The last two months have been busy, but that’s always how summers are.

And should be really, as being outside is one of life’s divine things.

However the belly still desires warm meals, despite the heat- and sandwiches and cold salads don’t take long to get as boring as yet another winter stew.

Enter the braise.

Because it’s warm, tasty, and we still all want time to fuck off outside during the day yet nosh on a nourishing meal when evening sneaks in.

I know I’ve written about braising before during the school posts, but those were methodology posts and I didn’t realize then just how valuable of a tool it was.

Or how as a society we’ve essentially lost the ability to use this tool; but like most kitchen knowledge it’s just not being passed down to the next generation.

Which, saddens me.  Because it’s a cooking method that merely consists of putting the object you’re going to cook in a small amount of liquid (a.k.a. not covering the object), for a set amount of time on a specific temperature.  That’s it.

But I say that’s what I’m doing and people look at me stunned, as though they could never hope to do something similar.

Something else happened the other day, along with this, that has sparked a new line of thought in me (though I’ll admit I’m not sure where it’s going yet).  I was in the grocery and ran into someone I’ve known for about a month.  She asked what I was cooking and I answered that it was pizza night.  She was surprised.

Her reaction was along the lines of pizza being beneath my abilities.  While part of me was appreciative of her faith in me, another part was a bit miffed for some reason.  I pushed the feeling aside for later review, smiled, and mentioned something to the effect of it being relaxing making the dough (which for those who know me, yes I have actually started making dough here as The Baker’s work hours are long).  When she found out it was pizza from scratch her tune changed and I was, slightly, forgiven.

Now in starting my later review, I think…are we that out of touch with love of food, what it does for us, for the craft in general, of the joy making a meal with others brings, of the taste of something real, that making simple food is scoffed at?  Have we created a society of pseudo “Chefs” because they can stand on the backs of others (the Ragu jar, the stock isle, the frozen gourmet meals) and create meals that look complicated, and would be to actually make, with the flip of a few dollars to the cash register?

Is it almost, unearned food snobbery?

Oh sure, I’ve had my “must make everything complicated” phases, but those were meager attempts at self-education.  I’ll also admit I used to snark (although I’ve finally learned to keep in internal if it bubbles up) at things not made from scratch.  Yes and yes.  But in those cases real, good food and the joy it brings was still the focus, regardless of my immature attitude.

I’ve learned, most importantly, that the source of the food is not necessarily as important as the spirit in which it’s shared.**

This is different.  I’m not sure, maybe it stems from all the expert cooking tv shows, where people now are over-exposed to skilled cooking to such a degree that they’ve lost an appreciation for the skill.  Who hasn’t sat on the couch and watched shows like Biggest Loser or Amazing Race and thought, oh yeah, I could totally do that.  And gotten up to get some chips.

But there is a deeper loss here for simple, real, homemade food like pizza and braises.

And for the joy of a lazy, braisey day where the whole house smells good.

The kind of smell good that makes you smile when you walk in the door without realizing it, and just for a second, all the shit of the day slides away like thawing ice cream blurps off a spoon.

We all have different requirements on our time, but my question here now in still mulling these new ideas over- are they requirements we’ve chosen to take on, or allowed others to put on our shoulders?  “Others” can can society, friends, family, sometimes even perfect strangers.

Thanks Balki.

** That sentence is not intended to be used as a scapegoat.  If you have any idea of what I’m talking about right now, be ashamed of yourself and go cook something.