The joy of cooking-together!

So it was my turn to cook for our book reading and discussion time and l was quite nervous. I LOVE to cook and experiment in the kitchen. I love food and I like to make food that tastes good. I know you have hits and misses, I make mistakes and learn from them and I like having people taste-test my concoctions and getting a second opinion. However, I stress out over food when the purpose of that food is feeding OTHER people!

I wouldn't consider myself a perfectionist but there are certain things I'm particular about. Feeding other people with what I consider perfect food is one of them. Everything must be up to standard lest people think that at my age I don't know how to cook (partially true considering I'm a late learner in this area and still struggle with making the perfect stovetop rice!), I make something that causes people to be physically sick (embarrassing and mortifying) or I mess up the food in such a way that it is undesirable or unfit for human consumption (cringe and shame-inducing). Anyway, it was my turn after weeks of trying to avoid it and I had no clue what to cook. All my fears/internal stresses about food were only further added to by the fact that the few things that I KNOW how to cook I don't have ingredients for here or I have language until about 20 minutes before we meet up.

I happened to call a coworker who knows a lot about where you can find ingredients and what you can and can't find and she wanted to know what I was cooking for. After I explained the purpose and limitations she suggested I make a rice salad. I'd never heard of such a thing before. After she explaining that this dish that is somewhat common in her European homeland and can consist of a variety of ingredients she added the bonus factors that its one of those dishes you make ahead of time and let sit in the refrigerator and it is intended to be eaten cold. So I got to googling and came across several recipes and started planning and experimenting with sauces and figuring out which ingredients I would use.

The night before, one of my friends came over and helped me prepare the individual ingredients and taste-test. Seriously, this was probably the highlight of the whole thing for me. I LOVE doing stuff with other people. Growing up my favorite activity within the week was going grocery shopping with my aunt and Mummy. It was such great fun to be together, enjoying each other's company and conversation and doing something practical at the same time. I really enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen with my friend and need to make a concerted effort to do this more often in the future. Perhaps in the future, I should invite my friends over to help prepare the food and that might take some of the stress off because cooking and preparing food together is so much fun!

Anyway.......rice salad was deLISH! It was a medley of cooked jasmine rice, roasted eggplant, and zucchini, green onions, shredded carrots and sundried tomatoes all bathed in blend of olive oil, lemon and basil dressing. For dessert we had a warmed coconut milk and bananas dish. I had a great time both making this food and consuming this food and I found a new dish to add to my list of "things I know how to do in the kitchen".