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Meme: Kitchen Habits
Feb. 9th, 2009 01:56 pmThis meme is designed to share your thoughts and practices on cooking. You're welcome to copy it on your blog if you wish.
1) Is your kitchen large, medium, or small?
Small. Smally-small-small.
2) How many people do you typically feed at the main meal of the day?
Just me and my Mystery.
3) How often do you cook recipes that require assembly (rather than just heating premade items)?
Once per day, at a minimum.
4) What is your favorite heat-producing kitchen appliance?
No Contest. La Pavoni Europiccola Lusso Espresso Machine. Does what it promises.
5) What is your favorite non-heating kitchen appliance?
Appliance? Probably the blender. It's amazing. I'm a bit afraid of it, because its IQ is higher than mine. It can make smoothies and go back in time to kill Hitler. I'd like to become better friends with the stand mixer though.
6) Do you like specialized gadgets and tools, or consider them a waste of space?
Specialized gadgetry kind of takes up room. But it is interesting to find a use for a specialized tool that you had never considered because you don't have anything else that fits the bill at the moment. Cheese graters for example, just get more and more useful as time goes on. But since space is at a premium in our kitchen, something has to be pretty useful before we will buy it.
I might add that I am a complete hypocrite here. The last thing I bought for the kitchen (other than the genius blender,) was a set of cast iron cornbread molds that could be used to make... well, only cornbread. But I still haven't decided if those are purely decorative or not.
7) Do you cook from recipes, by intuition, or both ways?
All three ways.
I love creating in the kitchen, and after I am confident in a regional style, I will throw things together without a recipe based upon the ingredients at hand.
Recipes are how you get skilled enough to become improvisational, and lots of the time, it's nice to just do kitchen grunt-work.
Finally, I often use cookbooks as regional maps, rather than specific destinations. For example, I own three or four cookbooks that I have not cooked many recipes from, but I will consult constantly to see how things are properly done for the region in mind. Cooking shows work well to fill this same niche.
8) How many cookbooks do you have?
Probably just under 100. There are maybe 20 that we use with regularity. Others come and go.
I'm going to add to the meme:
9) Which chef/cookbook author do you fancy yourself a "follower" of?
Jamie Oliver, not so much the person, or even his recipes, (i don't own a single cookbook of his, and have tried only two of his recipes) but I love his stylistic approach. One or two or three good things of "similar souls" mashed together in a stone mortar = one fantastic thing.
10) "Keep it simple?" or "Sauce it up?"
Keep it simple, of course. From time to time though, I can appreciate a good sauce.
1) Is your kitchen large, medium, or small?
Small. Smally-small-small.
2) How many people do you typically feed at the main meal of the day?
Just me and my Mystery.
3) How often do you cook recipes that require assembly (rather than just heating premade items)?
Once per day, at a minimum.
4) What is your favorite heat-producing kitchen appliance?
No Contest. La Pavoni Europiccola Lusso Espresso Machine. Does what it promises.
5) What is your favorite non-heating kitchen appliance?
Appliance? Probably the blender. It's amazing. I'm a bit afraid of it, because its IQ is higher than mine. It can make smoothies and go back in time to kill Hitler. I'd like to become better friends with the stand mixer though.
6) Do you like specialized gadgets and tools, or consider them a waste of space?
Specialized gadgetry kind of takes up room. But it is interesting to find a use for a specialized tool that you had never considered because you don't have anything else that fits the bill at the moment. Cheese graters for example, just get more and more useful as time goes on. But since space is at a premium in our kitchen, something has to be pretty useful before we will buy it.
I might add that I am a complete hypocrite here. The last thing I bought for the kitchen (other than the genius blender,) was a set of cast iron cornbread molds that could be used to make... well, only cornbread. But I still haven't decided if those are purely decorative or not.
7) Do you cook from recipes, by intuition, or both ways?
All three ways.
I love creating in the kitchen, and after I am confident in a regional style, I will throw things together without a recipe based upon the ingredients at hand.
Recipes are how you get skilled enough to become improvisational, and lots of the time, it's nice to just do kitchen grunt-work.
Finally, I often use cookbooks as regional maps, rather than specific destinations. For example, I own three or four cookbooks that I have not cooked many recipes from, but I will consult constantly to see how things are properly done for the region in mind. Cooking shows work well to fill this same niche.
8) How many cookbooks do you have?
Probably just under 100. There are maybe 20 that we use with regularity. Others come and go.
I'm going to add to the meme:
9) Which chef/cookbook author do you fancy yourself a "follower" of?
Jamie Oliver, not so much the person, or even his recipes, (i don't own a single cookbook of his, and have tried only two of his recipes) but I love his stylistic approach. One or two or three good things of "similar souls" mashed together in a stone mortar = one fantastic thing.
10) "Keep it simple?" or "Sauce it up?"
Keep it simple, of course. From time to time though, I can appreciate a good sauce.
