From Scratch

I was a notoriously picky eater. Growing up, I mainly preferred foods that were beige: grilled cheese, pasta (no sauce), popcorn, chicken. I didn't like tomatoes until I was 18. I have come a long way from those days, but Norah, who lived with me through four years of University, likes to remind me of my dinner rotation back in school: kraft dinner, grilled cheese, bacon sandwich. Repeat.

So when I announced almost a year ago that I was going to quit my job to go on a food and farming adventure, to those who have known me for a long time, it seemed like a stretch. I remember having a conversation with a friend who was surprised at this new direction. "What kind of food do you like cooking?"she asked. I felt like a grand answer was in order. After all, I was leaving a full-time job at an organization that I loved to dive into the world of food and apprentice at a restaurant-farm for six months. I scrambled. How to encompass this new-found love that had become so much more than just making dinner? French cuisine? Local?....pizza? There wasn't a genre, a country, a cookbook or a label that captured it.

I can't remember how I eventually answered her question, but I didn't manage to impress her. And so her question stayed with me, and I lived in fear that it would be asked of me again, before I had found the right answer.

Then one night, as I stood in the kitchen recreating my mom's French Onion Soup recipe, it came to me. The recipe was simple, but I wasn't satisfied with one of the ingredients on the list: 1 can of beef stock. It seemed silly to me that I should have to go to the grocery store to buy a can when I had made or harvested everything else myself: the bread, the cheese, the onions. So I went to the butcher, bought bones, roasted them with veggies and made my own stock. And there was the answer. From scratch.  My interest in cooking had stemmed from a desire to do it all, from seed to table. Rather than having the industrial food system make my bread, my cheese, my stock, I wanted to experience the 'inconvenience' and learn how to do it myself.

In light of less farming and more fooding lately, here is a visual report on my latest culinary adventures...from scratch. Incidentally, they are all beige.

Croissants

 French onion soup

Pasta

Vanilla ice cream