Whenever we move I find that I cook differently.
It isn’t intentional. Sometimes the issue is one of ingredients, but usually I can’t explain it–Houston’s sad garlic wasn’t worth roasting like I did in Boston, and I couldn’t run the oven that long anyway. In Boston I made salsa from scratch, because what I could find wasn’t worth eating. I don’t even remember anymore what I put in the quesadillas that I ate for dinner in Austin, or the reason I stopped making the thing with pearl couscous.
In Houston, by the end, I barely cooked at all. Why bother, when we were in a town of world-class restaurants we would miss so much?
Now I find myself in a place where ingredients are incredible, and restaurant food is often forgettable at best. I have a fishmonger, a cheesemonger, two green grocers, and a baker in the village down the street. Even from the budget supermarkets, the potatoes come out of the bag smelling of dirt, and the tomato stems like real tomato plants.
We also managed, by some magic that I still pinching myself over, to find a rental house with a huge bright kitchen. Thanks to a tiny apartment, a series of townhouses, and one very odd remodel, I haven’t had kitchen windows since I moved out of my parents’ house.
Everything is perfectly in place to cook with heart and meaning and intention. I am excited to see what meals I will love best here.
Jessica Thinks 