If we leave our cooking to deliveries of boxed and chopped ingredients, traditional recipes are going to disappear. Recipes for Oregano Potatoes and Oregano Lamb
If I see another lobster bisque I might scream... I live in one of those touristy places that feels culturally devoid yet physically beautiful. But head inland or further north and there are people making jam and tapping maple trees. I made soup and dropped a pint of it off with my green grocer. Do I wish we had a communal bakery ... sure. But I'm glad of my central heating cause our winters are cold. Don't despair there are plenty of us scratch cooks out there. We just don't have the same amount of vacation time. Americans really need to embrace the idea of making the bridge.
Addressing the second part of your Comment, I lived almost 20 yeas in the States and I never could understand why vacation time for Americans was so ungenerous. In Europe, we begin our working lives with a regulatory 2 weeks then build each year from then, up to 4 weeks and a maximum of 6 weeks a year. (Not in the gig economy of course...) Holidays refresh and make working staff happier and more productive - along with cementing families who can spend more time together than Labour Day weekend in Orlando or turn to expensive summer camp for babysitting duties. And of course, they provide more time for tourists, loved and loathed as they can be, a better chance to express curiosity and to make a greater effort at integration - and dispense more money locally, on t-shirts and more, and perhaps to begin to expect greater variety from the menu options if they stay long enough to dig in a bit.
The only thing to do after reading this week's post and looking at the photos, all I can thinking is to jump on the internet and seek the first plane out to the Aegean ... Lovely!
To all of this I say yes, yes yes!!! At least three times over if not more! And not just the sunny isles of the southern Aegean (I was there too a couple of years ago) but to the whole entire Mediterranean. It's not just ingredients, not just recipes, but a whole way of eating, of celebrating food, that we should all be following. Thank you, Julia!
Nancy, I'm really honored! We seem to have created a challenging 'issue' of food and cooking. The people of the Mediterranean take so much more relaxed an approach, making everything to do with it so much more joyful than most of us, in what we consider sophisticated nations, manage. How can we put Joy back into the Joy of Cooking (that was a terrific title!), and take away fear and despair?
If I see another lobster bisque I might scream... I live in one of those touristy places that feels culturally devoid yet physically beautiful. But head inland or further north and there are people making jam and tapping maple trees. I made soup and dropped a pint of it off with my green grocer. Do I wish we had a communal bakery ... sure. But I'm glad of my central heating cause our winters are cold. Don't despair there are plenty of us scratch cooks out there. We just don't have the same amount of vacation time. Americans really need to embrace the idea of making the bridge.
Addressing the second part of your Comment, I lived almost 20 yeas in the States and I never could understand why vacation time for Americans was so ungenerous. In Europe, we begin our working lives with a regulatory 2 weeks then build each year from then, up to 4 weeks and a maximum of 6 weeks a year. (Not in the gig economy of course...) Holidays refresh and make working staff happier and more productive - along with cementing families who can spend more time together than Labour Day weekend in Orlando or turn to expensive summer camp for babysitting duties. And of course, they provide more time for tourists, loved and loathed as they can be, a better chance to express curiosity and to make a greater effort at integration - and dispense more money locally, on t-shirts and more, and perhaps to begin to expect greater variety from the menu options if they stay long enough to dig in a bit.
The only thing to do after reading this week's post and looking at the photos, all I can thinking is to jump on the internet and seek the first plane out to the Aegean ... Lovely!
BUY THE TICKET!! Kalo taxidi - Bon voyage!
To all of this I say yes, yes yes!!! At least three times over if not more! And not just the sunny isles of the southern Aegean (I was there too a couple of years ago) but to the whole entire Mediterranean. It's not just ingredients, not just recipes, but a whole way of eating, of celebrating food, that we should all be following. Thank you, Julia!
Nancy, I'm really honored! We seem to have created a challenging 'issue' of food and cooking. The people of the Mediterranean take so much more relaxed an approach, making everything to do with it so much more joyful than most of us, in what we consider sophisticated nations, manage. How can we put Joy back into the Joy of Cooking (that was a terrific title!), and take away fear and despair?