Kitchen Theater

 Back when I was traveling a lot for work and leisure, I was entranced by the enormous array of food that I encountered--ingredients, flavors, textures, methods of preparation. I would try to recreate many of those dishes back at home, to greater or lesser success. I was never a cook who acquired specialized gadgets, but I would spend time and money acquiring exotic and unusual ingredients, including spices. 

Since coming back from Saudi Arabia in 2013, my culinary palate has shrunk a little. Cooking is still my primary hobby after working with my dogs, but I no longer spend hours making fancy desserts or finding a source for some weird ingredient that I end up only using once. 

Certainly one big change is that, since starting my second career as a veterinary pathologist, my diet has become more and more plant-based. I'm not a strict vegan as you will have to pry the half and half I put in my coffee from my cold, dead fingers, but I only eat meat products a few times a week. 

Mostly I eat some variation of sauteed or baked vegetables with rice, decorated with black pepper or chipotle pepper, fresh squeezed lime or balsamic vinegar, and a bit of salt or feta cheese, which is itself quite salty. I developed a taste for feta in Saudi, where there was always six or seven fresh varieties to choose from. I only cook with olive oil. Sometimes I add honey to promote browning (the Maillard reaction).

And that's it: pepper, salt, fat, and acid. Sure, there are the stereotypes that link this spice to that culture's cuisine, as in you have to use X if you want to prepare a dish from Y country. That's great, but I don't cook like that anymore. Cooking is less of a production for me now. I am no longer interested in performing theater in the kitchen.

You may have seen the Salt Fat Acid Heat show or book. What I am talking about is miles away from what she promotes. Her elaborate preparations have little in common with my simple meals, other than her promotion of the core uses of salt, fat, and acid.  

These change in diet and kitchen activity have also shifted my palate quite a bit. I find most processed and restaurant food to be pretty gross. Palm oil and corn sugars don't taste good to me anymore. I'm certainly not above picking up a box of muffin mix now and then, but I'm much more careful about what's inside the box. 

I also started meal prepping when I was in vet school, and that habit has stuck. Elaborate, fancy dishes with lots of delicate ingredients don't lend themselves to meal prepping.

And COVID took quite a whack at my view of cooking and eating too. Once I started traveling for agility trials again, I started bringing all of my own food--every single meal and snack. Another strike against elaborate and delicate preparations, which don't travel well. After all, if I'm bringing all my own food, I have to bring it in containers that I have to keep track of and cart home.

None of this is to say that I've just rolled over and eat mush every day. I like big, bold flavors and bright colors, which is easy to satisfy with fresh vegetables. I do have to think about protein sources, but there are lots of plant-based options available now beyond just tofu or beans and rice. Although I quite like tofu, and beans and rice.

Take the theater out of cooking, and it becomes a calm, considered activity.