Cooking

Just recently I've been making a concerted effort to get back into cooking. As a bit of a nitpicky perfectionist, I've actually been quite pleasantly surprised with how comfortable I've felt letting all manner of things slide a bit in my life since the Mabel arrived. But cooking is something I've always really liked to do, and that I miss. One way or another, its fallen to my husband, Bill to cook dinner most nights--because I was always feeding the baby or whatnot. But now that she eats a supper of various glops in a highchair, she can be fed with her little rubberized spoon by either parent. So last week we started trading off--one parent pulls the highchair into the kitchen and feeds her there to be sociable while the other one cooks. Last week, I made this:

As luck would have it, a new column recently started up in the food section of the San Francisco Chronicle. Written by Amanda Gold, it's about getting back into (fast, easy, yet real) cooking as a new mom. How opportune! This is actually the second time we've made this, and it's a winner (did I mention fast? and easy? and oh so tasty?), which means it lives here:

This binder full of all the raggedy clippings and printouts and handwritten notes about recipes we've made and liked is labeled "Heaven" to distinguish it from the folder of recipes we haven't tried yet, which is called "Purgatory." This week I am planning to make an old favorite recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks (which also happens to be about one of my favorite places, and published my by favorite employer--a festival of favorites!)

The recipe is this one, for penne with cauliflower:

Except that I will not actually be cooking it out of said cookbook, but rather will be using this:

A handmade cookbook, featuring all our favorite recipes, that Bill and I made a few years back and gave to all our friends and relatives as Christmas presents. We're not sure if anyone else ever cooks from it, but we do all the time. Here is the cauliflower recipe, which needless to say I highly recommend. 

In closing, I should just note that I am not now, nor will I be at any time in the future, be taking photos of any of the things I cook (with the possible exception of pie). Food photography is a fine art, and those of us who are not proficient at it tend to make all food look like an entirely unappetizing dog's breakfast. So, yeah, not doing that.