recipe for life

I did it! I finally created this blog after being urged to do so by my friends and family for many, many years. It took me a while to make it here because I couldn't help feeling that I had somehow missed the blog boat (bloat?!). There are countless food and leisure blogs out there and surely my gastronomical musings are very, very low on the totem pole of Orangettes, Smitten Kitchens and what not. Still, I love food. I love to eat. I love to shop for food. I can spend an entire day picking out the perfect ingredients to a perfect meal. "So What?", you say?! You're right! Judging by the crowds that gather at my local Sunday farmers market, I am not the only one who loves food! Nevertheless, I have decided to put myself out in the blogosphere, with no clear intention other than that of writing about one of my favourite pass times.

I recently offered to put together a compilation of some people's best recipes for a friend's bridal shower. The end product is lovely and inspiring and the content is so diverse. I found it interesting to see how some people credited their sources of inspiration, while others could not even remember where the recipes stemmed from originally because they had been preparing them for so long! This is where I started to ask myself about recipe ownership and what makes a recipe "ours". I have a very extensive cookbook collection and use it mainly for inspiration. My books inspire me to try different flavour combinations and to purchase ingredients that I would not normally pick out. However, there are certain classic recipes that are so perfect and so engrained in my culinary brain that I still follow them to the "t". The Silver Palate's Chicken Marbella is a good example. Who has not been to at least one party and not eaten this briny-sweet-and-savory-pruny-and-olivy-deliciousness? And let's not talk about recipes for baking. They are my Achille's heel. There is no room for "a little bit of this" in baking. It's all chemistry, which I suck at. And this is why I cannot claim to have any original baking recipes. Sure, I've fused different recipes and made them into one, with certain clever tweaks here and there, but the chemistry behind them is never mine.

What *is* a recipe anyway? Does throwing garlic into hot olive oil and pouring a can of italian tomatoes over it with a little salt and basil qualify? What about shaving some fennel onto a plate, smothering it with citrus fruit and then drizzling some primo olive oil over it? Is "prep seasonal root veggies, toss them in olive oil with garlic and salt and bake them in the oven at 400 until they are caramelized" considered a recipe?!

It is hair-bendingly difficult for me to quantify certain ingredients when I am writing down a recipe. Take olive oil, for example. One tablespoon? Two? A half cup? A little less? Can't I just write "OLIVE OIL" ??? I mean, is there really anything wrong with too much olive oil? I just know when there's enough. My left-brain oriented friends absolutely HATE it when my right brain throws them a recipe. "How many olives in your tapenade, Mia?". "Uuuuuh...I don't know", I say, showing them my fist. "About this many?!". This is why I make so many digressions and write very long-winded recipes. Because I am not conditioned to commit to one little clove of garlic or two measly anchovy fillets. It's not who I am. Why can't it be one or two, or three or four? Why must it be only one solitary anchovy? If your anchovies are ginormous, make it one. If they're skimpy, make it two. Does it matter? NO. Because that's just like life! It's messy. It takes practice. It's never the same and it always calls for a bit of this and a bit of that.