Butternut squash soup.
Photo: Christine Mangan
February 2006 | Choice Eating
Cooking Up Community
By Christine Mangan
A few months ago, I began craving “real” food. That is, I began to crave fresh fruits and vegetables or any type of food that didn’t include a list of unpronounceable ingredients and a metal can.
You see, once upon a time, I avoided the kitchen. Not only was cooking an activity I disliked, but it was one I avoided learning how to do at all costs. Instead, I was content to limit my talents to heating up a frozen pizza or dialing the telephone number of the Chinese restaurant up the street. Anything more complicated than that was beyond my interest.
I soon discovered that I was not alone in my less-than-healthy eating habits. Although my friends and I have not lived in our childhood homes for a least a half a dozen years, not one among us has entirely succeeded in cooking good, nutritional meals for ourselves. With most of my friends stuck in the land of graduate school and low-paying jobs, the last thing they want to do at the end of the day (and this is true for most people, I suspect) is trudge over to the market and haul a dozen bags back home and up several flights of stairs, only to begin the arduous task of cooking and then cleaning up. For most, this seems like a waste of time, especially when popping something into the microwave seems to satiate the appetite just as well. It’s not as if we have a family to feed — it’s still just us. Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, if we choose to eat unhealthily and no one is around to witness it …
Still, I was resolved to change, or at least try. I recruited my childhood friend who now lives just up the street. Since we both practically grew up as vegetarians, the first decision we made was to keep our dishes meat-free. We also decided to try to eat as organically as our paychecks would allow, and to center most of our dishes around fresh fruits and vegetables. We decided this after looking at ourselves and what we ate, and realizing that the words “vegetarian” and “healthy” did not always go hand-in-hand.
I won’t lie and say that our first foray into the world of cooking was a huge success. After all, I’m known as the girl who always managed to find some way to screw up a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe, and who once made a gingerbread cookie that was so hard it took the cap right off someone’s tooth. But we didn’t let our past and present failures deter us.
Each week, we pushed past the cheese dumplings that turned into a bowl of mush and the potatoes that refused to be soft enough for gnocchi. When we realized that nutritional yeast and active yeast were two very different things, we merely shook our heads and tried to forget about the large amount of active yeast we had added to the vegetarian gravy only the night before.
In the meantime, we also faced the problems of a kitchen designed for a one-bedroom apartment and that was intended to house only one occupant at a time. My friend often jokes that she feels like we’re on an episode of “Iron Chef” as we both scurry around, trying not to collide with one another (though several bowls have already been broken). Oftentimes, we’re even forced to use the sofa as an extra counter top.
But as the weeks passed, something began to happen. Perhaps we simply found our rhythm or perhaps we even began to learn from our mistakes, but soon enough, our recipes started to turn out. And what was more, we actually began to enjoy cooking them.
Since then, we’ve prepared a dozen different soups, including everything from the classic (french onion) to the more unknown (grandfather’s soup). We’ve put together an entire vegetarian Thanksgiving meal, and even once more attempted the daunting feat of mastering homemade gnocchi, though the second time around we opted for sweet potatoes. Most times, the results are good. Great, even.
And at the end, we’re rewarded with a healthy meal composed of almost entirely organic ingredients and organic fruits and vegetables. At these times, all thoughts of ordering out seem to slip away. But, of course, we are not perfect. There are still those other times when our childhood selves seem to find their way into the kitchen. (It’s similar to the winter when, despite both our mother’s warnings, we crept out onto the neighbor’s frozen pond. Several hours later, we were both soaking wet, as my friend had already found herself half-submerged in the freezing water and I found myself equally drenched after pulling her out. Still, ignoring all common sense, we continued to play until the numbness of our toes forced us admit our mistake and we made a quick run home, where we told our mothers we had fallen into a puddle.)
At certain times, we still are befuddled by something simple gone terribly wrong. Then, only the voices of our mothers on the phone can manage to bring us back to reality when they ask: “Well, how long did you cook the squash before adding it to the soup?” And we realize that we forgot to cook the squash entirely.
Since its inauguration, our weekly cooking experiments have grown into weekly social gatherings, with more and more of our new friends joining in. The recipes have begun to grow more complicated, as everyone attempts to show off their new dish. We’ve even begun to construct our own cookbook, carefully recording every recipe we’ve ever attempted, along with all of our own alterations.
Our weekly dinner parties have also opened my eyes to the endless possibilities that exist in terms of meals. I was among the many people who assumed that vegetarians have limited menus. But I have learned that vegetarians have an infinite number of choices. It just takes a bit of time and a little commitment, along with a dash of excitement to learn what they are.
In the past year, I have spent more time in the produce section than ever before. In fact, I’ve begun to take the advice that the healthiest way to shop at the market is to stick to the edges and avoid all the aisles in the middle. That way you get everything you need — fruits, grains, vegetables — and avoid everything you don’t: fats, sugar and still more sugar. Since then, I’ve uncovered fruits and vegetables I never even knew existed. Last year, I couldn’t have told you what a celery root looked like, let alone tell you how to cook with it. Now, I can make a celery root bisque without even having to consult a recipe.
And sometimes the most fun is to take the original recipe from wherever you got it — a cookbook, television, or even from the scribbled and smudged handwriting of a relative’s recipe card — and add your own twist. One of our favorite creations, a butternut squash soup, was the result of guesswork and hours that my mother and I spent in the kitchen, trying to replicate a dish we had once tasted at a cider mill in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Now, when I return home at night, too tired to create anything time-consuming, I make a simple potato and green pea soup, complete with a red chili pepper. Ultimately, it seems safe to say, looking back over the past months at the absence of packaged meals and my now almost entirely dormant microwave, that I have graduated into the realm of “real” food at last.
And more importantly, in many ways, these weekly gatherings have forced us to slow down. Each week we all take time out of our busy lives to sit down together at the table, just as we did with our families when we were children. And though we joke that food has helped to make our new urban family stronger, there is an element of truth in it.
Sitting around a table with a group of your friends and enjoying a meal you created together, a meal where you know every step and every ingredient that went into each dish, creates a stronger bond than simply ordering out together ever could.
Christine Mangan is a freelance writer and a healthy vegetarian who lives in Chicago.
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