The poetry of English recipes

The long chilly breath of winter.

My alternative practitioner told me, that in these days you can do nothing better for yourself than to ground. So it's nice to spend days with baking things.

Providing yourself with good food is the best way to express selflove.
I tried the Gougères by Heidi Swanson for the first time. Just because I find it special to make something with beer in it! And I am happy to say, that they are worth the try, fluffy, tasty, special.


The good thing about reading English recipes is, that once you've learned all the words, it's easy because the same expressions come up again and again.
I had my difficulties with the word food processor first. In my mind there was some kind of strange machine, that American households have without doubt. Something you throw all things in and press a button and then all will be made automatically. But it's what we call Küchenmaschine, simple as that. Prosessor sounds so high-tech.
Sometimes I mix things up like leek and lentils. I was wondering about black leek, asking myself if that is something like black pasta, specially dyed.
The other thing is that I love all the English words around cooking, recipes are like poetry to me. In German it's just vapid stuff, boring imperatives, in English it all sounds like magic.
Seasoning, that makes me dream about the art of adding summerly lemon squashes to a salad or throwing hot chili peppers into a warm soup to make it warming for long winter nights.
Or icing, I always saw little snowflakes falling on a chocolate cake.
I love serves four, it sounds like some kind of magical turning up butler with multiple arms like some Indian deity serves the dishes.
And last not least the expression "book in mint condition" stirs up the image of a lovely cookbook handed over with peppermint garnish to make everything more sensual.
So I ordered some cookbooks to dive into the poetry of English recipes.

I became very attached to "Plenty", because it's full of vegetarien recipes, that give me the urge to go to the kitchen just by browsing through.

"The real food companion" is by my fav publisher, Murdoch in Australia. They just know how to make beautiful books.

And the author has some statements that are just after my own heart. "The best food is being cooked by people you have never heard of."
Skye Gyngell has an affection for lemons and olive oil, just like me and the books is very beautiful too, but sometimes she is not realistic, e.g. in saying that one should never use dried herbs, only fresh ones.

Nigel Slater really makes me laugh, cause he has the guts to write about opening a can with "Heinz baked beans" and stuff, if he just does not feel like cooking.
In fact they are all worth reading, but the truth is, I cannot keep them all.
While her mother is living out her creative spirits in the kitchen, Svea makes a chalkboard painting on the hallway door, I really love it to bits.

She knows, I would love to have a cat again and has drawn one, resting on a bottle. Such fun!