On The Cook Counts Too
21 March 2010 by Jean Johnson
You heard it here first. Straight from Hippie Kitchen, p. 44.
On the Cook Counts Too—
Fussing with cooking vegetables by the singleton is something I do less often than not. That’s because when you’re going for a quick meal, it’s easier to get a bunch of veggies onto the heat to flash cook together, warm salad or soup style. Between that and leftover grain and protein waiting in the fridge, you’re there.
The singleton scene could be that’s why so many of us spend forever in the kitchen—sometimes resenting the time and trouble. We think we have to make picture perfect meals every day with these separate little piles of whatever.
Contrast that with the spirit of one-bowl meals popular around the world. Ethnic cooks from Asia to Latin America to Africa know how to combine an enticing array of vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes into easy meals. They know that the cook’s happier and the food’s better when they keep things simple.
It’s the same thing on how much of this and that to put into what you’re making. The cook needs to count. The cook does count. It’s the cook’s call.
That’s why one day when journalist, Laura Marble who took to measurefree cooking instantly, asked how many tomatoes I knew to put in some dish or other, I came back with a reply that made us chuckle. “I don’t know?” I said gearing up for a flip but seriously radical remark. “Like when I’m tired of chopping.”
