The perfect cookbook for girls over 30
The perfect cookbook for girls over 30

Video: The perfect cookbook for girls over 30

Video: The perfect cookbook for girls over 30
Video: Texas Chili Recipe (Won over 30 Cookoffs!) 2024, March
Anonim
Image
Image

The cookbook that I would like to give myself for Christmas has not yet been written: I have not yet been able to find something that satisfies my way of understanding food and in which this year I can recognize myself, abandon myself without hesitation, be amazed. I am thirty thirty-four years old, that age when if we are religious, we are convinced religious. If we are atheists, we are convinced atheists. If we are doubtful, we are doubtful without shame”(cit. Oriana Fallaci).

At this age I need a cookbook that knows how to relate to my needs, above all that knows how to address my being an adult, curious, committed, satisfied but still doubtful. Wanting to be proactive, I took the liberty of compiling a small list of the characteristics of the perfect cookbook for girls over 30:

1. It may not be a book. In the traditional sense of the word, I mean. At least not paper. Maybe an e-book or an App: when I cook with my iPad next to it, with its cover soiled with flour and cocoa, I feel like a domestic diva of the new era!

2. It wouldn't be a cookbook. Talking about food without giving recipes is possible. Yes, I assure you. And I don't know about you, but I'm sick of seeing recipes EVERYWHERE. The recipe, as well as an instruction booklet, creates a certain performance anxiety, and almost makes me lose the pleasure of cooking. I don't need a meticulous list of ingredients with their respective weights, but rather inspirations, ideas, suggestions. Every time I read a recipe book, except for the great classics, it always seems old to me. Does it happen to you too?

3. It should teach me to improvise. I would like a book that would give me the freedom to be able to disobey the recipe, adapt it to the season or to the availability of my refrigerator, or to my tastes or those of my guests. Provide me with the basic techniques, secrets and information that our mothers and grandmothers have forgotten (or knowingly omitted) to tell us.

4. You shouldn't be making fun of me: at thirty, but also thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three and thirty-nine, we don't buy the philosophy of minimum effort, maximum result. There is nothing wrong with sometimes consciously using frozen or semi-processed products, but we know very well that the result will not be the best. The intersection of quality, savings and speed is an impossible utopia, like anti-wrinkle creams that work in 24 hours, anti-cellulite creams that slim while you sleep or miraculous diets. With the least effort, we will hardly have a maximum result. In the kitchen, as in life.

5. Shouldn't give me time. We over thirty are magicians of conciliation: our days are a whirlwind of commitments, people, schedules, chores, deliveries. We finally realized that we can't do everything: I wouldn't want a book that would foment my chrono-optimistic stress, let alone instigate me into fast-food or fast-cooking, rather than teach me to slow down, especially in the kitchen. Because cooking is not a time trial. Why should I cook in 15 minutes, 20 minutes, less than thirty or more than forty?

6. Shouldn't make it too easy: actually there are certain preparations that are not so trivial. It is right to approach them with due commitment and awe, without of course losing enthusiasm. And then, try, try, try. Making mistakes too, but as Julia Child said: the beauty of cooking is that you can eat your mistakes. And it doesn't happen in all situations in life. I don't want to be infallible, I want to know that mistakes are admitted. What a liberation! And how nice: at thirty, if we are where we are, it is (above all) thanks to our mistakes.

7. But don't make it too difficult either. If I managed to graduate, get a job, lose a job, a boyfriend, get a job, raise a dog and a stick of sourdough, design an app, do business on Cyber Monday, build an IKEA closet myself, I guess, indeed I am sure of it, that I could also be able to make a pandoro, if only I wanted to.

8. I would like you to also include fatty foods and not dare to talk about calories and light foods. We want real food, without compromise. Politically incorrect, outlawed foods. Rebellious and irreverent, as thirty years are. And alcohol too, a lot of alcohol.

9. It shouldn't be written by a recycled TV personality in the kitchen. Not even from an actress who until a few months earlier made headlines for the proven diet, a testimonial of supermarket sorbets, frozen foods, or a former model.

10. It should make me ask questions rather than give me answers. Don't expect me to be satisfied with appreciable results, historical compromises, food substitutes. Rather than develop in me the critical sense, the judgment, the choice.

And you? Tell me what essential characteristics should the cookbook have that does not exist and which you miss, now that you have abundantly passed the threshold of thirty? Wake up then, stop being so rational, obedient, wrinkled..!

[Credits | Martina Liverani is the author of the blog Curvy Foodie Hungry, image: Amazon]

Recommended: