dinner!

cooking and baking are two activities that bring me incredible joy. I also happen to be fairly good at it, I can intuitively tell what's going to work and what won't. Of course the fact that it is intuitive to me makes it hard for me to understand that it might be difficult for other people to cook...I don't have to practice at most food related things, it turns out tasty the first time.

My intuition for cooking is entirely thanks to my parents. My father (or mother)come home virtually every night and make a sit down dinner, And we all sit down and eat, even if someone is out for the evening the remaining 2 or 3 sit down for dinner, and yes! we even talk! No small part of this is derived from the fact that my parents really enjoy cooking. I really don't know if it was a calculated "family" decision on their part to always have us sit down together or what was only reasonable in their minds 'I spent the time to make this tasty dinner, so we're all going to sit down and enjoy it together.'

This is something that I try to do in my own life, it is however very hard to want to do this all by yourself. That's why having a roommate who also appreciates food is so wonderful for me. When I was living "alone" in a dorm I would always invite someone else to eat with me. Partially because I find it difficult to calculate how to cook for just one person, and partially because food is such a communal activity for me, at least dinner is. Don't talk to me at breakfast...I'm busy reading the comics and the headlines. Lunch can be social, but so frequently for me it is eaten while moving from one activity to the next.

I really love cooking, but I probably enjoy baking more. Yes, I have a huge sweet tooth, I also like the parameters in which you must mess around. I love trying new things but I also like knowing in baking that certain things have to be a certain way in order for the chemistry to work. I love seeing the difference with butter or margarine (sometimes trans fats are really helpful in baking) what happens if I replace shortening with peanut butter? Another big reason that I love baking is that there is no icky raw meat to deal with. Actually I don't mind raw beef or pork or lamb (M just realized the other day through my explanation of a dream in which there was a 'baby sheep'...wait silly embly...we have a word for baby sheep it's lamb...that lamb is not just the meat word for sheep, but rather than lamb is, baby sheep and mutton is in fact the meat form of sheep...she thought mutton was another animal entirely, I think she was a little bothered by this) What I really mind is raw chicken. I find it really disgusting.

any how if I invite you to dinner you should come. I will come back to the topic of music I promise.