Robin

the search for delicious

Born and raised in Texas, shipped East for college, currently in New York, I am a lifelong procrastinator whose favorite methods of delaying the inevitable are books and food (eating, cooking, dreaming of, &c.).

I love food, and I love the routines that surround it, too: choosing, cleaning, chopping, leftovers. In the winter of 2003, I was living in a studio in Park Slope and spent most of my free time reading Nigella Lawson's HOW TO EAT. I feel as if that's when I began cooking in earnest; though some people would say I'm a bit, ah, rigid in the kitchen when it comes to measuring and following recipes and such, those people should have seen me before my Nigella apprenticeship encouraged me to loosen up and have fun. This being New York, I didn't have a dishwasher, and I didn't have too many pots and pans, so frequent cooking meant I found myself washing the same pots over and over. I came to enjoy this routine, appreciating each pot as a trusty friend. In the winter of 2004, I was living with a friend in Williamsburg, and we had a box of organic produce delivered every week. It was a challenge to keep up with all those vegetables, but I tried to find comfort in that routine, too, the endless washing and drying and storing of spinach, lettuce, broccoli, all kinds of greens I had never eaten but now love, artichokes, even...a weekly surprise. In the winter of 2005, I was living with my future husband, a fine and intuitive cook himself, and that's when I began to learn about getting dinner on the table seven nights a week. OK, maybe six...but for New York, this is absurdly domestic.

I spend way too much time cooking (I'm slow!), but I can't give it up because it centers my spirit and anchors my days. Blogging is my way of trying to hold on to those daily joys, experiments, exciting discoveries, and humorous failures. I once spent a long evening making spinach lasagna out of Cook's Illustrated. It was the first time I ever cooked from the magazine, and I followed the recipe precisely: bechamel, soaking noodles, cleaning and cooking my own damn spinach...reader, when I popped that bad boy in the oven, I sat down on the kitchen floor and laughed until I was red in the face, because I knew there was no way it could taste as good as I hoped after all that work. But do you know what? It was amazing. What could be more faith-restoring and hope-inspiring? Making something yummy is an undervalued means of pursuing contentment and serenity, of being in the moment.

In the past year I've learned how to sew and knit, and in the spirit of putting my own work up on the virtual refrigerator I will, begging your forgiveness for the hodgepodge, share those projects, too.