for that matter. But it was a start, and now I've had to eat my words.