This week I’ve decided to write about cooking.
Before I left for the holiday period last semester I was given Michel Roux’s new cookbook, the french revolution. Its packed with traditional French recipes that appear under subheadings like ‘Légumes, Légumineuses et céréales’, ‘Repas de Famille’ and ‘Festins Gourmands’: ‘very achievable’ classics that ‘don’t need lots of fancy equipment… nearly all the ingredients are easy to come by’.
My flatmate and I cook for each other every other night. It’s an efficient system that lets you get your work done one night, and relax the next. Tonight was my turn, and I’d decided earlier on in the day that I’d have a crack at Roux’s Moules à la Bière(1kg mussels from Tailend, 340 ml of beer from Luvians, 2 shallots, 2 garlic cloves, 2 TSP of black pepper (already had it) and 4 TBS of crème fraiche from Tesco’s). £ 8.75 might sound like a lot, but when you consider I’m only cooking every other night, that comes in at (roughly) 4 pounds a day for supper.
Presentation and flavor matter a lot at no.15, and I absolutely nailed this one in an hour and fifteen minutes (roughly the time I usually cook for).
Tonight’s meal
That might sound like a lot of time (time that might otherwise have been spent on essay or tutorial reading for example), but I think there’s a lot to be said for having spent it on cooking.
First off, I think getting into a habit of cooking new recipes really helps me to relax. Reading for most of the day can feel quite frustrating, but trying to cook something new for the first time at the end of a long day is quite liberating. It’s definitely a creative activity that can break the harsh realities of the work-rest 24-hour day.
What’s better is that I find cooking helps when I’m lost for work related words or ideas: when I’m stuck with a methodological problem or struggling to structure an argument for an upcoming essay for example. I think there’s something about the creativity involved in making a meal that helps to me to think about academic problems in ways I might not have while sitting at desk. That’s why I bring a pad of paper to the kitchen counter when I cook. If something new comes to me from the heavens, I jot it down, and I end up with a small collection of notes for when I come back to tackle the problem later. I hadn’t thought about what I’d blog about today until I started chopping the shallots. By the time I’d added the crème fraiche to the beer, I’d drawn up a rough plan.
I also appreciate the reward in having cooked something nice, in sitting down at the table with my flatmate to eat, and in taking the time to chill out. I think a lot of students miss out on this when they head back to St Andrews after a holiday.
I reckon the whole process (from pan to plate, table to chat and chat to dishwasher) takes about 2.5 hours. It might be procrastination, but that procrastination sure can be productive.