Vacation

I refused to cook while on vacation. If I’m going to be blogging about food (blogging is a bit like work, fun work, but work) then during my time off from my real job, I need to be off from blogging too. Of course this probably cost us more money then I really wanted to spend, but oh well. I only take vacation once a year! Got to live it up!

What did I eat on my vacation? We went to Sakura Home for dinner on my birthday. It’s a Japanese restaurant with Hibachi. I was really craving Hibachi. I ordered the scallops and lobster. Anthony had the filet and lobster. This was a very good meal. The chef was fun too!

Of course before dinner we went to Abbot’s Frozen Custard and I had chocolate almond on a cone. It was my birthday. I could eat dessert before dinner if I wanted to. Monday I went to this place in Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake, Seneca Harbor Station. I had mussels in a white wine, scampi butter sauce. Very yummy. The one item on the menu we all agreed we would have liked to try (if we had saved room for dessert) was the Raspberry Bongo, which is cream puffs with mascarpone, cream cheese, raspberries, topped with chocolate sauce and Chambord. That would have been heaven and I might just have to go back for that! For dinner we went to Famous Dave’s BBQ, I had a coupon for a free something on the menu. It ended up being an appetizer which was great, because we love their Smoked Salmon spread. Delicious as usual, except the pita bread had tons more dry rub spice on it then it normally does. That made it a bit spicier then I like.

Tuesday I had gelato for lunch at the George Eastman House. I chose three flavors banana, caramel, and strawberry. I love gelato! We went to Bugaboo Creek for dinner, where I had Grilled Bourbon Marinated Shrimp skewers and a wedge salad. The wedge salads are my favorite salad! Anthony had steak again. I just can’t eat steak. I tried some of his filet at Sakura Home and thought it tasted like liver. I’m weird; you can say it to my face. We went to Niagara Falls on Wednesday and ate at the Hard Rock Café on the Canadian side. I’ve never been a fan of Hard Rock Café’s, but I had the S.O.B. Burger which was actually pretty good. It had a chipotle spread on it and guacamole. Thursday we went to the sushi place in our town, we had a gift certificate from Restaurants.com for $25. We love this place and it’s so close to our house! Yay! We had pork gyoza, seaweed salad, miso soup, sushi with baby octopus (that was a first for me! Might have been a little chewy for my tastes!), eel sushi, a yellowtail scallion roll, and a tempura roll with salmon, crab, cream cheese, and fish roe.

Friday, Anthony and I went to the movies (this never happens!). We saw Inception and we both really liked it. I love movies that keep you wondering. Go see it. For dinner we met some friends at Good Luck. If you haven’t been go. This place has some decent food. You choose dishes to share with the table. We had margherita pizza, ziti with red sauce and eggplant, squash stuffed with zucchini, and the burger. I didn’t read the menu well and ended up ordering a glass of wine that was $10. Oops! Oh well, I was on vacation! That was my excuse for everything last week.

Let's not forget the mini carrot cake! I hate regular cake. There is just nothing appealing about it to me. There are 4 cakes that I will eat and savor: cheesecake, cookie cake, ice cream cake, and carrot cake. We bought a small carrot cake and ice cream cake!!

Can’t wait to start cooking again! (If only you could have seen the expression on my face as I typed that) I’m sure I will get up to even more trouble then before.

The menu for this week includes: curried shrimp with coconut rice, pork tenderloin with peppers, Mexican pita pizzas, and another veggie pasta dish to make up for the last disaster.

Hesitant: adj. wavering, hesitating, or irresolute

Synonyms: afraid, backward, diffident, doubtful, half-hearted, lacking confidence, lazy, loath, slow, tentative, uneager, unpredictable, unsure, unwilling.

All of those words definitely describe cooking and me. Cooking and I have had a love hate relationship for as long as I can remember. I love food! If I could just eat and never have to be in a kitchen, I would be so stoked. Alas I can not afford to hire a private chef, eat out all the time, or force my husband to cook every night. The minute I step into the kitchen (knowing that cooking is in my near future), my heart starts beating fast. The main problem I have is fear. I’m scared that I will burn something or cut my finger off (the latter being a much worse fear!). Plus, I don’t have a ton of patience. Waiting for water to boil, is like a small hell for me.

To top it off I have absolutely no cooking skills. I have no idea how this happened. My mom always cooked for my family when we were little, so I had to have been aware of what she was doing. I can even remember helping at times. My husband is an amazing cook and I’ve watched him in the kitchen. I watch almost every cooking show known to man, and still I couldn’t tell you the proper way to chop an onion. Apparently even my ability to stir food in a pot is terrible. My husband always walks by while I’m half heartedly stirring a pot of food and says “What are you doing?!”

Needless to say, the cooking process is very frustrating for me. I refuse to eat the same things all the time, so I constantly find new recipes to try. You would think if there are a few items I can cook (meatloaf, lasagna, and enchiladas) that I would just cook those as often as possible. Not me. I like to torture myself. Not to mention those items are far too unhealthy for me to cook on a continuous basis.

So the challenge is on. Can I gain the abilities that I am severely lacking? If I gain some of these skills, can I then gain some patience? Can I then turn that patience into affection for cooking? Then finally can it all just taste really good and can I stop burning the garlic?