Sometimes I get the urge to just "whip something up" in the kitchen. I am guided by a misplaced notion that I have an inherent talent for cooking. I can just pull a few things out of the refrigerator, stir ingredients in various saucepans while humming to myself, chop a few vegetables, pirouette over to the oven, and magic will happen. The flavors will sing. The Boyfriend will say, "Gee, honey, you've done it again!"
My daydreams about cooking always start out rosy and sweet-smelling. They rarely end that way. Once I served the Boyfriend uncooked biscuit dough over chicken noodle soup. To his credit, he ate the entire thing.
A few nights ago, I got the urge. I peered into the refrigerator and the pantry. I pulled out a few, disparate ingredients. I didn't need a recipe. Recipes were for amateurs. I could make a pasta sauce from scratch. No problem.
Readers, for the first time, it actually worked. I put some butter in a sauce pan and let it heat up. I added some chopped smoked salmon. The butter and salmon mingled in the pan and made the kitchen smell amazing. I knew I was on to something good. A little vodka, a little cream, and a little lemon juice later, and I was a chef!
I think this experiment in cooking was successful, in part, because of a maxim I learned from tv chef Tom Colicchio: if you put really good ingredients in, you'll get really good food out.
Tonight I will try for similar results with chicken, garlic, and bread crumbs. Wish me luck!
(Image reproduced without permission from hoboquilts.com).
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