Week One: The Story

Yesterday at work...well, it sucked. A nice little training exercise with my three superiors found me in the mode of scaredy-cat anxiety girl who can't handle the pressure of real time, on-the-fly criticism on how I conduct myself.

In other words, I totally broke down into panic tears three minutes into the training exercise.

Damn it.

There wasn't much to do or much that would really make me feel one hundred percent better except escaping into the kitchen where things, no matter how crazy my world is, always make sense.

Last night, in my kitchen --- okay, in Co's kitchen --- things made sense. Glorious, delicious sense. I'll admit, I love his kitchen; it's hard not to, with steel counter tops, a gas stove, sharp knives that elicit that cool, metallic ting when you release them from their magnetic home, and space...lots of glorious space for me to shimmy and shake as I dice and saute and, on occasion, fall into the boy's arms for an impromptu dance session.  And with a kitchen I love that much well, again, it's not hard for things to make sense.

That's one of the aspects of cooking I love the most --- that I can completely erase the stress of a day and fall into a rhythm of consistency where I have total control: peeling, washing, dicing, seasoning, stirring...

The whole works, really (And no, I'm not a control freak, I swear). It's my place, one of a few sanctuaries I have to be my creative, nerdy, awkward self.

Okay, I've digressed.

I was quite pleased with how dinner turned out last night. While I couldn't find many maitake mushrooms, I supplemented with luscious chanterelles, sauteeing them with garlic, white onion, a splash of soy sauce a squeeze of fresh lemon juice before adding in quinoa and chicken broth.

While that finished cooking, I opted for the broiler to cook the halibut -- which was creamy white, flaky and cased in a beautifully silver and blue skin that just begs to be fried (Yes I'm stoked there's still about 1/2 a pound leftover. The man who sold us the fish must be into big portions, considering he suggested a 1/2 a pound per person). After cutting four lovely white pieces of fillet and dousing them with a light coating of vegetable oil, salt and pepper, I broiled those babies on high for four minutes on each side.


I'll admit, here's where my teeny tiny snafu occurred: For a meal that I timed out near perfectly for plating -- spinach finished a minute before the fish was done -- something went amiss: The quinoa, though it had been soaking for over twenty minutes, was still far too al dente to be enjoyable. Five minutes after turning the heat up, nothing.

And that's when I realized....the downfall of the gas stove...the fire was out. Nothing was cooking. So, unfortunately, the spinach may have been a bit cooler than it should have been and the fish, a bit drier than I would have liked.

Nevertheless, the meal paired nicely with the pinot gris Jason picked up for dinner and luckily for me, neither he nor Co had any complaints (Save for the cast-iron-pan-in-the-dishwasher disaster that we just barely avoided).

I'm still debating on next week's ingredient. I'm hoping to find inspiration at the farmer's market on Sunday.

Any suggestions?