I can’t believe how fast the end of my time as a student at Rose-Hulman is approaching.  I’m still working on the whole getting-a-job thing (to make a long story short, Liberty Mutual Seattle said no, but I’ve got other prospects–I’m flying to Boston Tuesday for an interview), but for now, I’m going to focus on another area of my life: cooking.

See that picture above?  I made that, about a week ago, for dinner.  Pork Tinga tacos with avocado and Queso Fresco (fresh cheese–it’s mexican.  basically like feta, but less pungent).  Cooking is a release for me.  Regardless of how irritated CS makes me (which has been more frequent lately — clearly a week of spring break was not enough), no matter how stressed all the projects going on are making me, time in the kitchen is a way to calm down, re-focus, and relax.  I think that’s why the way CS cooks irritates me so much.

Let me set things straight: CS is not a bad cook, but he’s not a good one either.  It’s clear he could be a good cook, but his focus is in the wrong place.  Two of the people I look up to in terms of food (yes, I have those) are Alton Brown and Rick Bayless.  Both advocate the use of fresh ingredients where possible, and stress the whys of the the techniques you’re using as much as the steps of the recipe.  The crew at America’s Test Kitchen is good for this too (especially since they rigorously test each recipe until it’s perfect).  Between the three of them, it’s a great resource for an engineer that likes to cook–everything is precise and has a purpose behind it.  That’s where I try to focus when it’s my turn to cook for the apartment: fresh ingredients (and less of a reliance of canned/processed goods) and a strong sense of flavor.

CS does not think this way.  His only concern is cost and how quickly things take to make.  There’s been a number of times when he’s come home from Kroger with stuff just because it was on sale (a horrible way to just add more to the pile of things in the freezer that he’s bought like that.  apparently the freezer is a magical box which keeps things good forever.).  I’m fairly certain he’s never made a recipe that’s taken over 30 minutes to make start to finish (the one exception to this, when he wanted to make something “American” for our new suitemate to try, meatloaf, he used my recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.  He didn’t read the instructions ahead of time to see how long it would take, and I ended up making the meatloaf to ensure we had dinner on time.)  This focus on the quick and the cheap means we eat a lot of bland casseroles barely modernized from the 50s that consist of a lot of canned soup and hamburger.  He’s served green bean casserole, a perfectly alright side dish, as the only dish for dinner.  TWICE.  This goes directly against my two principles when I cook.  I don’t mind focusing on cost (we’re in college — I try to cook two dishes with similar ingredients over a two week period so I only need to shop once), but the time thing angers me — I take whatever time is needed to make something the people I live with will enjoy.  I don’t get that feeling when CS cooks.  We’re not forcing him to make anything for us — he signs up for when he wants to cook on a whiteboard in the room.  There’s no visible passion behind what he makes; there’s an attempt to impress us because he thinks so highly of himself, but its not reciprocated when the end product always looks so disappointing.  I don’t want to crush his desire to cook, but I just wish he’d listen to the feedback he’s gotten.

I’m not asking for anything as elaborate as the tacos above (which aren’t really that elaborate–pork slow cooked with tomatoes/peppers/garlic served with chopped up avocados tossed in lime juice and crumbled fresh cheese).  Just something that’s been made with a sense of love or passion behind it.