A lovely photograph of Emily Weinstein’s corn risotto by Melina Hammer for the New York Times.
This fall, I am planning on conquering my fear of cooking dinner. Sure, I consider myself a good cook, though I always need some kind of recipe, at least to start out with. I actually didn’t see this as a sign of my obvious inadequacy until I met my make-everything-up-from-scratch-and-it-is-always-delicious cook of a husband. I am still mildly jealous of his abilities, though I have learned to use them to my advantage by cajoling him into cooking as often as I can.
Which these days, what with his late hours and frequent travel, is not all that much. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and I am determined to reinstate my kitchen confidence by hook or by crook. Especially as I find my problems to be more with organization and time management than with the actual food preparation.
(To be honest, I think the vast majority of my problems are rooted in time management and organizational issues, but I digress…)
So I’ve decided to try and narrow things down a bit, and to make a meal plan… at least till Friday. For starters, this week, all of our meals are coming from the new Cooking site from the NY Times. Which I do love, though at times it feels a bit overwhelming. So many choices (over 16,000!) where does one begin?
I started off the adventure with a celebration of corn, as this is probably the last week we’ll be able to get our hands on any fresh ears. Enter Emily Weinstein’s corn risotto which I prepared last night to rave reviews.
I made a few changes… my daughter hates pepper, so out it went (sob!) and I didn’t have time to make the corn stock, though I did scrape the juice from the corn cobs into the chicken stock I already had and then simmered the cobs with the broth to give it a bit of that flavor. I didn’t use wine, only because I forgot about buying some and was too lazy to go back outside, and I skipped the whipped cream part (also out of laziness). Next time I might do that last step as it does sound amazing.
But even with all of those simplifications and alterations, the dish was lovely. Light, sweet and a bit like a memory of a 9 pm sunset on a summer evening. A perfect way to say goodbye to one of my favorite foods. Today’s lunch will be a salad that includes the leftover kernels of corn (I bought one too many ears– I couldn’t help myself) and then it’s so long till next July.
I guess I’ll just have to drown my sorrows in fresh apples…
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