When I was about six or seven years old, my sister Olivia (a year younger than me) and I decided to surprise our parents by making them an afternoon snack. We got out some raspberry-flavoured applesauce and spread it over cinnamon raisin bread, topping it with whole almonds. In our excitement, we didn't realise that the bread was stale, and, even if it weren't, the combination was really rather revolting anyway. Our loving, supportive parents choked down the entire mess, feigning delight the whole time. Olivia and I, satisfied with our victory, retreated upstairs (undoubtedly to play Barbies, take a bath, or some other such fun pastime), not to return to the kitchen for quite some time, much to our parents' relief.
From a culinary perspective, it was a complete failure.
But that occasion marked my first real foray into combining different flavours to try to create something new and delicious. (Okay, just new.) Once I was tall and old enough to start using the stove, I learned how to make scrambled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, and soup, and in the process, found out that scrambled eggs were better if you beat them with milk and cheese before cooking them, grilled cheese was better with two different cheeses in one sandwich, and soup was really good if you threw in a few extra vegetables and some seasoning. None of these revelations was particularly groundbreaking, of course, but they were small steps on some endless road toward culinary expertise, even perfection.
Don't misunderstand my use of the word "aficionada" in the title of this blog; my surname is neither Ramsay nor Ray, I don't have a neat catchphrase, and the fourth wall of my kitchen is not raked seating for a studio audience. I don't even own a food processor, and for most of the year a working oven is nothing more than a distant memory (ah, the joys of student life). But I have twenty years' experience in eating and I like to think I know what tastes good. I have also rediscovered in recent weeks the kind of curiosity, intrigue and slight intrepidity necessary to become a good cook. And so it is my hope that with the help of a few decent recipe websites, YouTube, the handful of cookbooks in the cupboard above our microwave, my guinea pigs family and friends, and a little sticktoitiveness, my cooking and baking skills will improve to the degree where I no longer have to follow the phrase "I can cook" with a short list of recipes that I have made successfully before (pasta, the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwiches, and steamed vegetables). Rather, the phrase will stand for itself and no recipe will be too daunting or insurmountable. I will be able to say, "I can cook," with total finality, authority, and, perhaps most importantly, with total honesty. (That's the plan, anyway.) And so, in a rather Julie and Julia fashion, I am entering with abandon the arena, ready to take on difficult recipes, obscure ingredients, and bizarre techniques. Par for the course, I'm sure, will be a deflated soufflé or two, doughy bread, and at least one burnt experiment. But I am determined that there will be more successes than failures, and that I will emerge from a mountain of eggshells, carrot peelings, flour, and of course, dirty dishes clutching my creation of the day.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
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