A WORD on Adventures in Cooking

There are certain things about becoming an adult that I've not yet gotten over.

For instance, I'm still dealing with the fact that once in awhile I'll have to take myself to the Commerce Bank down the street from my apartment and stand in line. Once my turn has arrived (usually after a minimum of ten minutes), I hand over a wad of cash in exchange for rolls of quarters. This is bothersome to me, yet I do it for one simple and rather important reason: if I don't, I won't be able to use the washers and dryers in the laundry room in my building. And if this happens, well, I won't have any clean clothes...or sheets....or towels.

I am still getting used to making regular trips to Duane Reade (which is a huge chain of drug stores in New York City) to buy things like toothpaste...so my teeth won't rot, and toilet paper, so...well, I don't need to take this any further.

One of the things that baffles me the most is that I am solely responsible for making sure I don't starve...three meals a day (well, ideally I guess), seven days a week. Thus, I feel that the very fact that I continue to exist is a testament to at least some degree of success as an adult. When I want to be exceptionally adult, however, I'll do something that I think is incredibly impressive: I will cook something from scratch.

When you think about it, the act of taking on a recipe requires a great deal of optimism. Sure you have clear cut ingredients, amounts, and directions in front of you, but you won't actually discover whether you actually like what it is you are about to spend so much time making until you take it out of the oven. That said, cooking a dish from scratch has become a labor of love for me, which starts at my neighborhood Food Emporium...

I am always so proud of myself when I'm wheeling my cart through the grocery store. Grocery shopping in New York City particularly is an incredibly interesting experience, especially on a weeknight. Solo shoppers meander about the store with their baskets, chatting on cellphones and (of course) occasionally eyeing a fellow grocery-seeker. I feel that you can tell a lot about a stranger by the sum of they have in their basket or cart at checkout time. Weeknight shoppers typically have the most interesting assortment of purchases...raspberries, Drano, pita bread, canned soup, Us Weekly...And when I look to see what is in my own cart, I can see that I truly do give off the suggestion that I know how to cook: garlic, two kinds of oil, flour, shredded cheese, canned tomatoes, ice cream (ok, so maybe that last one isn't for a recipe...)

Ok, so just last night I decided to truly challenge myself by making a dish that strikes fear in the hearts of all novice chefs: LASAGNA. I have to be perfectly honest, though, and admit that I chose the recipe because it was called something like "Super-Duper Easy As Pie Lasagna" (as well as the fact that I found it on CookingLight.com). Urban Cooking Legend states that lasagna is one of the most harrowing dishes to prepare because of the extreme difficulty of the art of engineering the Gigantic Wet Lasagna Noodle. That's why I had pre-screened this recipe and noted that it distinctly called for "pre-cooked lasagna noodles" which I imagined were these delightful already-cooked noodles that I'd be able to find in the refrigerated section of my Grocery Store in between the ricotta and the yogurt, no doubt to the right of the hot guy perusing the Velveeta. After trips to both Food Emporium AND Gristedes, I'd discovered that such a thing was near-neigh impossible to come by. Thus, I was forced to call in the Big Guns. I took a deep breath, and charged into Whole Foods, where I learned something very important: if Whole Foods doesn't have something shi-shi like that, it simply does not exist, my friend. I walked out of there, pale, with a box of those dried lasagna noodles that are supposed to take on their correct form as they "bake in the oven." Yeah freakin' right, I was going to end up with a casserole dish full of scorched sauce and seared cheese with these gross, hard, and most likely burnt-to-a-crisp noodles sunken into the bottom of the huge mess. But as it is in life it is in cooking, my friends: if you don't try, you'll simply never know.

So I unpacked my over-priced (but Whole) Foods, poured a bottle (whoops, I meant a glass) of wine, cracked my knuckles, did a jumping jack or two, and set to work. My first task was a familiar one: browning meat. Ok, so far not too bad. Next add the low fat spaghetti sauce...at which point (being a pseudo-Italian afterall) I improvised....gasp!!!....and added some spices. Next this jolly little CookingLight.com recipe instructed me to mix together low fat cottage cheese and parmesan in a separate bowl. Which I do. Feeling like Julia Child, I "set aside," per instructions. Next came the rip-roaring fun: I ripped into the box of these alleged magic noodles (which looked, and felt, rather freeze-dried....not unlike astronaut food). It was time for my artistic side to make itself useful: I looked into the forebaringly empty glass casserole dish, took a deep breath, and cautiously began the cycle: sauce mixture, layer of wonder-noodle, layer of cottage-cheese-creation, repeat. And so and so forth until I deemed it acceptable to stop, topping it with handy-dandy pre-shredded cheese. Thus it was finally time to throw open the oven door, lovingly set this culinary masterpiece on the top shelf, set the timer, and cross my fingers.

Shortly there after, while sitting on my sofa with the remainder of my wine to catch up with what those girls on Laguna Beach (gotta love that L.C.) were up to, I was incredibly encouraged to note that there seemed to be a possibly-delicious smell emanating from my kitchen. Could it be that there was a hint of an extra bounce in my step as I got up to retrieve the dish as the timer at last went off? Perhaps. I do know for sure that an impromptu smile crossed my face as I had my first chance to inspect the final product: by george! It actually looked like what it was supposed to be. I suppose this blog entry would be better if it had also tasted phenomenal, too, but I'm at least happy to report that it tasted "fine." I mean, it was from CookingLight.com, so you have to adjust the curve to begin with. In any case, I was glowing with the realization that I'd done something that is not easy to do. I figure now that I have successfully made lasagna, I can now set my sights on loftier goals: going after that Corner Office, a masters degree, finally seeing Alaska, ravioli.