You are what you love.

Some may not agree; but that won’t change the fact. Leave sociobiology behind and give your common sense a break. Ortega y Gasset says you have microscopic reasons for falling in love with that man or that woman.

You are completely blind and deaf when beautiful figures that don’t meet your innermost requirements call you by name, but you respond euphorically to the slightest bit of similarity between someone’s lips and the lines of a generic mouth secretly engraved in your heart as a mysterious result of  wills, needs, interests and phantasms.

And once you’re in love, there’s nothing “useful” or “diplomatic” or “reasonable” you can do about it.

I would say that the act of falling in love with a certain someone is a supreme act of revealing yourself: you’ve been found out; no point in hiding behind artsy conversations, black  shirts or monochrome dresses as long as you’re crazily in love with a disreputable fellow or an indelicate lady.

Shortly put, your love may either save or sabotage your “social image”. And if you see a mismatched couple-in-love, you should know that at least one of them is not what one appears to be; the ill-matching is  always – ALWAYS – apparent.

Your choice may contradict your plausible discourse and your manners, but never your innermost urges. When you’re blind, opaque, stiff and close-mouthed, your love is eagle-eyed, transparent,  soft, and effusive; holding under its arm a speaking-trumpet.

PS: Great video, great song, extremely good band. Eels, “Fresh blood”.

I cannot think of a more charming dish for a spring Saturday (late) afternoon. It feels like a salad, but it tastes like a fully-accomplished dish.  The sauce looks like dressing, but there’s a serious sophisticated French touch in it; something that your taste buds cannot (and will not) overlook. If you have a Riesling at hand, do open it. The matching is potentially perfect.

You need fresh, (quite) thick salmon filés sprinkled with salt and pepper (combining white and black pepper has always been an option for me, since I tend to use a little bit more black pepper for the sauce). If you don’t have a grill, just bake it in a little lemon juice mixed with a little bit of water and a little bit of olive oil (personally, I skip the oil part, the fish is fat enough).

You also need: about 4 or 5 new potatoes (I’m talking 4 portions here), 1 red onion, 4 spring onions, 1 red or yellow paprika, a bunch of radishes, 4 carrots, 4 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, Kalamata olives (about 150 g), spinach leaves (very fresh!) or Ruccola leaves (they look fresh even when they’re not). Plus white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, white pepper.

For the sauce: butter (about 1o0 g), Dijon mustard, 3 big egg yolks, vinegar, water, salt, pepper, basil and parsley finely chopped.

Bake the potatoes first. Cut them into pieces and mix them with the olives. Mix the olive oil with the white wine vinegar, salt and pepper and pour the liquid over the potato pieces (in a larger bowl). Set aside.

Cut the other vegetables into pieces and mix everything in the bowl. However, I prefer not to. I tend to use one bowl for potatoes and olives, and one bowl for fresh vegetables and green salad.

The sauce: mix the yolks, the vinegar and the water in a pan, keep stirring (on low heat) until the mixture becomes somewhat thicker. Add the butter (kept at the room temperature). Stir some more (on very low heat). Set aside. Add the Dijon mustard (about 3 spoons) and the herbs. Salt and pepper to taste.

The salmon is baked/grilled by now, and you may take the Riesling out of the refrigerator (a few minutes prior to serving). Set the table. Play some music.

PS:…it doesn’t have to be Henry Mancini, but some discretion is however required.  Neil Diamond? Or Aimee Mann? Personally I enjoy breaking the rules and go for something more “acid” and “immoderate”, like Miss Marshall…

If you haven’t done your groceries yet, add these to the shopping list: 4 dark chocolate packs (85% cocoa, 100 g each), 1 package of butter, brown sugar (about 2 cups), 5 eggs, whole wheat flour (about 2 cups), 1 teaspoon of salt, fresh mint leaves, whipped cream.

When back from the grocery store, preheat the oven at 250 C degrees, melt the chocolate bars and the butter in a pan (low heat is OK). Set aside. Beat eggs and sugar until it becomes thick. Add the chocolate mixture, the flour (not more than 2 cups) and a bit of salt. Pour into baking cups or buttered pan. Leave it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Cool the brownies (they should be somewhat sticky and creamy rather than spongy). Serve with cream and fresh mint leaves.

Cheese and almond pie anyone?

For a start, grind 300 g almonds in a blender and add them to a classically made pie dough (300 g of very cold butter blended together with about 3 cups of whole wheat flour, very cold water, salt and sugar) and mix everything gently (small pieces of butter should be visible in the dough – they’ll be responsible for the crispy texture of the baked crust). Refrigerate it for about two hours.

Preheat the oven at 250 degrees (Celsius). Flatten the dough with your hands and arrange it in the buttered pie pan. Keep it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the filling: mix two yolks, two spoons of honey and a vanilla stick together. When blended, add 250 g of cottage cheese and stir well. Put 150 g of low fat cooking cream and 2 teaspoons of sugar in a blender, beat on low to blend then increase the speed until smooth.  Add the cheese mix and beat on low. Finally add two beaten egg whites and blend a little more.

Take the pie crust off the oven (it should be yellow-ish already) and pour the filling on top. Reduce the heat to 150-200 degrees and keep it in the oven 10 or 15 minutes more.

If you will, you can decorate it with slices of orange. No fresh mint leaves for me this time, which I think it’s a shame.

Bake your pie and let the first 2010 weekend come in peace (unless a war starts over who should clean the mess.)

PS: …but what’s a Friday pie without Humble Pie’s “Hot ‘n Nasty“?

Just an apple pie and a few words about… caprices. It’s a pity that no one talks about them.

One needs the disengagement of a child and the sophisticated history of a responsible adult in order to be credibly capricious. One needs the innocence of a child and the sophisticated openness of a responsible adult in order to encourage and satisfy others’ caprices. Amen.

PS: Regina Spektor’s “Genius Next Door” from her latest album Far was faultlessly produced by legendary Jeff Lynne (Tom Petty’s long-time producer). Have you recently heard anything more emotional and musically convincing? I wish you all a splendid Saturday evening.

It’s one of those dark mornings when you still manage to see through your sleep until far-far-far away in the world of dreams.

There’s nothing convincingly real outside your window. On your desk, the black coffee cup and the book on mourning of the death of someone’s mother remain – absurdly enough – the only available signs of life. Exploit them and live, or supress them and dream.

He who, in spite of everything, insists in saving  a dream, it is as if he has killed the whole real world.

PS: A stunning song sung by Nancy Sinatra, in 2004. The song belongs to Morrissey and you can actually hear him doing the backing vocals. I still remember when I first heard this song. It was back in January 2005 and my knees went weak.

PS2: I bet you don’t know what’s in the picture: milk, hemp oil, fish oil, blueberries and muesli. I guess I’m the only one finding the combination enormously tasty.

One might be tempted to say there’s no vital need for appetizers, and then I will have to disagree.

Prosciutto and two mushrooms (previously cooked in brandy and butter) laying  on a large lettuce leaf, sprinkled with parmesan cheese and parsley will start you up not only for the main course, but most likely for the whole evening.

PS: And some Roberta Flack. Just in case.

Today’s dish is a typical holiday dish. It’s light, it’s fun, and it’s refreshing: elementarily summer-ish.

When prepared in mid-September, it’s somewhat nostalgic. I never give much faith to summer and typical summer affairs like sunbathing & related activities. As for September typical affairs, they make me overwhelmingly melancholic. It’s like within these very weeks the year fades out slowly, tenderly. There’s nothing risible about mid-September, yet there’s nothing sober and “self-pretending”; it’s all about  mild thoughtfulness, murmur, and long walks.

Conceptually speaking, today’s dish is very much out of the context; because of this unsuitability, it is symbolically  marked the end of  the strange conviction that summer is a self-regenerating thing.

In temperate zones of the world, the whole idea of the recoverability of good old summer days by taking time off and going to exotic vacations is annoyingly false. And ultimately offensive to both sides: us and the summer. When summer pleasures are  constantly prolonged and increasingly controlled by “rational decisions”, we lose the ability to reasonably cope with September nostalgia and November rain. The less we adjust to local times and seasons, the less we enjoy our outland escapades to sunny beaches.

Following the summer wherever it goes has to do with two things: financial potency and human impotence. Don’t get me wrong, the first thing is certainly good, and the second one is certainly normal. It is the combination of the two that is fatal. Why fatal? Because, paradoxically, it favors a sense of panic for the future, and a sense of failure regarding the past. And once you’ve started, you can’t stop. You keep hoping that the winter feeling is escapable. But neither global warming nor the cottage in Thailand can take the chill off the spine of a professional summer-seeker.

Curry Chicken with lime and Parmesan is summer’s last breath. So better take it as it comes.

You will need: the juice of 2-3 limes, about 400 g of Parmesan, 2 onions, 2 cloves of garlic, about 200g light cream or yogurt, broccoli, yellow curry, Basmati rice (preferably brown, but I couldn’t find any around the house), skinless, de-boned chicken breasts, one tablespoon of butter, fresh mint leaves, salt and pepper to taste.

The procedure is easy like a summer breeze: melt the butter in a pan, add the finely cut garlic and onions and stir until yellowish; add the cream/yogurt, then the juice of 1 lime and a half together with a few slices of lime if you want (but it will make the sauce slightly bitter), bring it to boil, add the Parmesan stirring continuously, then add the curry, salt to taste. Stir, stir, stir. Then put it aside.

I hope the oven is preheated (150 degrees Celsius) by now and the chicken (washed with cold water) already seasoned with salt, pepper, finely chopped mint leaves, and plenty of lime juice. Add some olive oil into the pan if you want. Keep it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Then pour the sauce all over the chicken and return the pan in the oven until the chicken is tender.

Meanwhile, boil the rice and steam the broccoli.  Set the table (presuming you also have a well-cooled dry white wine  at hand; and more limes for decorating the plates). Enjoy. Let the others do the dishes. Have a great summer whenever you want and wherever you are!

PS: Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood at your command. Let the summer of ’67 come in!

1. I’ve read your book published by Polirom and I was wandering if I should be expecting something new soon.

New book on death and dying  is ready to be published. I’ll let you know when is out. This one is thicker. And, to my own surprise, a lot better.

2. What are you working on at the moment? [i.e. field of work, I know you're doing some research or smth. Is it for your Ph.D - again, what's the subject of it?]
P.S. We spent our adolescence in the same little town and I remember you and your husband from when you were like 18-19 or smth. Time has done a great job with you!

Right now I’m working on something new involving death and the sacred. And struggling to finish the novel. And an article on some methodological matters. My field of research is where  sociology of religion, philology, philosophy and thanatology meet. Sort of.

And the PhD is already history. Thank God. I’m done with it.

I’m sure time has worked wonderfully on you too. Have a splendid Sunday evening.

I want to ask you how much do you weight and how tall are you. Thank you and have a nice day.

49-50 kg, 165cm.

How did you meet your husband and when?

14 years ago in a coffee shop. A friend introduced me to him. We three sat at the table and talked. It was awful.

And I want to ask something serious for the question section: what is the most annoying thing about yourself?

I’m very intransigent about household issues (the quality and the freshness of the food, cleaning products, garbage sorting, odors, light etc. etc. etc. etc.)

What are your favorite beauty products? If you use any…

It’s hard to talk about it. It would take hours. For the moment, I try to give up Clinique 3-step cleansing  system because of the percentage of sodium laureate, and Ultimate Wrinkle Restoring Serum from Dior (because of the shocking experience  I’ve got after checking the Cosmetic Safety reviews data base);  I still like Clinique Superdefence SPF 25 (it still works for my skin) and the whitening and anti-wrinkle lotions from Kanebo. I also like Kanebo shampoo, but from time to time I use home-made organic shampoos.  Recently I turned more to L’Occitane products, but they’re not as harmless and organic as I thought, so there are days when I end up using nothing but essential oils (almond, grape seeds, olive) and some home made stuff with clay and fruits.

Do you and your husband plan to have any children?

Private.

I could use some tips for meeting the love of my life. I’m asking you because you’re an intelligent young woman with an open mind, open heart and a lot of flair

Jogging in the park maybe? You see her today, you see her tomorrow, next time you smile, and by the end of the week you exchange iPods. (well, like question, like answer…; sorry, my “flair” is not working today.)

Why do you like old?

Old what?

I also have three questions: what is your favorite movie, what is your favorite band and why are you so thin?

I don’t know what my favorite movie is, and I’m not that thin. I don’t diet if that’s what you asked. And I am not good with movies actually. I could use some tips.

Talking about favorite music is difficult. I tend to be long and you’ll become really bored. The shortest version is this: my all time favorite singer/songwriter is David Bowie, followed closely by Leonard Cohen. Then comes Lou Reed, Ian Hunter, Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Helena Josefsson, Son of a Plumber, Mick Karn, Antony Hegarty. As for the bands, Beatles (now remastered!!!!) are irreplaceable, but I also like Small Faces a lot, Humble Pie, The Kinks, the old Rolling Stones (I love them in the iPod, they really start me up) and many little known old bands (garage bands, punk bands and such).

Choose between painting and writing

But I don’t want to.

Adela, I’m really curious about your hidden reasons for keeping a blog. After reading your book I really don’t understand much about your personality and the way you choose to expose yourself. Thank you.

If they’d be any hidden reasons, I wouldn’t tell you. I have a good control over my online exposure and over my let’s call it “hysterical side”. I don’t mind people knowing what music I listen to, what “beauty products” I use and what is my opinion on idiots, but I wouldn’t talk about self-reflective individual experiences though. I guess I’ am more “exposed” in my actual writings than in my online activity. But overall I’m often accused of not being open enough. And there’s something strange as well: I don’t particularly like to blog and, for me, it’s not a routine activity, which makes it even more challenging. And perhaps confusing.

What is your favorite thing to do when you’re free?

When I don’t have a deadline to meet, I work just as hard, but with a different attitude. Those are the times when I feel very fortunate and happy.

An exquisite dinner, good talk, good 60s music and good South African wine could also do wonders to my mood.

Do you own a flat or a house? Do you have any pets? Do you have a favorite female figure?

Yes. No. Dita Von Teese.

I also have a question if you don’t mind: if I’m not mistaken you write a novel. My question is WHY? Do you think you can’t get enough fame with research books? What do you think about others opinion about you?

I don’t know why I’m writing a novel and I hope you can put up with my lack of knowledge.

Fame? Are you serious?? That’s just a song by David Bowie.

I don’t know much about others opinion on me. I don’t know many people. And most of the ones I know are not on my liking. That’s why I’m extremely nice and polite with them. So they often end up thinking I’m a nice person. When I tell them I’m not, they wouldn’t listen…

Do you think cheating should be forgiven? Are you afraid your husband cheats you with one of his patients?

Can’t you ask normal questions? Cheating is a highly personal matter, involving highly personal factors. Cheating or faithfulness mean nothing for themselves. When out of the context, they’re just big words for small people.

Thank you all for following this blog and asking (more or less revelatory) questions. I hope I’ve answered all. If you didn’t find your question published together with the answer, let me know, I’ll double check the unpublished comments. Have a splendid Saturday, with or without a the help of “Chelsea Girls”.

Day after day, man struggles to resolve the conflict between the need to have a good dinner and the strong desire to remain indoors, rejoicing in do-nothingness. No one and nothing can take away from us these two incompatible elements, whatever form the dilemma may take: cooking or sleeping? eating outdoors or starving indoors? blowing the budget to cook or blowing the budget to eat fancy restaurants? The conflicting attitudes toward food and cooking make people intimidated of others’ ways of being hungry and getting fed. Food is like religion: there is a hell and a paradise of both; and people hold different notions of how to get (or get out of) there. Also, a gradual loss of faith in both cooking and praying has been attested. However the need to secure tasty food and an afterlife is here to stay, justifying the daily struggle for a better dinner and a better world.

I wouldn’t blog much about my religious views, as for the foods, I’ll put it straight: my belief is strong – homecooking makes your home THE place to be. I find it upsetting to actually have to LEAVE the house whenever I want to enjoy a meal. A week ago I’ve made Italian Focaccia for an Asian friend. This week I’ve done it again. The outcome is religiously splendid:

You need 6 cups of whole wheat flour, two pieces of dry yeast dissolved in a cup of warm water, parmesan (about one cup and a half), olive oil, fresh rosemary, about 150 g prosciutto crudo (cut into very small pieces), a small finely sliced red onion, one tablespoon of coarse salt, and finally, about two teaspoons of fresh ground pepper. Put 5 cups of whole wheat flour in a large bowl together with the dissolved yeast (and water), add the parmesan and the prosciutto, a bit of salt and a teaspoon of pepper. Mix everything together using a wooden spoon, then gather all your courage and use your hands. The dough should be sticky. Put everything on a floured surface (you still have a cup of flour left, remember?) and knead it until smooth (add some more warm water if necessary). Place the dough back in (now oiled!) bowl. Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for about 2 hours (it should rise A LOT!)

Preheat the oven at 250 degrees. Place the dough in an oiled baking sheet, and dimple it with your fingers. Splash it with olive oil, sprinkle with more pepper, coarse salt, parmesan and onion. Bake it for 30 minutes, until it turns somewhat gold. Serve it warm (or cold), with a a dip of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, fresh rosemary and basil.

Add a Chianti to the whole thing and you’d assume you died and went to heaven.

PS: Mick Ronson, “I’d Give Anything to See You“. Simple and…straight. The kind of guitar riff that never really gets old-fashioned.

The only chance one has to survive those exceptionally bad days when awful news keep pouring down like rain, is to keep cutting things in small pieces. Don’t think. Don’t stop. Just cut. Let the compulsion take over (spare your fingers, if possible). Eventually it will turn out to be a salad.

Of course, a non-reflective approach of recipes has always been a big enemy of good cooking. There cannot be any valuable correlation between compulsion and cooking. The moment you stop thinking, you stop being a cook.  Who cares about gastronomic information and pancake skills when you can’t understand and master the strategy behind a certain dish? I believe in “strategic cooking” and I tend to detest any other impulsive/compulsive reason one might have for spending time in the kitchen. BUT.

When it comes down to surviving apocalyptic days, even the noble prestige of a salad must subdue to the logic of “eschatology”. So cut, cut some more, and when you think you’ve cut enough, just try a little bit faster. It goes like this:

You can cut whatever vegetable you have in the fridge. Speaking about surviving exercises, organic vegetables will make a big difference. Start with the harder ones: two peppers (green and red), about 250 g of  green olives, about 300 g goat cheese cut in bite size chunks, half of a medium-sized broccoli cut into (rather) small pieces, not more than 70 g organic ham or spicy organic salami, a medium-sized, finely-sliced red onion, about 6-7 cornichons.

Cut 1 avocado (without smooshing it, please!) into small pieces, finely chopped leaves of a celery, and, at the very end, 3 or 4 medium tomatoes.

Spread some cold pressed unfiltered organic olive oil (very important for a full taste), some balsamic vinegar, some fresh rosemary (the dry one would be fine as well, I guess), freshly ground red pepper, and sea salt. If it suits your taste, you can also make your option for a spoon of Dijon mustard.

And don’t forget you’re in the middle of a surviving exercise, so clean the cooking place before heading to the table for dinner. While reading this, you may not know exactly why, but that’s only because you  never had to turn a bad day into good food. So you have to take my word for it: first clean the mess, then set the table.

So this is a surviving exercise that accidentally became a decent dinner, with a sweet finish. It could have been a lot worse.

PS: Another fine song from Regina Spektor‘s album Far (2009): “Blue Lips”, live. I do like it a lot. But it’s nothing to die for until the very last minute when the song becomes more abstract, yet more conclusive and credible. Once again, she’s too smart for making good pop.

You can fix this in minutes. It looks great and it tastes divinely. All you need is a wok and a some handy ingredients: rice noodles, baby veal, soy sauce, sherry/wine, rice vinegar, brown sugar, one hot/sweet red pepper, carrots, ginger, green onions, green garlic, broccoli and one big avocado. It may sound like improvising on a Thai-theme. True, this is sheer improvisation. But who cares anyway as long as it makes a perfectly balanced dinner for hungry, tired, late-comers home?

Cooking your own meals is either a “devalued” habit (why lose precious time? why not eating out instead? why not calling for pizza emergency?) or an ideology (live awarely, eat better for less money, keep your budget under control, cooking is trendy etc.) Both extremes are, in my opinion, ridiculous. It only goes to show the terrifying void in our homely lives, as if no genuine  and spontaneous approach of indoor time would be possible anymore.

Cooking is a highly-social activity, and everyone who cooks knows it. Cooking can be a “chaos regulator” because it codifies and circumscribes interactions. Cooking space can be a focal point where people  simply reconnect to each other. Cooking can be an inner attitude generating cozy homely feelings. Cooking can just as well be a creative impulse. Or a cheap self-gratificatory gesture. Cooking can be all these and more, but never a gratuitous or sterile activity.

To put it shortly, cooking makes your home the place to be. Don’t you think it’s upsetting to actually have to leave your house whenever you have the desire to eat well? Or don’t you think it’s pathetic to “have to” vegetate in front of the TV/computer with a pizza at hand, ignoring everyone, including yourself? I somehow suspect that people’s (vehement) reasons for rejecting cooking are  subtle indicators of their inner misery and confusion.

PS: I’ve always admired Elvis Costello. He did it all, and he did it well. I’ve been, at times, irritated by his prodigious career as a songwriter: how many different songs can one write out of three chords without becoming ridiculously redundant? The answer is: a lot more than I could ever imagine. Here’s one overwhelming proof: “When I Was Cruel 2″. Can anyone get any smarter than this?

According to my – fairly unrealistic approach of life – guests should always be served a warm dinner (or meal).  That’s a bit of a trouble, even in my best days of cooking.  Firstly, you are not allowed to shower  and change your clothes before your guests arrive because you can’t afford to spoil the timing of your cooking this and of your cooking that, of your calling here and of your calling there (that is, making sure you find out whether they got stuck in traffic; if yes,  which is often the case in this monster city, making sure you know for how long).

Secondly, as I have an open kitchen, cooking, baking and boiling with the guests around the table is not an option; doesn’t matter how hard you try to keep everything under control, to pay attention to what they say, to avoid putting different ingredients on the table among plates and glasses, at some point the bubble will break and they’ll hear you cursing, they’ll see you burning something or burning yourself, breaking a mug or sweating like a racing horse. Even if the guests are your best friends (or precisely because of that), you don’t want any of these to happen. So you prefer gambling with time, hoping they’ll knock at your door precisely when you’ve turned off the cooking stove and you’ve mopped the floor for the last time.

I’ve never considered sushi to be best for guests, till recently. I always thought sushi is, just like pizza, more like a family dinner, something to eat in front of the TV. However, I’ve recently made up my mind. If you want to welcome your guests in a relaxed mood, sushi is the answer. You fix it in the morning, you store  everything in the fridge, and you put it on the table 15 minutes after the guests’ arrival. If you add, for variation, a shrimp salad (also fixed in the morning), some roe and different sorts of dipping sauces (all home made!! don’t just squeeze plastic bottled soy/mayonnaise-based sauces into bowls! that’s… gross), and, of course, some rice noodles and vegetables (red cabbage stands out!) – you’ll have a complete dinner and a wonderfully-colored table.

I like to spice up the soy sauce with some genuine cayenne pepper, a bit of finely chopped garlic, and two or three bits of fresh ginger. If you leave it in the fridge for about 3 hours the aromas will blend together and you’ll have the perfect dip for sushi which, by the way, is best eaten with hands, not with chop sticks.

Since not everybody’s fond of raw fish, make sure you make some maki sushi (using nori)  filled with boiled tuna, because the nigiri way won’t let you use cooked fish. As for the raw salmon, make sure is fresh! I am lucky enough to live nearby a  fish store that  brings fresh fish every day and slices it in front of you. If you don’t know if your fish is fresh (as a rule, don’t take the seller’s word for granted…) and, moreover, if the shrimps eyes are clouded, stay away from them. Try some frozen shrimps instead, but not the pre-boiled  ones because they have already lost their taste.

Also, better peel and devein the shrimps yourself so that you know what you’ll be eating. I use to boil the freshly peeled (and never frozen) shrimps for 1 or 2 minutes in water and soy sauce, then I let them cool before using them in the salad.

Since I hate beer (and sake), no one will ever get it in my house. A well-chilled extra dry white wine is always at hand though. And it goes well with the fish. Do I hear a knock at the door?

I thought of doing something nobody would expect of me: blogging – once in a while – about food under the label “culinary digressions”.

I care dearly about food, and I care dearly about cooking it. To me, it is a matter of ego, artistry, and old-fashioned hostess instinct. This “care” of mine is, like all the other “cares” I have, a very complicated one; it involves (precious) time, (considerable) social, emotional and financial resources, aesthetics, green policies, tears, sweat, smelly steam invading the flat,  innumerable (yet never sufficient) kitchen kits, a tough cook apron, and a lot of (not easily breakable) confidence.

I try to cook as intuitively as possible. A friend of mine once asked how come I never read the recipe once I start cooking. Do I really have to learn the recipe by heart? No, not at all, I answered. It is just that I  never start cooking without making sure I understood the recipe. While reading it, I imagine the outcome, I instill its “laws”, I make sense out of it all. The shortest way to a catastrophic culinary outcome is reading one row at a time without trying to understand your present cooking manoeuvres as being part of a whole procedure that is supposed to have a certain (recognizable and tasty) result.

Whenever you think that nothing looks more dissonant and less intuitive than the recipe in front of you, whenever you fear all those ingredients crowded on your table are going to fade, melt or turn blue, and whenever you realize that someone trained to become a dadaist poet printed some chaotic words and numbers in your cookbook, it’s time to step back: bring all those “primordial” elements of reality together in your mind and thus provoke the vision of the upcoming dish! Once the recipe makes sense in your mind and you can actually connect the words on the page with the ingredients on the table, close the cookbook and follow your instincts. They can’t fail you.

Yesterday evening I cooked an…ostrich meat-based dish, for the first time in my life. It was a strange experience. The color of the meat makes you think it’s veal, but because its being very rich in iron,  the color is really very intensely red. I’ve decided to make it the thai-way and I’ve learned just in time that, unlike veal, the ostrich meat does not have to be marinated for too long because it is a lot leaner. Rice vinegar, soy sauce (not  the salty one!), red onion, honey, chili cayenne, fresh ginger, and some sherry made a perfect marinate for the meat. I kept everything in the fridge for about 1 hour (I usually marinate the veal for 3 to 4 hours), while the brown rice was cooked (brown rice does smell like sweaty socks while being cooked, but tastes and feels a lot better than the white one! Don’t pass it by when you see it in your grocery store!). Once marinated, I cooked everything in the wok for no more than 5 minutes (ostrich meat becomes hard if overcooked). Vegetables (broccoli, carrots and spinach) steamed for about 5 minutes accompanied the meat and made a complete, extremely healthy dish. The meat tastes a bit like pork and a bit like veal, but I won’t lie to you, it does have a peculiar, faint aftertaste that made me think, for a moment, of the smell in the dissection room of the Medical School I once used to go to.

As a starter, I fixed one of my absolute favorite dishes (although, in my opinion, French cuisine is nothing to die for): chèvre chaud. Make sure the goat cheese is not too hard and not too soft, not to salty and not too sweet, and, also, I dare say, the organic rye bread is a must because it tastes better than other sorts of bread when grilled. I never skip the Dijon mustard and roughly sliced avocado when I cook this salad, but I never use bacon or eggs or any  other kind of “heavy” ingredients. This is definitely not the kind of dish you want to overdue. It’s a discrete, slightly elegant appetizer that goes extremely well with a French floral white wine. The only distinctive taste must come from the grilled goat cheese and from one green onion finely chopped. Because I think lettuce leaves have no taste and no personality, I try to use spinach as often as possible (leaves must be well-dried after being washed. The excess of water makes everything mushy and the salad would look and taste lifeless.)

All in all, the dinner was great. The cooking time has been understimated though (fixing a salad always takes more time than expected) and we set the table sometime around 10 p.m. which I think it’s intolerable. Staying up for 4 more hours afterwards with a bottle of Chianti at hand was a graceful idea though.