Can Food Be a Hobby?
Hobby: A pastime, diversion, leisure pursuit, or something you do for relaxation. Now I don’t know about you but when my family
was growing food was not a hobby, it was a necessity. Breakfast might be cereal or toaster something before the kids ran for the bus. Eggs, bacon
and the rest were more likely to happen on a Saturday or Sunday. By early evening dinner became a blur of casseroles, pasta dishes and boiled
vegetables. That was not relaxation therefore that was not a hobby.
Since the children are grown I can now take the time to enjoy food, not just eating food, but trying new recipes and learning the whys and wherefores of
why we cook certain ways. I can collect flour sifters, cookie cutters or cookbooks I’ll never use. Now I do have a hobby -Food (and pretty much everything
that goes with it.)
There’s so much to learn.
My sinking Angel:
Growing up I never gave it a second thought, but recently I became interested in angel food cake. Why did my mother always cool it upside down,
hanging from a Coke bottle? The internet is wonderful, it didn’t take long for me to discover that angel food cake is really closer to a meringue than
a cake and cooling it upside down keeps it from collapsing back onto itself. That’s the theory, but when I tried to make this light as air cake part of
it still collapsed.
Why? I’m guessing I left an air pocket when I filled the pan or my oven does not heat evenly. Since I’m fairly certain Betty Crocker puts out
a good mix it’s most likely something I have done. I know, a good hobbyist (cook) would start from scratch but any recipe that begins “separate 12
eggs” is NOT my type of recipe. It’s way to rainy to bake an angel food cake today. I’ll post an update in a later blog about the success of my
next attempt at the perfect angel food cake.
Beware Teenager in the Kitchen:
Even an experienced teenage cook needs to be monitored in the kitchen. It seemed so simple. All the granddaughter wanted was to make a key
lime pie. I have made those since I was probably 8 years old, back in the days when you had to crush the graham crackers and mix the butter and sugar
for the pie crust. Now with the readymade crusts there are only two ingredients for a great key lime pie. Two, that’s all. How could she go
wrong? She’s a flighty teenager, that’s how.
The Recipe and the Mistake:
Here’s the recipe: take 1 can sweetened condensed milk, mix with 1/3 cup key lime juice (or lime or lemon juice), pour into crust and chill.
Apparently what she heard was blah blah blah 3 blah blah. She’s a girl so she creatively added red food coloring to make a pink pie but that wasn’t the
problem, it was the ¾ cup of lime juice that was the problem. “What’s the diff?” I suggested she not consider chemistry as a major. Even
the dog that will eat anything wouldn’t touch that pie.
What a Great Hobby:
As hobbies go I think I have found a winner. I can explore history, spend weekends at yard sales looking for hidden treasures, taste new
ingredients, and oh yes perhaps cook a few things too.