Let's Get Cookin'!

Conversation about food is universal, or at least in my world, and this blog while it may begin as a monologue, I hope will become more “dialogue” in form as OLLI folks check it out.

For me, dialogue about food occurs wherever I go. Who could guess what my hairdresser and my son had in common? The same recipe of what to do with kale, that curly green that often decorates the plate in restaurants, but that no one would eat in that form. Two students in my Basics of Cooking class requested a recipe for preparation of kale and I mentioned this at my recent haircutting and also a day or so later when visiting with my son and family. Both recommended roasting it with olive oil and garlic. So we will have to try that, especially since my sixteen-year-old grandson, an enthusiastic chef on his own part supported his dad’s recipe.

Roasting vegetables is currently a favorite method for preparing many vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, asparagus, winter squashes, and probably many more that I haven’t tried yet. Just cut them up and spread them out on a baking sheet and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake in a hot oven (400 degrees) for a short time, maybe ten minutes, and the result is often sweeter than raw or nuttier in flavor than when cooked in the steamer or boiled.  The class roasted cut up potatoes this way for twenty minutes and they came out crispy on the outside and soft inside. With the added enhancements of paprika and chili powder, the effect was awesome.

I hope the blog will feed your interests with cooking tips, recipes, poetry, restaurant reviews, seasonal market places...anything but weather reports unless a drought in the south affects the fruit supply or the price of peanuts.  I plan to add new stuff to it regularly so I hope you will stop by often to see what’s cooking in my little brain.  If there’s one thing we all have to do is eat; might as well enjoy a discussion on the topic that will enhance the experience.