Cooking

Not that everyone, or anyone, needs to be interested in what I ate for dinner tonight, but because a dear friend has been promised an overdue blog update, here goes...

For several years, I've wished to be among people who could list "cooking" among their hobbies, activities, interests, whatever, but I'd never had any justification to declare myself part of their club.  I didn't cook much, and when I did it would be something like pasta or pancakes--and not to disparage these fine foods, but I always assumed "cooking" involved at least a little more creativity than boiling water or mixing batter.  But I'm getting there!  Starting tonight.

1)  Scour the web to search for what one does with a large eggplant bought on impulse on an earlier shopping excursion.
It turns out, there are a lot of things to do, but a lot of them involve grilling (no grill!) or frying (really?).  And with my very limited selection of ingredients, I get pretty particular; even on Princeton's dime, I'm on a budget.  I made curried lentils with sauteed onions and spinach last week, so I have leftover curry power that I don't want to tote to Ghana, and I bought a lonely potato that looked like a sweet potato but which I deemed a normal potato after peeling back a little of its skin at the apartment.  So I settle on something like this + this: aloo (potato) baingan (eggplant), a type of curry-ish Indian dish.

2)  Go shopping!
I am almost out of food, so that is the first order of business.  Among the many reasons I love being in the city in general and Manhattan in particular: corner groceries!  I head down the street and return with the following:

Note the onion, canned tomatoes, tofu... Key for the evening's success!  The rest (eggplant, brown rice, curry powder, Lawry's seasoned salt, olive oil) I already have at the apartment.

3)  Discover that the alleged non-sweet potato is, in fact, orange.
This is why even though I'm inching toward claiming cooking as an activity, I am far from assuming the title "cook."  Thus the "aloo" part of my aloo baingan disappears, because I am planning to let that cunning sweet potato stand alone for another meal.  (I really love orange foods.)

4)  Wing it.
This means I use a little olive oil to fry/sautee/insert proper cooking term here the cubed eggplant, discover there's too much to fit into the pan, hastily transplant half of it into a nearby pot, try not to let it burn, add a little more oil to the original pan to sautee the sliced onions and figure I might as well throw in some tofu, cube the tofu, add it to the pan, madly switch spatula-ing between pan and pot so that things stick a little less than they already are sticking, dump a bunch of curry powder in, transfer the pan's contents into the pot, and add some diced canned tomatoes with garlic, turn down the flame; breathe a sigh of relief that I had already put the rice on so that everything would be ready sorta on time.  Yeah.  Me as a not-cook, cooking.  In the end, since I didn't buy a bunch of different spices and herbs as the recipes request, it tasted a bit more like briami than something related to curry, but mostly I just love eggplant, whether it's Greek or Indian.

Such a good dinner!  Such a successful experiment!  Such a surprising step toward being able to add cooking to my interests!  Maybe when I eat the leftovers (best thing when you're cooking for one!), I'll try to spice it up with a little more curry and use the yogurt I bought as a side.  

I think cooking is one of those things that's just sort of grown on me, the way doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom and washing dishes other domestic things have.   Plus, there's just something about the smells and the freedom and the focus and the creation of cooking--and, as I friend once put so well, about looking at a pile of dirty dishes and seeing them clean after a lot of scrubbing; there's some shimmer of redemption there.

One of my roommates once teased me that it is a bit strange for me to be working so hard at Princeton if I want to end up married and doing these things day in and day out before too many years have gone by, but that's not a discussion to have tonight.  Suffice it to say that I think it's a pretty amazing thing to be able to serve someone, whether a future husband or my gracious host for these weeks in New York or my family, by doing the small things that matter and make people comfortable.  And whether or not I spend any of my life as a mostly-domestic-type (seeming less likely the deeper I get into this pre-med thing, but it's God, not me, who directs my footsteps, so how would I know?), I'll still need to cook and clean--even if I'm living alone.  But here's to a life of more than domesticity--a life in service to God and His people, and a life that involves making dinner and washing clothes and dishes and sinks, and a whole lot more.

And on other fronts, perhaps to be expounded in future posts, or maybe just for me to ponder, I'll give you a few more mini-updates:
... Yesterday I had the incredible honor and privilege of watching a baby be born while shadowing on the labor and delivery floor of a local hospital!  I had to wait from 8am til 9pm, but it was well worth it :)  Congratulations on an adorable and healthy baby!
... I really, really enjoyed shadowing, and had a lot of freedom to ask questions and learn about a lot of procedures and patient care strategies; both shadowing days were a huge blessing.
... On Thursday, I leave for a day in Milwaukee, where I'll speak about the Bridge Year Program to the Princeton Club of Wisconsin--plus get to see my parents!  I return to New York for Friday night, then take off for Ghana on Saturday evening, with a layover in Casablanca for all of Sunday and then an early morning arrival in Accra on Monday morning.
... Maybe parallel to this cooking thing, I'd like to become a runner.  Again, the exact definition of a runner, like a cook, is elusive, but it doesn't fit me--yet.  It will; I'm hoping to do a half-marathon this fall, and I started training last Thursday, from the ground up.
... I've been thinking about desperation, about how desperate someone would have to be to stand up in a subway pushing a stroller and announce that his ex had just dropped off their daughter with him, and he had no money to buy her formula or diapers, and would someone please help?  Just thinking about when, if ever, I've been this desperate, and why.  And why I'm not that desperate every day when I approach God.
... I still need clarity--on a lot of things.  And discipline.  Praying for that, most definitely.

Peace all!