Friday Night:
All my favorite things: fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil. And then because you can't just eat a mozzarella salad, add some tomato. I don't know why I'm so frequently enticed by foods that I don't actually like but despite not liking raw tomatoes, I get wicked cravings for this salad.
On one of her shows, Nigella Dawson said that salads should either be green or red -- lettuce or tomato -- but not both. And then suddenly the world made a little more sense.
I love watching cooking shows when I'm stressed. Especially while I'm eating. It's not necessary to eat the same thing that they're cooking, but it's torture to watch someone in the kitchen and not have anything to stuff your face with.
Nigelle is great because she's got the warmth and the sensuality. I find her hilarious because even though she's a woman with cooking shows, who writes cookbooks, she's not actually a great cook. It's adorable to watch her use her little rolly knife (a rounded blade with a wooden handle that she can hold in both hands) because she's not able to finely chop things with a proper knife. As she narrates, "Chop the onions finely. Well, I'm not doing a very good job of that, but it doesn't really matter."
Jamie Oliver is exceedingly good at chopping things. He's got the technique down where out just wumpwumpwumpwumpwump and the blade keeps moving and then all the sudden everything is diced. I know you're supposed to cut with one clean stroke, but I can't stop the little back and forth movement of my hand. Clean strokes make the knife clatter too loudly on the board.
Sophie Dahl is infinitely gentle with her food. I think it must take her five hours to make each dish (or there hard flocks of interns waiting off camera with bowls of already-diced produce) because she's so careful as she prepares the ingredients. I haven't decided whether or not I think she's a good chef. She's gorgeous and she's got these swoopy bangs that defy all the regular laws of hair physics in their perfection.
Sophie's recipes are always Events, and I don't think I've ever tried to cook anything of her's. Nigella likes to put lime in everything and she likes spicy food more than I do. Jamie always cooks with raw herbs, which makes me entirely more likely to try his stuff out. (Sophie uses creme fraiche all the time, which -- tempting. But still not enough to commit to three hours in the kitchen.)
It's funny, the communal aspect of food. Sophie never seems to have people over to eat the food she made. Watching Nigelle and Jamie serve is somehow this important thing to me. I want to see a group of people eat meals, even though I'm just one person alone in my house watching the program. I never realized how much we scrutinized how other people eat until I started working. A man who I didn't recognize walked into the communal kitchen where a bunch of ladies were eating around the table while I microwaved my pasta. "You sure have a big appetite," he said to the woman sitting at the end of the table, who had a salad that covered her entire plate with orange slices circling 'round the edge.
"She's having salad," one of the other women said. How did it become a humiliation to be judge by this man who had just walked in, but I kept the microwave closed and waited until his back was turned before slinking off with my plate piled high with spaghetti and meat sauce. I think it's better to be round and enjoy the food you're eating, leave other people alone to their rations. There's so much discussion about food around the office -- what have you got there? Looks like a lot. Looks like you're hungry. Looks good, but I can't eat like that.
I think -- I will never be like that. Policing what other people eat. And then in moments I'm just as bad as everyone else: Nigelle, you are putting too much lime over your dish. I do not want to watch you eat that much sour.
It looks like you really enjoy your mozzarella cheese, Laura.
