humbleneighborhood.com» Cookbook

Second Saturdays, Anyone?

Maia — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:05:43 +0000

Second Saturday dinners here in the Humble Neighborhood went on hiatus during the cold winter months, but now that the days are warm, sunny and getting longer, I'm thinking about bringing them back. Just for the summer–June through September. Any takers?

New to the Humble Neighborhood? Here's the deal: I cook. You come and eat–and in the process you get to hang out with a bunch of really cool people. Sounds good, no?

Dinners will feature fresh, seasonal dishes and will take place on the second Saturday of each month from June through September. Here are the dates: June 11; July 16 (this is actually the third Saturday, due to a prior commitment on my part. Plus I couldn't very well call the series "Second Saturdays Unless I Have Plans and Move One to the Third Saturday in July." It loses the alliteration quality and doesn't flow as nicely); August 13; September 10. Appetizers and munchies at 6 p.m. with dinner planned for 7 p.m.

So…like I said, I'm thinking about it and I'd love your input. Take this quick survey and let me know what you think!

In the Kitchen with Maia

Maia — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:03:47 +0000

Cooking I love. Cleaning up, not so much. My neat and orderly Virgo nature goes on vacation when I’m in the kitchen zealously concocting this, that or the other thing. A pinch of this, a dash of that and the next thing I know my inner Tasmanian devil has unleashed herself in a whirlwind of spice bottles, wooden spoons, and a variety of pots, pans and mixing bowls. What began as a fairly tidy kitchen soon resembles a post-apocalyptic calamity.
OK, I exaggerate. A little. I am actually grateful for the little devil—it’s because of her that I’ve come up with a few tricks to minimize the yucky cleaning-up part.

Look Before You Leap

This is very important: If you’re using a recipe, read through it—in its entirety—first, thereby eliminating one of those “Oh, rats (or your favorite expletive)!” moments when you realize too late that you were supposed to chill, soak or otherwise prepare something ahead of time—or that the cooking time exceeds the time by which your guests will be arriving by several hours. Trust me. You’ll thank me for this.
This is also the time to make sure you have all the ingredients—or if you don’t, you can decide what substitutions you’re brave enough to make.

Get it Together

Get your ingredients together before you start cooking. In accordance with my Virgo nature, I line them all up on the counter in the order in which I’ll be using them. You can line them up any way you want to; the important thing is to get all your ingredients in front of you, so you can do a headcount. Make sure you have everything—and enough of it.
To simplify the cleaning-up process, I put away each item after I’ve used it. By the time I’m finished, all my ingredients have either been used or put away!

Wash and Go

The clean-up-as-you-go method works really well for all your pots, pans and utensils, too. I use whatever spare seconds I have to quickly wash up any items I’m done with so I won’t have a huge mess to contend with when I’m done.

These are the tricks and tips that work for me—feel free to share your own!

What’s It All About?

Maia — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:02:30 +0000

I love blogging. That is, I loved the idea of blogging as I envisioned a pithy online chronicling of the World According to Me, kind of a quirky glimpse into the organized chaos in my head, peppered with professions of my love of good food, good health and a few of my favorite recipes.

But then there were all these rules—suffocating, stifling, inspiration-sucking rules. Don’t get me wrong. I quite like rules…rules of grammar, rules of etiquette…you get the idea.

That is, I love the idea of rules. I walk a fine line between having a borderline Type A fascination with rules and being a freethinking, renegade. I recently concluded that what I like—love, really—is knowing the rules so that I can take wild, ecstatic pleasure in breaking them.

But back to blogging…

I’m not unhappy with my previous posts, but just as I began feeling bogged down by the rules of blogging, I also felt there was this mysterious “something” eluding me. I said as much to my friend Andrea, who observed the following:

Nobody knows you’re writing a cookbook.

Right over my head. Kept right on yapping.

She said it again, this time with the kind of patient tone one uses with a small and willful child who isn’t getting the message (she’s a good mommy).

Nobody knows you’re writing a cookbook.

Ohhhhhh… Passion, inspiration and the elusive “something” began taking shape…

Nobody knows I’m writing a cookbook!

So. Here goes.

Hey, Everybody! I’m writing a cookbook!

It’s wonderful, it’s frustrating and it’s taken over my life. All day every day, everything I do, it seems, is book-centric. Every meal, every trip to the farmers’ market, every garden harvest, every search for the missing ingredient and yes, every temper tantrum, meltdown and drama. I may actually be the Sarah Bernhardt of writing and cooking and writing about cooking.

Anyway, that’s what this blog is all about.