Shelter magazines like Sunset and Real Simple and Better Homos and Gardners and Martha Stewart have always given me hives (the angry red kind). Like many parenting magazines I feel like they paint this unrealistic incredibly wealthy picture of the unremitting joy of cooking with dewy grass fronds, and “cheap” ($25,000) remodels. Oh and did I mention all the pictures of mostly white, skinny, happy people? If that’s cooking and domesticity, then count me fucking OUT.
To top it off, I was raised by a couple of Gloria Steinem juniors. I was more likely to be jumping off ramps on my powder blue skateboard than doing anything productive in the kitchen except fake karate moves.
Funny thing about kids and cutting back on work and slowing things down at home.. Cooking is harder and harder to avoid (Have you noticed?). Besides, even though I’m loathe to admit it in public, cooking makes everything homier.. I feel better about our nutrition (or at least less guilty about our occasional Happy Meals) better about our time together, and certainly notice a smaller food budget when I actually plan quasi-menus and make Martha for my sweet babies.
And seriously, she’s kickin and sassy and she cooks… and so does she… so you clearly don’t have to be a mindless vanilla drone to throw together grub for your peeps.
What I’d LOVE to see is a cookbook with some verve so I could feel like I wasn’t selling my soul to Stepford-dom by following(ish) their goddamn recipes… Here’s an example of the kind of recipe I’d like to see. Tonight I’m making lentil soup with sausage….
Lentil NOT GODDAMN VEGAN soup
- fry up some onions and garlic, motherfucker
- put in some meat (if it’s organic you won’t have to diaper your kids later when they develop Mad Cow)
- add dry sherry (after you drink some)
- spash in some tomato liquid substance (tomato paste, sauce, juice, whatever, hell ketchup even works)
- dump in some lentils
I know it sounds gross, but the soup actually tastes good… I added a bunch of other spices n’ things in there, but can’t remember what it was so you know.. you’ll have to fend for yourself.
If anyone knows of a FUNNY SASSY cookbook, let this mama know. By end of next week, I’ll be back to bacon and eggs unless I get some guidance.
*** Over at Babble today, I’m talking up Momsrising’s proposed “Peaceful Revolution” and David Beckham’s ass.
I’m with you, Redsy. I actually cooked tonite and it does make things more homey and laid back. People seem to be happier when the onions are being sauteed before the chicken gets thrown in. As for the sherry, just be sure to save me some!
Cookbook? Who needs a cookbook when you’ve got the internet?! I like recipezaar.com because the recipes are typically easy to make and turn out good without mega fancy ingredients and there’s reviews.
I like Latin Chic: Entertaining with Style and Sass. It’s co-written by one of my former colleagues, a Cuban-American woman who is super hip. Great anecdotes, great recipes (even for cocktails) and beautiful pictures, too.
I also like the cookbook by blogger Chocolate and Zucchini. Lovely anecdotes before each recipe; kinda makes you feel like the chef is normal and that you could hang out and drink with her too. If I could stop eating the Ghiradelli chocolate chips I keep buying, I’d make her crazy chocolate cookie recipe, which involves instant coffee.
Brilliant, I am so jealous of it cookbook: Anthony Bourdain’s. Amazingly written, totally sarcastic (he is not afraid to call his readers “numbnuts”) and awesome French recipes. It is an investment, but well worth it. His roasted chicken recipe is my standby, albeit with some improvisation.
A fun, yet practical read: The Storm Gourmet. Written by my best friend, it talks about how to make gourmet food when the power is out. Totally creative and well done, and I’m not saying that just because I got a research credit on it.
A good Southern cuisine primer: The River Road Cookbook, volumes 1 and 2. Produced by the Baton Rouge Junior League (gag, gasp…spew) it has recipes that come close to my seafood gumbo and crawfish etouffee.
Let’s write a cookbook. Easy food for tired parents. Drinks included.
How about Fried Skateboard over a bed of braised Karate.
I love cooking take-out and the kind of pizza that arrives at my door.
Actually, I’ve found great recipes online. (Foodnetwork.com has a bunch. You might start there.)
I had a powder blue skate board too! Oh and the trucks and the race cars… Ahhh, the 70’s.
I love it when recipes refer to me as a fucker!
My old standby are Cooking Light magazines-the recipies aren’t usually full of ingredients I don’t have, and they actually taste good. And they help fulfill my magazine fetish.
My mother was an old school cook-everything was made with hamburger or fried. After she died, my father had to learn to cook, so by extension, I learned to cook. The hard way. Blech.
I say go for the cookbooks with pretty pictures-you’re more likely to want to cook the food if the picture is pretty.
The last time I opened a cookbook it was nothing but pain and misery thereafter. I think I will check back here for future recipes!
I can make soup. From a can. And toast. That’s about it. I’m really not interested in trying any harder.
If you were not hatin’ on vegans so much, I think you would find the Post Punk Kitchen founder Isa, a hoot. Lots of sass, great food….but meatless. Plenty of soup, too.
http://www.theppk.com
If you’re not totally serious about dissing veggies, look for the books Vegan With A Venegeance, or Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.