On Not Cooking

The past few months, I haven’t cooked much. As in, barely at all. I can remember the last meal I properly cooked--an excellent cauliflower and bacon pasta, for dinner on Friday when we had friends over--and before that, I’m honestly not sure. I’ve baked bread every couple-few weeks, and I’ve looked at recipes plenty. I’ve read the serious food magazines that came in the mail, and the email newsletters scattered with luscious photos--every word. I’ve day-dreamed about cooking: standing in the kitchen with the sun streaming in, a little jazz playing, and piles of vegetables yielding under my knife.

But I haven’t actually put knife to vegetable, except to yield the carrot sticks that are the only vegetable Little Z, now 3, regularly eats. Oh, that’s right--a couple weeks ago I also baked Little Z two birthday cakes in one week, one for her school party and one for home. And I attempted to bake crumpets, but failed because I filled the molds too full. I will try these again, soon. I will.


I usually put cooking pretty near to the top of my list of priorities. That’s clear if I look at the time I spend thinking about it and doing it. The wisdom of this is manifest in my enjoyment of cooking--and eating, of course. But some months ago, I decided I wanted to finish writing the novel I’d started a couple years ago. And Nick really wanted to teach two classes this semester along with working on his dissertation proposal. Add my full time job and Little Z to the mix, and something was going to have to give.

I gave up on cleaning the house, mostly. I mean, for a while there, the bathtub got gross. I ignored it. Extrapolate from that, if you dare. We had clean clothes, because I do laundry on Sundays like clockwork, but that was about it.

I let the cooking slide, too. Three evenings a week, while Nick was teaching, it was just me and Little Z for dinner, anyway, and so we had: carrot sticks with ginger miso sauce; macaroni and cheese (from the box); peanut butter and jelly; frozen pizza; pizza toast (tomato sauce and any kind of cheese on bread, heated in the toaster oven); rotisserie chicken; leftover rotisserie chicken tacos (with homemade cabbage slaw! I totally sliced cabbage and seasoned it with lime juice, honey, and salt); cheese tacos; quesadillas with salsa; salad (Little Z likes to help make the vinaigrette); and vast quantities of fruit.

I do recall that about a month ago I got really depressed about the low quantity of vegetables I was eating, so I roasted an entire head of cauliflower and another of broccoli and ate them both. They were delicious--roasted garlic, lemon, and red pepper flakes on the broccoli, and soy sauce and ginger on the cauliflower. Yum.

Also, Nick picked up much of the cooking slack. He’s been getting into vegan cooking lately, on the theory that vegans have a strong motivation to make vegetables really delicious, and so far he’s not wrong. He made these lovely eggplant “meatballs” last week, and his horseradish baby carrots are the first cooked carrots I’ve been deeply enthusiastic about.

At first, it seemed to make sense that while I was writing regularly again, my cooking dropped off. I’ve often thought of cooking as a quickie act of creativity; something that I can make in order to satisfy that part of me that needs to be creative, to pull something wonderful out of the raw ingredients of my mind or the grocery store. But it turns out that cooking isn’t only a substitute for writing, because I missed it. I missed the physicality of cooking, which writing, especially on a computer, sorely lacks. I missed the good food--the pleasure of mulling over exactly what I wanted to eat and then creating that precise thing, and eating it. I missed cooking for itself.

Now, I find that I’m getting obsessed with the idea of cooking. Not actually cooking, yet, but I can feel that I’m getting closer. It helps that my world is realigning to a place that will shortly again be conducive to cooking. This is the last week of the semester, so no more evening classes--soon, Nick and I will both be home most evenings, to share cooking and playing with Little Z. I’ve completed a draft of the novel, and am now waiting to either be inspired to do revisions or have someone say they want to publish it. We signed up for a CSA, to make sure that vegetables enter the house on a regular basis, and it starts in a week.

It’s spring, my favorite season. Apologies to those of you who suffer from terrible seasonal allergies (Nick), but I adore spring. The trees get green, the breeze blows warm, and a shudder of life runs through me. I go a little crazy; I want to do so much. The very thought of rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberries makes my fingers itch. And I know that so much more will be here soon: peaches and plums and corn and zucchini and eggplant and more more more, all fresh and delicious.

Me being me, I bought a book. A food blog I love, Smitten Kitchen, mentioned a cookbook called Date Night In. A chef, food blogger, and mother of three (I can’t even imagine), wrote a cookbook about the weekly date night meals she cooks for her husband (while he’s putting the kids to bed). I went out to the bookstore and bought it. Right then. I didn’t order it online; I walked to the store. Because that sounded like exactly what I wanted. Also, it was a sunny afternoon, and I felt like getting out of the office.

I wanted a new cookbook, because a new cookbook is always inspiring. I wanted menus and shopping lists planned out, and scheduled so that I could really do them (with some advance prep work) in the evening while Nick put Little Z to bed. I definitely want to give me and Nick some special time together each week, time set aside for us to talk and laugh and pay attention.

We’ll see. I’ve got a new chicken slow cooker recipe I want to try this weekend. And we’ve put Date Night In on the calendar for one night next week. Let’s see how it goes.

It’s time to get cooking again.