Cooking App | Cooking With Fire

We had a chance to visit with Ron’s third sister (he has four of them – lucky man as they are all amazing women!), Elaine, in Los Gatos, CA, on our recent visit in the area. Elaine is a brilliantly talented lady (as are all four of Ron’s sisters), with a burning passion for travel, art, culture, and decorating. Her taste is extraordinary and she is truly a remarkable woman.

She invited us to her new home and we shared a wonderful evening with her and two of her friends: Mary, who she has travelled to Cuba with on several occasions for cultural expeditions, and Nancy, a long-time friend and talented hair stylist. Instead of going out for dinner, Elaine prepared and served a delicious dinner of BBQ grilled salmon, oven-grilled broccoli Romanesco, asparagus, onion and tri-colored carrot, and boiled corn on-the-cob. When we asked what we could bring, she said that we could do the sauce for the salmon.

Ron and I had enjoyed a wonderful chimichurri sauce before we left Cabo, so I immediately thought that would be the perfect accompaniment to the grilled salmon and mixed vegetables. Elaine had all the ingredients and I used this recipe from New York Times Cooking app as my basic guideline: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015299-chimichurri-sauce. Although my picture of my plate doesn’t include the chimichurri, it provided great color and flavor to the salmon and all the vegetables Elaine served. Delicious!

Leftover chimichurri can be used as the base on toasted baguettes for appetizers, mixed in with beaten eggs for scrambled eggs (green eggs and ham, perhaps?) or omelet, as a pizza or flatbread sauce, or tossed with cooked pasta. It really is a versatile and healthy sauce and I highly recommend you try it! A little taste of Argentina – wherever you are in the world!

I LOVE cookbooks and had a massive collection of them in my past life. Wherever I traveled, it seems I picked up a new cookbook and got to explore the foods and flavors of the places beyond the trip itself. I also chose cookbooks of places I hadn’t yet traveled, but LOVED the cuisines, like India, Thailand, Africa, the Mediterranean, etc. I kept a precious few cookbooks when I purged my belongings last year and gifted all of the remainder to charity – paying the incredible gift of amazing food with others who might not otherwise get to experience travel and/or a variety of cuisines of the world.

One of the best ways to get to know a country, a culture and its people is through food and drink. Everything we do socially is centered around them: a first date with drinks and dinner perhaps, holiday meals shared with traditional recipes and loved ones, bringing food to a family to offer comfort and support during difficult times, a business meeting over coffee or lunch, etc. Nourishing our bodies and our souls with good quality food is one of the most important things we can do to honor ourselves and to show our love for others.

It takes time to plan, shop for and prepare good food. The investment is worth it and cooking is one the things I truly love to do. It’s meditative and creative. Like anything, learning the basics and the techniques are important to make the process more enjoyable. Some people have a natural flare and others have to work at it. Absolutely no one knows it all and there is always more to learn.

I worked really hard to write my three cookbooks and I loved doing them. Been there, done that and wrote three books! Now, I’m enjoying preparing food from other people’s recipes or creating things in our kitchen from my imagination (or from memory of foods we’ve enjoyed). This is an exciting new chapter in my life and I’m enjoying trying new recipes immensely.

I’m travelling lighter these days with very few cookbooks but a world of recipes at my fingertips with the internet and some fabulous food sites. One of my favorites is the Cooking App from the New York Times. It has become one of my main sources of inspiration and an absolute delight to cook recipes from. We LOVE Melissa Clark and her fun, fresh approach to food. Her recipes are delicious and videos capture her delightful personality.

As I prepare and play with new foods and recipes, I promise to share them with you. I’ll share great food and hopefully save you the process of finding the best recipes, food and flavors as I find them. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I delight in sharing it!