Better Homemade
Week #2. What our refrigerators reveal about how we eat and why our gardens inspire us to cook.
“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.” – Craig Claiborne
Hello Friends.
My son was home over the holiday week, and we talked mostly about food. He was a picky eater when young, so it’s a surprise that he has now evolved into an excellent cook. The first cookbook I bought him was the King Arthur Baking Company Baking Companion, which he read like a novel. The second book was Harold McGee’s book on food and cooking, which inspired baking chocolate cookies in twelve different ways, testing brown sugar against white, melted butter versus softened butter. As a math and science person, he was more into the way things work versus simply following a recipe. His methodology produced effervescent results every time.
But lately, he has been having a hard time figuring out what to make for dinner. Planning with a recipe and shopping list, then taking the time to follow it takes more time and patience than he can muster after a long day at work. Welcome to adulthood, I want to say. Instead, I suggested that he stock up on pantry basics, and plant a garden. That’s the way I do it, open the refrigerator door and simply wing it.
I was reminded of a time when he was fifteen, and I was testing recipes for a cookbook. It was summer, and the garden was overflowing. I was in my glory days making couscous salad, gazpacho soup, vegetable sushi rolls, and carrot cake. He would roll out of bed mid-morning, open the refrigerator door, study the contents, then close it saying, “Isn’t there anything to eat in this house?”
Nothing to eat when the refrigerator is full may seem like a contradiction. But the odd truth is, the more food that is stuffed into a refrigerator, the harder it is to find something. Unlike in a garden, where the more we grow the more options we have to eat.
Our refrigerators reveal a lot about us, and I’ve noticed that emptying the refrigerator so that it has only a few basic staples such as eggs, milk, cheese, and lemons holds far more potential than jamming the shelves with so much food that it is impossible to open the door. Organizing a refrigerator for charm and appeal is much harder than food stylists make it appear in refrigerator ads: it takes a certain skill to balance the bowls of leftovers in just the right way so that they are easily accessible.
Planting a garden, however, is easy by comparison. It simply requires knowing which vegetables grow direct from seed and which to start indoors in advance. Once you figure out how much time each vegetable takes to mature, plus how to keep rotating crops and succession sowing for the longest possible growing season, daily harvest is guaranteed.
Gardeners have the advantage when it comes to preparing meals, we are inspired by the ingredients and very little is wasted because a direct connection is formed as soon as we push the seed into the ground.
I manage my garden much like I do my refrigerator; clear it out several times during the growing season, and start again. By mid-spring, the salad greens that marked the beginning of the growing season are replaced by heat-loving summer plants. As September approaches, kale and collards are hitting their stride with a burst of upwards growth.
I’ve learned to organize the garden much like my refrigerator; the aromatic herbs and quick-growing salad greens are planted near the center, just as frequently used condiments are always on the door within easy reach.
Refrigerators, like our gardens, reflect the way we shop and ultimately the way we eat. And while my son’s comment made me question my role as a provider, he ultimately wandered into the garden to graze the row of sugar snap peas, followed by a handful of raspberries.
I watched from the kitchen window, then mixed together yeast, water, and flour in a bowl to start a dough for pizza. There was plenty growing in the garden, and he knew exactly where to find it. I handed him a harvest basket and invited him to cook from the garden.
From my garden to yours,
Ellen O.
Ellen Ecker Ogden is a cookbook author and garden designer. She writes about food and gardens for magazines and online publications. More info on Linktree.
Better Homemade Recipes:
Spinach Souffle: If you enjoy an omelet for dinner, this is even better.
Brown Bread in a Can: A healthier version of the store-bought variety.
Popovers: Because there is nothing better for Saturday morning brunch.
