Wit, Words, and Joie de Vivre

childings commented yesterday about weaning herself off of junk food, learning to cook (in vain) and whether I had any cookbooks or recipes to recommend. I've been meaning for awhile to make a general post with tips on eating and cooking, as she is not the first person to ask, so today is the day.

Cooking and eating, mind you, are sort of like writing a novel. There are people who talk about wanting to be writers and write, but who like to talk about it more than do it, or who seem to think it should be easy. Also, the same method won't work for everyone. I can only speak from personal experience.

--Cookbooks. If you're trying to motivate yourself to cook, cookbooks are a good way to have things sitting on your shelf that you can stare at and think, "I should make something out of that sometime." I only use cookbooks when I already know what I want and I just need a more specific recipe or some advice on technique. If you're just starting out, I recommend getting a few general cookbooks with notes on technique like Joy of Cooking and maybe How to Cook Everything or something.

Then, I say, subscribe yourself to some magazines!

One of the reason I became a great cook in a very short period of time is because the health food store where I work stocks the following cooking magazines: Cooking Light, Eating Well, Fine Cooking, Cook's Illustrated, Saveur, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Vegetarian Times, Taste of Italia, as well as some nutrition/wellness magazines with more recipes, and two free handout magazines that contain recipes every month. Sometimes the store is DEAD and I am watching the register so nearly every month I read nine cooking magazines.

Cooking magazines are more fun than cookbooks, I find. They have lots of flashy full-color spreads and fun articles and tips. You can stick them in your bathroom. Don't feel you have to necessarily cook with them, just read them and see if you don't soon see a recipe that makes you think, "Ooh, I want to try that". Even if you just cook a few recipes from them every month, do read the articles on cooking technique, and look over recipes that sound interesting even if you know you'll never make them. What did they use? Lemon? Paprika? What was the technique? Did they marinade? Did they brown? You'll start to absorb this stuff into your subconscious eventually.

Also, if you have no sense of how to cook with the seasons, this way you'll start to pick up on what foods are in season when.

If you just get one, I like Cooking Light--it has a LOT of recipes in it, and they're very practical for just about anybody. Fine Cooking is probably next best for a general magazine. After that, they all sort of serve different needs. Saveur is fancy but fun to read, Vegetarian Times is good if you're vegetarian (I know, shock!) and has good suggestions for anyone who wants to eat less meat, Cook's Illustrated takes recipes and explains in detail the best method for making it and what doesn't work, which can be very interesting.

This got long so I'm breaking it into separate posts for separate tips.

2nd in a series of posts on eating better and cooking more.

Have you seen those shows where the host goes into someone's pantry and throws out all their Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Fruit Loops and forces them to make tofu steak and steamed vegetables for dinner?

I've noticed people often go overboard when they get the itch for change, whether it's because they are trying to lose weight, they had some sort of health crisis, or they saw a documentary on some scary aspect of the food industry.

In my experience, going overboard only works for a little while. You might consider it to cleanse your system or something, but over the long-term, consider the baby step.

For example, three years ago I didn't drink much, maybe 2-3 glasses of juice a day and maybe a little water at bedtime. I never liked water growing up. I wanted to drink more, and I could have just gone straight to dropping juice forever and trying to drink eight glasses of water a day, but I bet that wouldn't have worked. So over a three-year period I made the following changes:
1. Stopped drinking juice that had additional sweeteners, and limited juice to 2 glasses a day. Otherwise, drank herb tea with honey.
2. Limited juice to 1 glass a day.
3. Started sweetening tea with just a smidge of juice instead of honey.
4. Cut sweetener out of tea altogether and tried to drink at least 2 cups a day.
5. Tried to drink 4 cups of unsweetened tea or water a day, and the only juices now allowed are not-from-concentrate organic orange or grapefruit juice, or high antioxidant juices like pomegranate, which I try to drink less than 4 times a week.

As you can see I'm still not up to the ideal half-my-body-weight-in-water. But I am drinking more water, less juice, and I stick to it. I might lapse back to stage 4 some days but I am definitely not going to suddenly go back to stage 1 because it was so gradual.

You can try this with anything you know you're doing wrong in your diet. What can you do that is just ONE STEP better? Like, say you're living on McDonalds. You could try stocking your kitchen with easy food like microwave meals that contain one little vegetable, some organic hot dogs, whatever is just a smidge better. And when you get used to that, just go one step farther. Commit to eating a piece of fruit with your meal, or go for only natural convenience food, or make macaroni and cheese and add peas or something.

How do you know when to move on? I usually just know because I start to feel like the latest change has become routine and I'm itching to eat just a little better again.