Not Food Porn

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​I love making shrimp stock.  Heating the empty shells in a dry pan, then adding water, watching it steam, then simmer for 20 minutes makes a beautiful, delicate broth.
Then my husband sees the bowl of fragrant stock cooling on the counter and pours it down the sink before he starts doing dishes. Sigh.
I can gut a fish, but I don’t enjoy it.
I love making chicken and turkey stock. I threaten my hens that they will be in the stock pot when they get old. But I don’t have the heart to do them in.
I love buying local organic olive oil by the half gallon and decanting it into a ceramic vessel to use every day.
I love the char on a good piece of meat or fish. I also love sashimi.
I love making pizza dough, rolling it thin, and cooking it on the grill; a crispy, delicious base for olive oil, grilled veggies, or figs.
I love eating vegetables in season, but I make one exception. There are always – and I mean always – red bell peppers in my fridge. I won’t touch an off-season tomato, but I need my red bell pepper fix.
I love pomegranate arils. Pips. Seeds. Whatever you want to call them, they are delightful.
I love cooking simply. I try to help the flavors of what I cook sing their songs and then get out of the way. I am not a transformative cook. Why would you want to transform something that is already delicious?
I love looking at pictures of beautifully prepared food. They make me hungry. They can inspire me. I don’t like the term “food porn”. Why make appreciating beautiful food sound prurient?
Cooking inspires my writing. When I am in my kitchen preparing dinner, ideas, words, stories come to me. I run back and forth between the kitchen and my office to capture them before they evaporate like steam. That’s why dinner is typically late. But usually worth the wait.