How to Bone a Duck - Working Title & Introduction

Sometimes when I eat alone, sitting at my bar height kitchen table, in my just cheap enough to be comfortable IKEA chair, browsing the Internet while chewing, I feel like I’m a really good writer. I feel like I have something extremely important to say and the whole digital audience is sitting on the edge of their slightly uncomfortable chairs waiting for my next tidbit of cooking wisdom, coffee enlightenment or the funniest status update they’ll read all day.

For example, a post from March 6, 2011, “I have a guilty pleasure of loving Diane Keaton movies. I think she plays some really classy ladies. There's just something about her in Something's Gotta Give, with her house in The Hamptons and how her clothes match her interior decorating. I love it!

In Because I Said So she's a mom and she loves to cook. There's one scene where she's had a particularly stressful day so she makes herself this delicious looking pasta dinner and eats it all alone in her kitchen. This isn't to say I've had a particularly stressful day, quite the opposite, but I am saying there are moments when I make myself pasta and I'm home alone that I feel like I too could be the next great playwright (Maybe I should write plays first?). But now I'm mixing up my movies. The point is there's an extremely satisfying feeling in making elegant pasta all for myself.

On this chilly afternoon the elegant dish was Romano Pasta - a fettuccini noodle sautéed in a marsala, garlic, shallot reduction and topped with grated Romano cheese.”

It’s the confidence that stirs in me when I write about my kitchen adventures that leads me to study the timely topic of home cooking. Everyone eats, but how and why? In a time of eating out every night there are families with children, single dudes and ladies rooming together that take the time to cook at home. What is the draw? Why do they do it? Do they really get anything out of it? All because of my cheeky Internet ego the pleasant world of home cooking will be discovered more fully for you, the reader, to savor.

The reasons range. Home cooking has health benefits. It can be budget sensitive and experimental. It brings community. Trying it out, or at least reading about it can really only be beneficial. Unless, of course, you fall in love with it and end up spending every night after work sweating over the stovetop, dreaming up ways to bone a duck and then blogging about it. Was that a “Julie and Julia” reference? Continue reading at your own risk.

I cook at home for all of these reasons. I’m not the healthiest person alive. I love my sweets, but at least I know what’s going in to my meals. And when it comes to money I’m all over the sales at the grocery store. I can spend $31 and save $38 at the same time. You can’t do that when you eat out. But, why I’m most passionate about cooking at home is because I love having people over. I see food as a huge part of quality time and when it’s in a relaxed environment it’s even better. Another reason to study this topic – to find out if other people feel the same way about home cooking.

And this is where the story goes beyond cheeky.

My friend Kristin said it so well, “ It’s fun because you’re enjoying things God has given us. You’re enjoying that together.”

Dwell on that, as this feast is prepared. The reason for home cooking goes far beyond nourishment, price point or hobby. It is a thanksgiving to God. Food is already one of my favorite things, and when I realized that God also loves food, because he created it, my curiosity exploded. If He created the Platypus, such a funny creature, then what kinds of fruits and vegetables did he place on this Earth for us to be perplexed by? Taste and see!