Cooking & Moving

Cooking and Moving. Personally I don't think you can get two more opposite things in life. Moving is disorganised, frustrating and I hate it. Cooking is organised, rewarding and I love it.

I'm almost done moving...again. Once again I had to pack up my life and move without choice. I'd like to choose to move one day but I doubt I will. I've been forced so many times to move that I doubt I'll ever move by choice. Tomorrow hopefully I'll finish getting everything in. My kitchen gear will be the last stuff to move. I'm SO over it but I wanted to wait for my kitchen jars, of which I have dozens, so I can move them carefully and safely. Because I like to cook I HATE keeping my kitchen stuff in plastic so all my kitchen jars are glass. I spent almost two years tracking down tall glass spaghetti jars which were tall enough and have almost 30 spice jars now.

I've been thinking about cooking again recently. My mum made me sit down and watch a sweet movie Tortilla Soup. I wasn't that enthusiastic until it began and the opening credits are accompanied by this amazing cooking montage. My mouth was watering before it was 5 minutes in. Then we came down to my place, so she could help me move (yes she is an angel!) and we made Bruschetta with goats cheese, basil, lemon, baked capsicum, watercress and bread. God that was good! Then she made us these cucumber tart things I'd found online the night before whilst looking for recipes. They were equally good. Finally I'd had enough of moving this afternoon so I made homemade pesto with the leftover fresh basil.

I've been wanting to make pesto for ages but don't have enough money for a food processor however recently I got my hands on a cheap imitation of the "magic bullet" machine. It's not the branded original but worked great for pesto just the same (especially when I remembered to add a little water).

Ah food. It almost makes all this crappy moving business worth it...not quite but almost. At least the fabulous food along the way, and the movies I've watched as inspiration, have helped me get through this. Without my kitchen gear I'd be lost and I've only just realised now how much of my life does revolve around food. I watched Julie and Julia just the other day, watched Simply Irresistible whilst eating dinner, and watched Iron Chef whilst unpacking this evening.

Food is an art form it is true but it is so much more than that. Food sustains us, helps us forge memories, gives us personality, rouses the senses and gets us through life. It is incredible that we have turned something so basic and necessary in to something so amazingly beautiful and creative.

I don't understand why people wouldn't like to cook. I used to hate it but I have NO idea why. I am horrified that I lived (almost literally) on Rice Bubbles, potatoes and Nachos for so many years, putting my parents through hell. Now however I've discovered cooking can be done slowly, without the frantic rush required for restaurants, and have such begun to enjoy it, discovering new flavours and textures so rapidly I can hardly keep up. But I can say right now that it's all been worth it and I will definitely be cooking for many years to come.