From the ashes, my cookbook fetish explained

I am a passionate person. I feel that if something is worth my time - it's worth doing passionately.

I adore cooking. All aspects of it - and while not trying to sound conceited, I am a really good cook. Although I must say that I never really learned the true joy of cooking (thank you - Julia Childs) until I was in early adulthood. Admittedly, I was not always this way. When I was about twelve I made lemon sugar cookies that somehow ended up more like lemon tortillas that my dog even turned her nose up at. Cooking was definitely an acquired skill for me.

I tremble in kitchen stores, I salivate in Williams-Sonoma, I could spend weeks just looking through a single shelf of cookbooks at Barnes & Noble. I own some of the most bizarre and unusual kitchen implements known to man, some incredibly old (a ladle from my maternal great-great-great grandmother, a cake plate from my paternal great-grandmother) to the latest innovations. My single most prized possession is probably my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

I didn't grow up in a house of cooks however. My mom was a pretty decent cook - but when you were as poor as we were you were pretty limited in what you had to work with. On the way home from the softball tournament yesterday (which lasted the majority of the day) we were discussing white trash cooking and some of the horrific "dishes" we were force-fed as children. Who could forget the concoction my stepmother called goulash (elbow macaroni, stewed tomatoes, random vegetables and ground beef) that still sends shivers up my spine? Or this one dish that my mom used to fix when we were really down on our luck which consisted of a box of macaroni and cheese, canned peas, and tuna? Ew.

I started experimenting with cooking when I had my first apartment, but to be honest until I met an exboyfriend of mine cooking was a necessary evil - not really something to be enjoyed. He loved cooking, the selection of ingredients, and the presentation with the same gusto that most people give only to the consumption aspect of food. I learned a tremendous amount from him about food and cooking (along with the fact that you don't date people who in all likelihood would prefer to be with someone of their own sex). And no, it was not the cooking that made me question his sexuality. A man who can cook is an amazing turn on. He had other issues, let's just leave it at that.

Cooking also let me break away - in a way - psychologically from my childhood of abject poverty. Gone were the days of tater tot cassarole and swiss steak. I have a ton of cookbooks. So much so that I could really use a bookshelf in my kitchen. Some of them were gifts, other guilty clearance purchases from Hastings back when I was in college. Still others are almost tomes, beautiful books with pictures that are simply amazing.

So this morning, while uploading tons of cds onto my mp3 player, I had Willie Nelson cranked up in the background (Don't laugh. Seven Spanish Angels and Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain choke me up. And yes, I have been to Luckenbach, Texas many times). Part of adulthood is dealing with your past, not merely pretending it didn't happen. Tonight we're having red beans and rice and cornbread. Elegant? Perhaps not. A culinary extravagance? Certainly not. But it reminds me a lot of my childhood, of my roots... of who I am.

And that is by definition comfort food. And no amount of gourmet fancy-pants cooking can replace that.

But rest assured... goulash will never be made in my kitchen.