Mutterings and Musings

The Spice of Life

Challenge: What kinds of things do you like to cook or are good at cooking? What are your comfort foods?

I love cooking. I love eating. Fortunately, so does my husband. Tonight I was lazy and we had jacket potatoes and cheese; stodgy, easy comfort food. Normally I'd do bake beans, cheese, & pineapple (don't knock it if you haven't tried it) or egg & prawn mayonnaise, but I'm tired and achy today, so simple it is.
For his birthday, Best Beloved got a new curry cookbook with several spice mixes - and oh my, even just plain chicken cooked with a spoonful of any of the mixes makes the whole house smell awesome. A running joke about the English is that we colonised most of the world looking for spices, and then never use them in our cooking. It's true; most English cooking is pretty bland. Don't get me wrong - shepherd's pie and veg, roast beef, a good old homemade pasty... They're all good (if rather heavy) meals. But a pinch of salt'n'pepper and that's about it *shrug*

Several years ago I got to go to India with friends; we had an amazing time and I tried a whole load of new things (riding side-saddle on a motorbike? With no helmet? In flip-flops?), but funnily enough, the most vivid experience was walking through the spice markets.

The. Colours.
The. Sounds.
The. Smells.

Piles of spices, several feet high, lay coned on squares of fabric and woman squatted behind and beside them, calling out, shading the sun from their eyes, wearing dazzling saris and beautiful scarves. The intensity of the sun should have bleached all the colours and made the ah more rural smells come to the forefront. But quite the contrary; the sun glinted off weights and scales, necklaces, bracelets, and nose rings. And then there was the gold yellow of the turmeric, the brilliant red chilies, black and green cardamons, the russet brown of cinnamon sticks. There were piles of spices I'd never heard of; jakhya, asafoetida, cubeb, and inknut. And there were spices that I used to often that I don't even think about them as spices - ginger, cumin, black pepper, sesame.
Don't get me wrong, there are foods I don't like - but there's not many. And I'm lucky neither I nor Best Beloved have any allergies and we both love travel - which means I have cookbooks from all sorts of places. In fact, I'd go so as to say, I might even have too many cookbooks. That is not an admission I make lightly.
That being said, during the week, with both I and him-in-doors are working, meals tend to be pretty predictable; curry, stir fry, grilled meat & chips, quiche, pizza, pasta. Things that either of us can whip up quickly and without too much thought. I love cooking, but I don't find it relaxing the way some do.

And. I. Do. Not. Bake.

Seriously - I'm a pharmacist. I'm used to measuring and counting,* but baking drives me batty. It's too much like work. I have a very approximation style way of cooking (a splash of this, a dash of that, stick it in the oven until it looks cooked), and baking does not lend itself to that. Ironically, my sister - who can't cook worth a damn and has never been known to measure anything in her life - bakes like a demon.

*one of my uni lecturers: "never trust a pharmacist that can't cook."