Ten-hour days. Tiny kitchens. And I didn’t go to college to major in home economics, now did I?
When I was in high school and college, I had zero interest in cooking. I was going to be a career woman, not a housewife. Preparing food was something done by women with no ambition. So forget it.
Luckily for me, I married a man who loves to cook, and is great at it. Trout baked in parchment paper with julienned vegetables, veal osso buco, and authentic Hungarian goulash are regular fare in my home. My contributions in the kitchen were generally limited to post-meal clean-up. Until I decided, after 15 years of working in media, I wanted to become a holistic nutrition counselor.
If part of my new job was going to be teaching other people how to prepare healthy, simple meals at home, then, I reasoned, I better learn how to do it myself, and quick. I do have some fear around preparing meat (How do you really know when the steak is a perfect medium-rare? Or when the fish is cooked but not overdone?), so I decided I would start trying to cook some vegetarian meals, and leave the beef to my man.
I’m really good at following rules and directions. So I soon discovered that cookbooks work for me. Just do what the recipe says, and wow, cooked food! And now, after preparing hundreds of dishes at home, many of them truly great, I must say, I am a New York woman who cooks.
And I’m finding that I actually love it. I find it relaxing and meditative. I enjoy hearing my husband and two daughters say “Mmm!” after trying their first bite. And it feels good to know that I’m helping to nourish myself and my family with real, wholesome foods, not some salty soup dumped out of a can or a frozen dinner loaded with chemicals.
Home-cooked food is the cornerstone of a healthy diet. My early rebellion against the kitchen left me with stomach problems and low-level depression for years–I was relying on pre-prepared foods that were not making me feel good. Oh what a difference some sauteed fresh food makes.
To see some of my favorite recipes, click here.
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