The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [165]
And what did I learn from my two years of (mostly) home-cooked food? Well, people will say that the world of restaurant food is vast. But the world of cooking and eating in far exceeds it in scope, even in a city as seemingly disinclined toward home cooking as New York. There are foragers in the parks as we speak; anarchist freegans lurking around the trash cans while you sleep; cook-offs being thrown and/or dreamed up by the second; and food bloggers eagerly tapping away at their computers with flour-coated fingers, taking in the rich smells of something wonderful cooking in their kitchens. It’s a jungle out there. And unlike restaurants, there is no finite limit to the number of menu items that can be ordered and consumed within the realm of home cookery—so long as a person has a kitchen and the imagination to create something tasty all their own.
Just as there are social traditions, customs, and interactions related to eating out, there are those particular to eating in. These are the things about cooking for two years that have meant the most to me. From making brunch for hungover friends to having Christmas dinner with my family, I hope there is never a shortage of opportunities to cook and eat with people on a regular basis. Getting involved in supper clubs has proven for me a pretty good way to keep this up constantly, though running one yourself can be time-consuming and costly if you’re not careful, as I humbly learned.
What had begun more or less as a simple ploy to save money actually ended up expanding my culinary scope in ways I had never imagined possible. Who knew I’d learn how to make sushi rolls, Moroccan tajines, and spicy Mexican tripe stew? There is really no limit to what can be done in the home kitchen. While not eating out I gradually mastered a slew of cooking techniques, prep skills, and entertaining savvy through practice, practice, and more practice. I cringe looking back at some of the older recipes on my blog. My experience just with handling food and seeing how it interacts with heat and other processes has sharpened my cooking skills infinitely, well beyond what just research and cookbooks can do. And that, to a foodie, is priceless.
For some reason, and I’m sure it’s not entirely because of the cooking experience, the two years I spent not eating out in New York were some of the best ones of my life. Blogging is a unique modern phenomenon, one that has helped me connect with strangers and feel comfortable being open about my stories and my emotions in ways I never dreamed I’d be. I think there’s something valuable in this. Whether it was because I became more used to being uncensored around people—and this is not necessarily a good thing for the other people’s sakes—or because of something else, the idea of stepping away from cultural standards by doing something such as not eating out now looks much less intimidating. Going out there to Walden Pond like Thoreau, or to the Andes, as Professor Cooper did, or to the Dumpster behind a supermarket, or simply doing something a little differently from everyone else and actually enjoying it is itself a novel thrill. And as long as it’s not hurting anyone, what’s the harm?
The people in the examples just mentioned had a rigorous ideology, an agenda, and a principle they wanted to prove from