Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I Was Gonna

I was gonna post my picture of the Chicken Chesapeake I made a couple weeks back. Before we sat down to eat it, I was so impressed with the tomato-wedge garnish presentation that I whipped out the camera, crouched in professional photo positions, peppered the corn cob just so, fussed with the green beans for a pleasing composition.

My poor family. The things they put up with.

"Come on, Mom. It's just food." says the tallest one.
"Zo, some of us are hungry??!" says the king of the manse.
"You gonna put this on your BLOG?" asks the Squirt.

I know.
I know.
And yes, that's my plan, I answer.

But when I uploaded the photo, with the slab of chicken smothered in glossy Swiss cheese and lumpy crab pieces and shiny mushroom slices, the first thought it my head was, "Gross! It looks like brain matter."

I was gonna post my recipe for it, but I'm not sure anyone really cares.

I was gonna enjoy a steak dinner at home with the family tonight, but Paul is at a business dinner instead, Stephen is at work, and that leaves a 2-man void at the table, which takes so much pleasure out of cooking. One thing I know about myself: I really would not enjoy cooking if there weren't people here to eat it with me. Maybe some people do it as a hobby, find it relaxing and creative, or don't mind the lack of "audience," but I have learned that I like to feed a full table's worth. If I can't feed at least four (appreciative) eaters at once, it really zaps my enthusiasm. Heaven help us when we're true empty nesters. We'll spend every evening at Panera sipping soup through our dentures.

3 comments:

Laurie Lynn said...

There are some recipes that do taste better than they look! I had the same type of dilemma when I recently made one of my husband's faves: "creamed eggs over toast". I really wanted to do a blog post about one of his favorite recipes- complete w/ step-by-step photos and ending with the final yummy product. But surely just the name of the recipe is enough to explain why it would not make an appealing photo post, especially with my amatuer photography ability!
So I just made it, we ate it and left the camera out of it.
I admit that since we're empty nesters, my cooking enthusiasm has definitely been knocked down a few notches, so if there was a Panera close, we'd probably be there sipping soup! (I might have to fight the urge to take my camera to get some shots so I could blog about Panera's soup of the month!)
Anyway. The Maybe it doesn't matter if no one cares about your recipe! (It's a question I ask about almost every post I write!) The Chicken Chesapeake does sound yummy! I'd say go ahead and post your recipe, whether anyone cares or not, especially since my mouth was watering (until you mentioned "brain matter"! ;)
I was thinking about a label for posts about food such as you mentioned. The label could be: "Better Than It Looks" !?

Danielle said...

I'm with you, I don't enjoy cooking unless Josh is around to eat it. Just cooking for me and the little guys, well, isn't that fun.

zz said...

Laurie, yeh, no, creamed eggs over toast does NOT sound appealing, but I can honestly say that's one meal I've never made (unless it goes by a diff name).

I actually fixed dinner for 5 tonight, but waited till 8:45 so it'd be good and hot when Steve got home. Ben woke up from a long nap to the smell of broiling steak and said, "Sweet! I wasn't expecting THAT!" Sarah said, "ooh, what smells so good?" and Joel asked for seconds. It was well worth the small amt of effort it took to season and sear it.

I'm tempted to post the recipe and cheesy (literally) picture just for the fun of it.