Spontaneity is very valuable in that it is transformative, literally you are are changing your expectations of how you're spending your time and therefore spiritually refreshing in a time of rigid planning. This past summer and fall long aimless walks around my neighborhood or a sit in the park would occasionally end with a guest on the porch. Partially because Chicago doesn’t offer many public restrooms in my neighborhood and the other part because we wanted a snack and a glass. Previously this function was obviously met by cafes and restaurants filled with people working to care for you and your whims. That work then became part of my work, albeit smaller, more manageable, and also way less consistent. One of the (many) differences between my kitchen and a professional kitchen is that mine has foods I like and have already personally eaten some of. To serve someone a half consumed wedge of blue cheese isn’t the worst thing you can do obviously, but I would suggest that transforming it into something else is a gesture toward the loosening of your boundaries, opening up to the other. They’ve entered your little world and have necessarily changed it. Guaranteed to make your companion feel special and taken care of, who doesn’t want that? To be the carer or the cared for.
Richard Olney knows the value of spontaneous cooking and dedicates a few pages in Simple French Cooking to the style. He writes:
“It is true that there is nothing more amusing than to be caught empty-handed–faced with only dibs and dabs of leftovers and (hopefully) a few staples, and on the spur of the moment, to be obliged to transform these fragments into an acceptable meal. And the gratification of having been able, thanks to mere imagination, to formulate a few drab odds and ends into a bright, coherent, and often exciting statement is great.”
With much respect to Olney, who has captured the feeling of spontaneous cookery so well, the use of the word imagination is a cover for experience. Which for me, comes in the form of meandering research and curiosity about other people’s ideas expressed as recipes. An intellectual extension of the sentiment a chef I used to work for, “prep hard, easy pick up”. Or something like that.
I like to approximate that experience by reading recipes for no immediate purpose, and I find Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer’s perspective especially nurturing. Formerly food magazine professionals, they began independently publishing recipe books for home cooks in 2009 and keeping a blog called Canal House Cooks Lunch in 2011. I like both, but the blog is free and recipe-less so it's easier to glean ideas rapidly without getting bogged down in details. Which is more in the spirit of what we’re talking about. The lunch blog sometimes has fancy spreads, but they often use leftovers or forget to plan ahead. It doesn’t really matter individually what anything is, in the moment of spontaneous cooking it all just turns to one mushy idea and maybe Richard Olney is in there too. It feels like it's from nowhere but it's from all these people and so I am shoving a wine in the freezer and making a salad with three stalks of forgotten celery, olives, and olive oil. I’m putting the 5 dates that I have left in my house next to that and some potato chips in a bowl, and maybe I remember that you can stretch a piece of blue cheese by adding butter as recommended by the Canal House.
Blue Cheese Butter with Black Pepper (from Canal House Cooking Volume No. 6 The Grocery Store)
Put your blue cheese and twice as much butter in a bowl or food processor with the amount of pepper you like. Mash or blend it until it comes together.
Lots of wines to drink cold in the shop, which are typically good with whatever's in your pantry and definitely good before sunset. Or let me know what you have hiding in your refrigerator's crisper and I can make a recommendation: rainbowwinechi@gmail.com / DM @rainbow_wines on Instagram.
-Emily
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