Serious Props

You've all clicked your way over to Shea’s “other” blog, Cooking With Hoover, by now, yes? For those few who haven't checked it out, go ahead, go now. Take a look….

Ok, back now? Here’s where I am going with this. My dear, old friend is constructing some seriously artful meals. Well thought out. Beautiful. Mouthwatering dinners. You can tell that he is a real honest to goodness chef. And he’s giving me major league stage fright. How is one supposed to compete with that? He’s an impossible act to follow.

More than half-okay realistically closer to 90 percent- of meals I cook these days are those slap-dash affairs where I’m rummaging deep in my cabinet looking for something, anything to use to turn the disparate ingredients I’ve mined out of my refrigerator into a semblance of “dinner”.

I do the requisite grocery shopping, I make the pilgrimage to the farmers market and come triumphantly home with anything pretty and fresh I find there. And I read and collect recipes compulsively, like some people collect stamps or coins or whatever it is people like to accumulate excessively large collections of. I try to maintain a working “pantry” of those ingredients that you should always have on-hand.

But despite all that I still find myself on most nights doing mental gymnastics to get something that resembles a balanced meal onto my plate. I can usually get one element right...but really there's only so much a side dish can do.

My meals look nothing, I repeat NOTHING, like those lovely pictures Shea posts. My approach of late has resembled a patchwork quilt gone awry. Lots of clashing colors, and as yet no discernible pattern. Recent hits: A variety of sauteed summer squashes over bland Israeli cous cous. Egg salad-always a perennial, lazy favorite when home made. Tuscan kale with garlic scapes and pine nuts-delicious but clearly a supporting actor in need of a star that never showed. And the low moment a couple weeks ago, brats and....wait for it...frozen peas. So much for the culinary arts.

I fear it’s a reflection of my general state of mind this summer. I miss nice orderly, matching meals, with a main protein and two sides. I’m capable of them-if I take the time to plan ahead. They’re just not in the cards for me lately. And with summer rolling in, it’s looking unlikely for the near future.

Until some coherence returns I plan to live vicariously through Shea’s well-tuned meals. And in the meantime, I am seriously borrowing a few of those recipes for future use, when my planning skills return. Spiced banana sundaes? Really? Yum. I'm pretty sure they should qualify as a "balanced meal."