A Simple Pleasure…

Last night, I was cooking dinner and realized that I had missed cooking.

I did not start my little cooking challenge two weeks ago because I missed cooking. I started it because it seemed like a cute idea. You know, “cook your way through your collection of cookbooks and blog about it” cute.

Well, maybe not so premeditated as that sounds, but you know what I mean. It just sounded fun in a cute way.

I didn’t expect to realize I had missed cooking and that it’s actually a suitable stress reliever for me. Being as short-attention spanned as I am and having the kind of job that requires that I switch gears with little to no warning, it’s nice to focus on something to the exclusion of all else.

And if you doubt that cooking takes focus, you’ve clearly never cooked with me.

For example, chopping vegetables. Yeah. Me plus sharp knives. Needless to say, I’m paying very close attention to the knife and veggies and ignoring other everything else while chopping them into little bits and pieces. I may have no apparent regard for avoiding burns based on the Natchitoches Incident, but I would like to keep my fingertips in place.

If you’re wondering how I could have come to a point in my life where I could miss cooking, I can sum it up pretty quickly. I’m single, work some oddball hours, hate doing dishes and had gotten in to the habit of not cooking while living in DC, where going out to dinner five to seven nights a week was the norm.

All things considered, cooking had become this exotic activity I did only when visiting my family or when I got a wild hair and decided to host a random dinner party.

So whatever else comes of my cooking challenge, it has reunited me with my joy of cooking (hello, pun intended!). And, as Martha Stewart might say, that is a good thing.

Now… If only someone else would do all of the freaking dishes and pots and pans. *sigh*