I Love Cooking!

 I am at home today because it is threatening snow and if you know anyone from the South that means everything shuts down.  Schools dismissed early and have probably canceled school for tomorrow (and btw it hasn't started snowing at all).  So I have dusted the house, ran errands, and spent quality time with my poochie.  And right now, I am inspired to Blog by a great movie, Julie and Julia.  I love Amy Adams as an actress, have seen all of her movies, and I love cooking.

When Jeff & I moved into together after high school, I couldn't cook worth a darn.  If I could only begin to tell you how many times I nearly burned down the kitchen making a casserole.  But, unlike Julie Powell, I had no idea who Julia Child was but I did know the Food Network.  Jeff and our roommate, best friend, and adopted brother, Jason loved watching Emeril when they weren't in class.  I like Emeril but he is gourmet and I just wasn't up to that sort of cooking.  When Jeff & I got engaged, my grandmother gave me several cookbooks to help me (she had the exact same problem when she got married).  But her cookbooks were so outdated and assumed I knew something about cooking.  What I needed was a step by step guide to cooking.  In stepped Rachel Ray and my mother-in-law. 

I can't exactly remember who got me started on Rachel Ray or where I got my first magazine but my mother-in-law has been giving me a subscription for years so we'll credit her.  To be honest, I actually cannot stand Rachel Ray, especially her TV Show, but her recipes are so doable!  And for the last 4 years I have been religiously cooking from the magazine and cookbooks that I have that I can now say, I don't really need them anymore.  I have really become a cook.  After our stint in Italy when I couldn't find any ingredients to cook anything that wasn't pasta, I really honed in on the cooking process.  I can really make a good pasta now and even when I read a recipe I can tell you if its going to be good and if isn't going to good, I know exactly what to throw in to make it taste better (this has been a real blessing for my mother-in-laws cooking). 

Now watching this movie today I am reminded how much I truly love cooking.  It relaxes me and makes me happy so I am armed with Julia Child's cookbook and I may just have to go to the gourmet grocery store and make something yummy for my husband.  The problem with cooking yummy food is the major hit to your wallet (something I think Julie Powell can relate too).  And BTW, I have made Julia Child's Beouf Bourignon too and it is a slice of heaven, everything Julie Powell describes it to be (just make sure to grab a good bottle of Chianti).