I like to cook. Well, maybe enjoy reading recipes would be a better description of one of my favorite pastimes.
When I was single, I played with complicated dishes. Before TV Stevie and I first got married, he told me he did not expect me to have dinner on the table every night. He’s kept his promise. Of course, when the Chromos were young, dinner was on the table every night. I prepared new recipes and dabbled with vegetarianism for several years. Y-Chromo ate homemade baby food. (I tried to do the same with X-Chromo, but by then I was too exhausted.) I have a lot of cookbooks. A blender. TV Stevie even bought me the food processor I wanted.
Fast forward to being a self-employed empty-nester. Dinner is no longer on the table every night. There are many nights when I don’t eat at all, full from my midday meal. Yet I still love reading recipes. If they’re not too complicated, I’ll even prepare some. I make crockpot soups in the winter and freeze the leftovers. In the summer, I keep some kind of cold salad in the fridge for quick meals. TV Stevie has a wide variety of choices when he’s ready to eat.
The blender and the food processor have been relegated to the basement along with the Foreman Grill (and maybe an old electric frying pan). The air fryer will be next. They are too difficult to clean. I want to cook simply with minimal mess, which is what is prompting this blog. If a recipe calls for an appliance, it should be listed in the ingredients list, not buried somewhere in the instructions. I require time to hunt down blades and whatnot (some of which got lost when the contractors were here twenty years ago).
So everyone who puts recipes out on the internet–New York Times, All Recipes, Pinterest–please include a list of tools and appliances needed right up front so I can decide the recipe is worth the effort.
