Nom nom nom!I couldn’t sleep the other night after reading Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France. The book is absolutely fantastic, and I recommend it whole-heartedly to everyone. The only thing is, after I finished reading, I felt inspired, not sleepy!
I surrendered to my insomnia, grabbed a sweet nectarine from the kitchen, and plopped down on the couch with Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.
I love reading cookbooks – they are as interesting to me as any fiction novel or non-fiction book. I randomly picked a page and, after wandering through cow, lamb, pig, squid, lobster, I entered the land of baking. Guess what I found.
I love reading cookbooks – they are as interesting to me as any fiction novel or non-fiction book. I randomly picked a page and, after wandering through cow, lamb, pig, squid, lobster, I entered the land of baking. Guess what I found.
A recipe for crackers!!!
Oh my goodness. I haven’t had crackers in so long. Most of the crackers I find in supermarkets are loaded with un-pronounceable ingredients. I’ve started classifying them, personally, as junk food. I’m not an extremist, but eating whole foods/real foods is a pleasure for me, and I don’t see the point of eating if it doesn’t bring me pleasure. Bacon? Hell yeah! I know where that came from (see pig). Weird chemicals people manufactured in a lab, stuffed into food-like substances? Not that enticing.
Back to the crackers recipe – exciting! It looked so easy. And according to the recipe, it only took ten minutes in the oven.
Well! That’s not too time consuming at all. Perfect! I followed the recipe and thought the crackers were good, but I wasn’t totally satisfied. I tweaked the recipe and made a second batch. Then I tweaked the recipe more and made a third batch. Three days in a row, I made crackers. I gave a small group of taste testers crackers from the third batch and, based on their suggestions, this is my “final” recipe:
Well! That’s not too time consuming at all. Perfect! I followed the recipe and thought the crackers were good, but I wasn’t totally satisfied. I tweaked the recipe and made a second batch. Then I tweaked the recipe more and made a third batch. Three days in a row, I made crackers. I gave a small group of taste testers crackers from the third batch and, based on their suggestions, this is my “final” recipe:
I’ve been thinking lately… almost all of the processed food we find in stores was at one time or another made by someone’s hands. While I love technology and progress, I’m interested more and more in making my own food, and feeding the people I love from my own kitchen. I hope Mr. Bittman inspires you to try making your own crackers, as he inspired me.
Batch No. 1
Batch No. 2
Batch No. 3
wow, you are amazing!
ReplyDelete-Erin
ha! no, it was easy. try it! :)
ReplyDelete