There’s something magical about the smells that fill up a kitchen when the cooking begins. Honestly, there hasn’t been much real cooking in my house since my sons graduated high school and moved in their unique directions – the younger to UC Santa Cruz, where he graduated with a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and moved on to a job in water purity, and the elder who today celebrated six months clean and sober, a real trick with that dual diagnosis of bipolar and drug addiction.
It is magical, the difference. Sobriety and celebration go hand in hand.
My younger son flew in this morning, and we did brunch, visited Pittock Mansion all Christmasy, attended the 12-step meeting for my older son to get his six-month coin, then went food shopping, put up and decorated the Christmas tree, culminating with Justin cooking the most divine French Onion Soup. OMG. Pinch me. It’s been years since there’s been original cooking in the house. Not counting my annual Italian sauce, made from my stepfather’s Italian mother’s recipe typed out on a Remington God knows how many years ago on lined school paper.
I pulled out three brand-new cookbooks for Justin. Beautiful cookbooks. Virgin cookbooks – not a splash of food on them, partly because I’m extra-careful with books. I gave him Ruth Reichl’s Gourmet Today. Ruth was on my show today – you can still listen, anytime. I stacked on top of that The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook and, The Taste of Home Cookbook.
Justin plowed through the books, and finally extrapolated on the French Onion Soup recipes he found in all three. As he sliced onions and garlic, poured wine and stock, and diced a spice that looked like a Christmas tree branch, I recalled what Ruth Reichl had said about the parents that have been lining up at her book signings, with a couple of these five-pound books stacked on the table, asking Ruth to sign one to their sons. These twenty-somethings who don’t think cooking is women’s work, but a creative, loving venture undertaken out of love and healthy pursuits. Say hallelujah! A complete reversal from Ruth’s mother’s time, when women were expected to be in the kitchen and nowhere near any boardrooms, unless they were secretaries. We have come a long way, baby. And, boy does that taste great!
