First Timer

One of the things that happens to me in on long warm days  is the overwhelming urge to get cooking in the kitchen. When I say cooking, I mean specifically - cooking something with flour. For a Three-Signature Dish girl like myself (stir fry, curry, vegie pasta) deciding to cook with flour is akin to becoming an Expert In The Field. It raises you up to Senior Lecturer of Cooking, (rather than Bachelor of Arts student mashing together your old vegies and spaghetti for dinner). Here is a long-winded recipe for First Timers' Quiche:

1. On this particular occasion, the flour fetish led me first to the shops (organic food shop - expensive, delicious food, with paragraphs of earnest words on the labels  describing the bursting goodness in the growing/buying/eating of the food that'd probably wash me clean of all my sins to humanity, were I a practising Christian). I'm sorry for that long sentence.  The staff in this particular organic food shop were also crisp, pure and with a hint of wanker about them. Perfect for such an establishment. And for a fellow wanker like me.

2. So, spelt flour (s, p, e, l, t ) under arm, I attended to the next task: vegie picking in the backyard. This must be, without doubt, the closest thing to acheiving enlightenment without religion for me. In my flip flops, peering between the umbrella leaves of the zuchinni, and pumpkins,  treasure hunting a huge bowl of food allsorts; all of them there because of dirty hands and blessedly hard work. (There is actually a silent spot, if you perch yourself in the middle of the vegie beds where no other sounds penetrate and all you can see is green leaves and bees). This is my favourite part of cooking. Neo's too.

3. It's only then that I flicked through a recipe book, ingredients ready but no idea what to do with them. I'm pretty sure this is a usually disastrous method of successfully cooking something - by starting with the food and only then deciding what to make. But it makes for great training for the week where you've been too lazy to go shopping and need to make something out of whatever you've got (for iphone users - the app Recipe Search is a great assistant). And there I found quiche!

4. Making pastry REQUIRES a phonecall to your mother. Especially when patience is not a virtue and you're not completely prepared before you start. So I started with something that looked nothing like my mum ever made and called to seek guidance. Guidance patiently handed out, I bid farewell and carried on.

5. The chopping and grating of other ingredients came almost as a relief once the mess of flour and butter started resembling mum's rhubarb tarts' pastry. Zuchinni, tomatoes, chives, cheese, purple onion: 50% of these from the garden - not too bad. These were all chucked in with the beaten eggs then poured into the First Timer's pastry base. Some salt, pepper and the ceremonious sliding into a hot oven.

6. The eating of the quiche was also fairly ceremonious. After an afternoon of foody smells wafting through our little house and a hungry boy slinking around the edges of the kitchen, the First Timer's Quiche was pulled out. A salad, tossed together with pretend sloppiness, a couple of tall glasses of water and it was ready.  We sat and ate together, abundant praise peppering each of the boy's mouthful and gratefully received by this First Timer.

 I slept sound and easy that night.