on cooking with love
Life with the Significant Eater is relatively harmonious. There are only two reoccurring issues of contention. One involves what city we ultimately live in (we both love living in Melbourne, its just a bit more complicated than that) and the other is about cooking meat.
Though I am not a rabid member of PETA or a radical vegan, I just don’t like the smell of meat cooking. In fact, lamb now makes me feel as nauseas as the awful aroma of offal did as a child. We’d planned to get a barbecue to overcome part of the issue but a new one is not in our budget right now (hint: anyone got a decent one with a wok burner that they’d like to get rid of?). The house is tiny, the kitchen and the living room is one functional space. Sadly the double extractor fan over the stove has not lived up to the promises of the manufacturer and the smell of a stir fry or using the cast iron grill can last for days.
While he cooked himself a steak while I was away last, which is ok with me, I’m told it did stink the entire house out. He hasn’t raised the issue since. However with his lingering lurgy he made a plaintive plea for chicken soup to help his never ending cold.
On market day last week I began a labour of love. From the Chicken Pantry I got two chunks of chook still on the bone. All their fowl is raised the old fashioned way with no additives; I figure conventional chicken can’t be used for medicine. At home realising the function of the skinny curved knife that sits in the block is designed for boning I managed to easily fillet the flesh. The cats got the skin and a few trimmings and that made them very happy.
Into the pot went the meaty chicken bones, some celery, coriander roots and a knob of ginger. It simmered away happily for an hour or two, til I went out (to eat a delicious lunch at Cookie). Later it would be drained and any fat scooped off the top.
Home again and feeling rather merry, I assembled the soup, a chicken version of healing soup. It featured carrots, Chinese mushrooms (shitake and oyster), spring onion, chilli, garlic, coriander, ginger, a splash of fish sauce and I am sure, many other things. My memory is a little blurry. There was chicken of course, cut into generous slices. But the main ingredients were love and care. Really I know that sounds soppy but for me the ultimate act of devotion is to make something absolutely scrumptious for someone else that I cannot eat!
He ate two large bowls and seemed very happy.
He’s still got a cold though.
Though I am not a rabid member of PETA or a radical vegan, I just don’t like the smell of meat cooking. In fact, lamb now makes me feel as nauseas as the awful aroma of offal did as a child. We’d planned to get a barbecue to overcome part of the issue but a new one is not in our budget right now (hint: anyone got a decent one with a wok burner that they’d like to get rid of?). The house is tiny, the kitchen and the living room is one functional space. Sadly the double extractor fan over the stove has not lived up to the promises of the manufacturer and the smell of a stir fry or using the cast iron grill can last for days.
While he cooked himself a steak while I was away last, which is ok with me, I’m told it did stink the entire house out. He hasn’t raised the issue since. However with his lingering lurgy he made a plaintive plea for chicken soup to help his never ending cold.
On market day last week I began a labour of love. From the Chicken Pantry I got two chunks of chook still on the bone. All their fowl is raised the old fashioned way with no additives; I figure conventional chicken can’t be used for medicine. At home realising the function of the skinny curved knife that sits in the block is designed for boning I managed to easily fillet the flesh. The cats got the skin and a few trimmings and that made them very happy.
Into the pot went the meaty chicken bones, some celery, coriander roots and a knob of ginger. It simmered away happily for an hour or two, til I went out (to eat a delicious lunch at Cookie). Later it would be drained and any fat scooped off the top.
Home again and feeling rather merry, I assembled the soup, a chicken version of healing soup. It featured carrots, Chinese mushrooms (shitake and oyster), spring onion, chilli, garlic, coriander, ginger, a splash of fish sauce and I am sure, many other things. My memory is a little blurry. There was chicken of course, cut into generous slices. But the main ingredients were love and care. Really I know that sounds soppy but for me the ultimate act of devotion is to make something absolutely scrumptious for someone else that I cannot eat!
He ate two large bowls and seemed very happy.
He’s still got a cold though.
Labels: chicken, love, soup, thoughts on cooking
