A New Cookbook

I was delighted to receive this cookbook from my husband for Christmas. I have really felt the urge for about a year now, to become a better cook. I've been a vegetarian for twelve years and Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is a really amazing guide. I have ben a fan of Deborah Madison for many years. I have eaten at her restaurant, Greens, in San Francisco twice in the early 2000s. This past summer, while attending the Seed Savers Exchange Annual Convention in Iowa with my farmer husband, I very nearly had the pleasure of having drinks with Deborah Madison. I was so disappointed, we missed her by mere minutes. Luckily, we have next year - hopefully by then I will be able to tell her of some of my grand adventures with her recipes!

One of my resolutions for the new year is to cook an average of one recipe a week from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. For me, this is a very lofty goal, and I am not doing well so far, but there is still plenty of time.

Cooking Class - Lessons 1 and 2

Recently, I have had the desire to become a better cook. I have always loved to bake, but cooking has really been a completely other realm. Luckily, my husband, Nate is an excellent cook - he went to CCA in San Francisco and has since transitioned to a farmer; he always is thinking about food in one way or the other. So we have decided that Nate is going to teach me lessons, which I am very excited about. I figured out that each lesson, especially in the beginning should be learning a practical part followed be a dish using those techniques.


Our first lesson on Saturday went very well. The technique was different knife skills, which I found very daunting. Nate taught me julienne and baton cuts and how to properly cut an onion. I just could not keep my knife parallel on the onion! The dish we made was pasta with homemade sauce using tomatoes, onions and garlic that he had grown, which was really neat.



Our second lesson, which took place on Sunday was all about one of our favorite dishes to eat: Beet, Kale and Goat Cheese Pizza. This is a glorious concoction that Nate brought together last year, and I figured it was about time for me to learn how to make it. I adore beets, which were easy to cut, and I enjoyed cooking the greens, watching them transform was interesting. My only regret - not making two pizzas!