Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cooking for others


So many people ask me to cook for them. I end up cooking for a small percentage of those people. Some times, the people I most want to cook for, have no interest in trying my food. I don't particularly like when girls ask me to cook them food, though I get that often. At this point, I obviously don't own a restaurant, and my cooking for people won't make me money. My cooking is not part of our free trade economy. It's a gift. I love cooking, and I love making people happy, but please don't tell me to cook for you. I'm not yet a chef who gets paid to do these things. I'm a regular kid who invests his time to do something for you. Remember that.

My second point. The people I most want to cook for are people who will understand and appreciate what I've done for them. I love to give the "pumpkin dessert connoisseur" my pumpkin creations. I would love to cook more often for my buddy who loves good food, and would love my braises. I'm not too interested in cooking for my friends who are on the "pasta and apples diet." Just the other day, I was talking to a friend about Osteria (gourmet pizza and pasta restaurant I previously staged at). I asked her if she liked it. She hadn't. I asked her why. She replied by saying "It was so gross they had an egg on top of a pizza!" I'm not jumping to cook for her either.

A few weeks ago I made the cookies pictured above for one of my best friends. She hadn't asked or expected anything. That's how you know I like you.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup M&M's*
1 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped

1. Preheat oven to 300, and cover three baking sheets with parchment.
2. Cream the butter and both sugars.
3. Add in the egg, vanilla and baking soda.
4. Combine the flour and salt, then add them to the mixture.
5. Mix in the chocolate chips, M&M's and nuts.
6. Make the cookies as big or small as you want.
7. Bake for around 18 minutes.

*Dave uses 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, but I like the crunch of M&M's, and I knew this girl liked M&M's.

Oh, and I hope I'm not coming off as a jerk who doesn't like to cook for anyone. Quite the opposite actually.

3 comments:

janice said...

I absolutely agree with you (and you don't sound like a jerk for saying so)- cooking for others is a way to show that you care about them, that you are thinking of them, that you've noticed and remembered what they enjoy. When I see that look of appreciation on the faces of friends when I bring them a treat, I always have a realization that I enjoy giving as much as they enjoy receiving. Love your blog-

Nick N said...

Thanks JP. Glad you can relate.

Amber said...

I was so annoyed today with one of my friends. Itseems she luvvvvs my cooking. It's great to know that she enjoys my cooking, but that's no reason to demand me to cook whatever she wants. This has been going on for a while now. By the way, she is not new to cooking. I gave her the point-by-point recipes so many times. She simply says, she likes it when I cook. But it's not the same for me, I like it better when I cook something myself. Anyway, she never offers me when something she cooks comes out really well. She hogs on it and finishes the stuff only to tell me the next day that she made something and it came out realllly well. But when it comes to me, I have serious warnings from her that I shouldn't cook something without offering her.

Why don't people have any empathy??????

Sorry for all the cribbing even before any introductions. But I am so bugged that I wanted share it with someone who had similar experiences. I don't have my own blog yet.

I love cooking. Glad to find ur blog. Will read more of your posts and come back to commenting.