Cooking

Cooking is a good one because it is so multi-faceted. I can vent my spleen about baking, frying, grilling, boiling, the heinous laws of kashrut, or the cleaning process that inevitably follows. But what I choose to rant about are recipe books. They really get me going.

First of all, there are so many to choose from. Do I want the kosher ones? That way I can make any dish it describes – and be allowed to eat it. Or do I want to specifically get the non-kosher ones? They’ll be more interesting, steer me away from being too heimishe, and maybe impress my friends a bit more. Then again, I’ll have to work out if chicken and beef are good substitutes for pork, bacon, ham, shrimp, oysters, prawns, lobster, caviar etc.

Luckily I’ve so far managed to avoid making this mind-bending decision because during the course of our engagement and wedding, my husband and I received about 12 recipe books as gifts, including one sent from Amazon anonymously. (If that was you, please reveal yourself – the suspense is killing us!)

Secondly, why are the recipes always so complicated? They tend to require about a thousand ingredients, none of which I ever have. Who on earth has their cupboard stocked with caster sugar, brown sugar, Demerara sugar, Vanilla sugar and icing sugar? Sugar is sugar. Isn’t it?

I like recipes that are simple. Like you take the chicken and whatever vegetables you have, throw ‘em in a pot of water, add some salt and voila! Chicken soup. Who can be bothered with gently folding anything into anything else. Just mix it up!

And finally, even if you do decide to use a recipe from a cookbook, it will never ever ever end up looking like it does in the picture.