What's cooking?

I've been doing a lot more cooking lately...it is partly to give Judi one more night a week that she doesn't have to cook, but also because, in a strange way, I'm finally ready to do it.

I've had this aversion to cooking for a long time, and it is due to the efficiency quotient: you spend (as I'm going to do tonight) 2 hours cooking something,  and 30 minutes or more cleaning up, and I can eat it in less than 5 minutes. I think that's why a lot more people go out to eat now than when I was a kid...well...that an the proliferation of the obesity fast food restaurants.

But lately, as I said, I'm looking at cooking a little more differently. I always manage to open a bottle of wine (tonight's choice? A 2007 Preston Dry Creek Cinsault, to pair with pissaladiere, which is a naturally sweet onion tartlet seasoned with black olives, rosemary, thyme, and some freshly ground pepper...) while I'm working, and it is a great way to decompress from the frantic nature of the intellectual balancing act that comprises my work.

I'm not cooking for the party...unless I decide to bar b que...hmmm...wonder if that would work in black tie?