My husband is the gourmet cook. His masterpieces are slow and steady cooking, finding unusual ingredients, and fantastic. He loves homemade food, with the arrival of a meat slicer for Christmas is now into homemade lunch meats. Sometimes this has its drawbacks.
He hung 5 pieces of filet mignon from our dining room chandelier for one week, drying the meat out in a South African Biltong type of way. I lost a few friends when they came to visit, walking through the kitchen door to me standing with a butcher knife in hand and raw meat hanging to dry. Of course, they left before I could explain.
Curing his own bacon from pork belly was another chandelier experiment. Once explaining to my friends that I was not a serial killer, I invited them back again. This time they came through the door to my husband slicing beef on his slicer with raw pork hanging from the chandelier, never saw them again.
He sometimes gets caught up in his cooking. I remember once watching him massage spices into a piece of meat and actually getting a little jealous.
He gets hyper focused on what he is cooking. Meaning dinner is handmade pork belly. That's it. If we have company (those that still come to the house) I have to prepare the sides.
You can sense a love of the process in his cooking. It is his way to relax on the weekends. I can't complain because not only do a get a break, but I get great food in the process. Though my pants have been a little tight lately.
My cooking is Mom cooking, translating into 30 minutes or less, 3-4 ingredients and as few dirty dishes as possible. I developed this type of cooking when my children were born, because keeping a toddler from trashing your kitchen and trying to cook a gourmet meal did not work well together. Dinner had to be fast and pretty simple. Explaining to a 10 year old that I worked on the Gohbi Aloo for several hours and the garam
Masala is a great taste is a guaranteed push the plate away move. Their rule of thumb is if they cannot pronounce it, then they will not eat it. However, making your own spaghetti sauce in 30 minutes for the pasta is a guaranteed crowd pleaser, I of course plan the nutritional meal, actually adding the salad, and, of course, the dessert.
Anytime you come to visit the Melang house, you should expect a great meal. Sometimes things may take a little time, but short or long it is always worth it. If you like food as much as I do, check out The Hundred Foot Journey by Dreamworks, staring Helen Mirren, a great story of a love of food, with beautiful scenery and cooking scenes that will make your mouth water. Not only does it make me want to visit the countryside of France, not just for the good food, but the beautiful outdoor markets. Currently the hubby is looking into the possibility of making Indian food. Someone told me this could take days.
Here is a link to the movie. The Hundred Foot Journey
