The Acrylics and Merinos of Food

I like hobbies, I seem to collect them and one thing I would consider a hobby is cooking and baking. How can something you need to do everyday (unless you want to only eat pre-made and takeout food) be a hobby? Because there are two types of ways to make food: There is cooking for everyday substance and boxed baking and that's great. It's more then great it's a necessity. But then there is the "hobby" cooking and baking, where you don't just cook because you need to get a meal on the table but because you truly enjoy making something that is incredibly special. The time and skill involved isn't just something you do because you need to make something your family will eat but because you love to do it.

In knitting terms the everyday cooking is like making something with cheap yarn. If I"m going to make felt-able oven mitts I'm going to go for some Wool of the Andes, it works, it fills the need but it isn't something I necessarily like to knit with. Or maybe a baby blanket, just something that can cover their cold body, takes up a lot of yarn and be thrown in the wash when it gets puked on, this is the perfect project for a ton of soft acrylic. But what if I want to make a beautiful, cable-y, soft hat and gloves set for myself? Will I go to Michael's and get the same acrylic I got for the baby blanket, it's soft and warm right? No way Jose! I'm going to use the super soft Madelintosh hand dyed merino wool I got at Web's. The two skeins cost way more then the baby blanket, and definitely way more then if I just went and bough a set in the store. The point is to use really nice quality ingredients to make an amazing product I'm going to wear and cherish.

So back to cooking, for everyday food, I go to Shaw's or Stop and Shop and I look for the store brand, or what's on sale. I try to pick things based on their nutrition, easy of cooking, whether or not I have the time on a weeknight to cook it and if J or I am going to want to eat it. No where in that list is pleasure. If I wanted to spend more I could do all this kind of shopping at Whole Foods and get better quality organic food and that would be amazing but I can't. There are times though, I want to make cook something that is going to be amazing, that is going to make me really happy to make it and then share it, something that I am doing because I WANT to. not because I HAVE to.

This is where the super special ingrediants come into play. I really want to make some homemade ricotta. I know you can buy ricotta in the store, but that's not the point. I want to stand over the stove and mix non-hormone organic whole milk and delicious heavy cream with acid stir and wait; and then strain and wait. I want to make some completely to die for ricotta. Then I want to spread it on amazing baker quality bread and some really good balsamic and stuff myself silly. For dessert maybe I'll make some homemade raspberry chocolate syrup to put on ice cream or some homemade chocolate peanut butter cups, made with good quality, fair-trade chocolate. These are not everyday things, but things that take time and skill and are super special.

And this is why I will go to both Michael's and In the Loop in the same day and why I will be "crazy" and go to Whole Foods and Shaw's in the same day to go grocery shopping.