Food for thought (cliché but apropos)

There's this scene in the movie A Bug's Life where the praying mantis is doing his magician thing and he points to the Chinese takeout box and says, "Transformation, transformation, transformation..." and the butterfly emerges. That's kind of how I'm feeling right now about me and cooking.

This weekend I actually cooked a whole chicken! With creamy mashed potatoes and a really good looking mirepois and "the best tomato salad" one of my guests had ever had. That's pretty cool for me. I've had a complex ever since someone started baking brownies to win over my sister. And then went to chef school. And now cooks gourmet meals at home just for fun. How does one like me live up to that?

By moving to Ottawa. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. No money to buy take-out (and I just can't even handle that anyway, since living with a chef has made my standards a tad out of the ordinary), so it was either cook or starve.

It's pretty simple usually, but I'm up to a nice stew, chicken cacciatore, a perfectly rare pepper steak, and my whole chicken (rubbed with olive oil, coarse salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary, then slow-cooked in wine and chicken broth). Plus I'm pretty good at omlettes.

And this morning I even baked muffins. Muffins!

Transformation...