Food is my love language.
Isn’t that one in the book? No? Well, I’m convinced food is my love language. I know my mother loved me because she sometimes surprised me during the after-dinner homework hour by sneaking into my bedroom with chocolate pudding. Yes, Mom, I still remember the chocolate pudding.
I show my kids love by feeding them.
Which has, on more than one occasion, resulted in a call to 911 and an epi-pen. Which just goes to show that love is complicated.
//
//
Making something that is healthy, non-allergenic, and liked by all is my holy grail of cooking. Actually, it’s my holy grail of motherhood. But, like any epic quest, mine is marked by failure, disappointment, and only occasional victory. Like the knights of old, I am not giving up.
Books like these inspire me to get up and give it another try. Books like these remind me that food and its enjoyment are among the very greatest gifts of our creator.
//
First, (for those whose taste buds have been set dancing by the photo above) is Tartine Bread
In addition to the cookbook, you will need a digital scale and a cast-iron combo cooker (though I think a dutch oven would also work). Then, simply follow directions. Robertson takes us step-by-step from making our sourdough starter through his basic country loaf and on to variations that include everything from pizza dough to English muffins.
I am generally something of a disaster in the kitchen, but this book makes me look like I know what I’m doing.
//
Next, is a book I suspect many of you have read. It’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Do you like food? Do you like memoir? Then you will like this book. Kingsolver chronicles the year she and her family spent eating only locally grown foods, most of them foods they had grown or raised themselves. Kingsolver talks politics, global warming, and the state of American agriculture, but at the heart of this story is good food, family, and love.
This is a book about tomatoes. How we care for them. How we harvest them. How we spoon them out of jars in the middle of winter and remember warm, summer days. This is a book about bread. About what it does for our families when our homes smell of fresh-baked bread.
This is a book about celebration.
//
Finally, a new-to-me book I admit I’ve only just begun. Two chapters in, and I’m smitten. It’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
Adler is funny and wise. She begins with the simple act of boiling water, and I am now convinced that a big pot of bubbling, well-salted water is the start of all sorts of magic.
This is a book for those of us who love food but get bogged down in long, complicated recipes. It’s a book to make you believe that you, too, can create, not restaurant masterpieces, but the stuff of life. Good, nourishing food.
Which is, of course, the whole point.
Pudding? Was that the healthy chocolate pudding mixed with dream whip?? Oh my, I need a do over. Wish I’d had an organic garden.
Afraid so, Mom. But no worries – it’s still a very good memory even if it did come from a box. 🙂
I like your pitch for An Everlasting Meal. I’ll be keeping an eye out for that now. I am mostly recipe-bound and trying to learn to loosen up and chart my own course sometimes. Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express is helping me there. It’s full of “recipe sketches” instead of recipes.
That homework hour pudding sounds really good.
Susan, I used to wonder why people acted so smugly about cooking without recipes. We have recipes, why not follow them? But, I’m starting to get it. I love being able to pull something together, often at the last-minute, from whatever I have on hand. Makes me feel like a magician. I’ve loved Bittman in other contexts – I’ll look for his Kitchen Express. Thanks!
I love your Farmhouse Bookshelves series. Yesterday someone else (a friend with whom I have epic three-hour conversations roughly twice a year) was also raving about “An Everlasting Meal.” I’ll have to check that out. It sounds like it might share some philosophical territory with “The Supper of the Lamb” by Robert Farrar Capon.
Laura, just looked up The Supper of the Lamb. Can’t believe I’d never heard of it – it looks written for me. Can’t wait …
Christie, I know i’ve probably tried to push this book on you before, but if you’ve not read it yet, have a go at:
http://www.amazon.com/Homemade-Life-Stories-Recipes-Kitchen/dp/1416551069/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361768136&sr=8-1&keywords=molly+wizenberg
xoxo!!
Danielle – You did, and I read it and loved it! So grateful for that recommendation. I actually read it from the library, first, and then bought my own copy. I’ve been reading her blog, and she recently finished the manuscript for another book. Should be good.
Hi friend, I’m salivating and yes, cooking is holy and magical…though I must say cooking for children makes it lose its magic some. I’m so tired of tiny people opinions!
Another fun holy food book, no just a chapter? Alexander Schmemman’s For the Life of the World…just the first chapter if you can stop there. It connects the importance of eating to the Eucharist and back again. He is a poetic theologian.
Thank you, friend! Sounds wonderful – I’m making a note of it.