Introduction to my nonexistant future cook book

I love cooking. I can't draw for shit. I can't paint. I can sort of write, or so I'm told. But cooking is something I've always enjoyed. I mean really liked. I still think one of the roots of one of my break-ups was because she banished me from the kitchen unless I had a precise recipe for her devouration in hand.

Bitch.

Some things I don't like:
1) Bell peppers. These guys just jump out and smack you upside the head. They grab onto your tongue and don't let go. If you like bell peppers and don't want to taste anything else in your dish, go with these guys. Green, yellow, orange or red, I don't care. They stay the heck out of my kitchen. Ahhh.... But what about the French trinity or the Cajun trinity, or whatever else sort of thing you could think of to make me look like a freaking idiot who doesn't know taste? Sit down and shut up. For every bell pepper in a recipe, take a jalapeno or similar little pepper, slice it open, take out the seeds and chop that bastard up. Throw it in, and you get the bonus of a pepper's accent without the heat, and without that bell pepper warhammer numbing your taste buds. Note that bit about accent. It means subtle. Bell peppers are not subtle. They're fucking painful.

2) Squash. I don't like picking these guys, I don't like eating these guys, I don't like cooking these guys. If I'm starving I can work with them, but they have something that just doesn't jive with me.

3) Eggplant. Though some people equate eggplants with squash, they're actually in the nightshade family with tomatoes and potatoes. Regardless, they have similar taste qualities to Squash, and I just haven't found a dish where they make me happy. Everything it starred in that I've tried that I almost liked wound up tasting better to me without it as an ingredient.

4) Cranberries. Don't get me started. There's a maniacal conspiracy here. Trust me on this. We'll talk later.

5) Yellow onions. And kind of white onions. I DO like red and green onions, and shallots. Yellow and white are just too strong for most dishes. Green onions in particular have this nice fresh "spring" taste that's hard to pass up. I do a lot of substitution in my dishes, making red and green onions pick up the slack. It's not hard if you remember that cooking is an art, not a science, and when is more important than where. If you put a green onion in, remember it is not as hardy as a yellow or white onion. If it's got to stew, use the white half first, then add the green bits later. But if you're doing something like spanikopita, then it's ok to saute the whole green onion right at the front because when you bake it, its flavors seep through and make it all better.

6) Beets. If I wanted to pick up a clod of dirt and eat it, I'd pick up a clod of dirt and eat it. Enough said.

7) NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, NEEEVVVEERRR mix tomato and cinnamon. EVER. Unless it's a curry. I've not had the inclination to unearth exactly which spice in a curry makes cinnamon ok with tomatoes, but for most plebeians, trust me. Just don't go there.

At this point people will always want to know, "Well, what DO you like?"

Those people can bite me. Really. Right here on my left rear cheek. I'll pose for you. *POSE* Yeah. Didn't think so.

Once upon a time, I was homeless. I dropped everything, ran away from my problems, and was taken in by a lesbian who needed somebody to take care of her for a while. I cooked and cleaned and tried to keep my nose clean. She was dirt poor, and we lived in a basement, but it's amazing what's available from community shelters. The big problem is that most people don't know what to do with it.

If I knew then what I know now about cooking, I could have taken a bag of rice, a bag of beans and a 1993 dollar and done wonders. I did a lot of experimenting. It was few years later that I realized where the one dismal failure originated from. And that was the whole cinnamon+tomato thing. *Shudder*.

Let's take what I did tonight. On the fly. Because I didn't feel like going out. (Read: too drunk to risk it.)

Few tablespoons of olive oil
About a tbsp of dried basil
same of dried oregano
a dab of sundried tomato paste
1 small shallot
a smidge of salt
couple of cloves of garlic
splash of white wine

(These things are standards. If they are not regularly in your pantry you need to add them. They will hate you until you do. If you don't like garlic, then fine. Leave it out. I'll probably hate you more than the garlic will.)

That bunch of funness just needs some time in a pan to mingle and play nice with each other. Maybe it was a saute, maybe it was only slightly more than a simmer. It's like trying to count brush strokes. Figure it out yourself.

1 can of diced tomatoes

They get introduced to the party a little late, but hey, they didn't get an invite and everybody was wondering why they hadn't shown up yet. The paparazzi were getting nervous, and they get cheeky when they get nervous. It's all good, since they finally arrived, a bit winded, but at least they got there in more or less one piece.

For some reason, and this is where things get interesting... There was something missing. I mean REALLY not right. It was almost a hair too acidic. I don't know why, probably the canned diced tomatoes, or their particular pick date. Regardless, I let my freezer do the walking.

4 ounces of tilapia

Tilapia's a very mild fish, it's much more a "Chicken of the Sea" than tuna is. It's mild, it takes other flavors well, and it doesn't over power. All fish types lean towards a base ph balance. That's why there's lemons with most fresh fish servings in restaurants. It canceled out the acidic taste, and gave some bonus protein. Not that I really cared about that as I had the drunk munchies.

Last ingredient:
Box of whole wheat linguine pasta

Gads that nailed the love. The slightly nutty quality of the whole wheat pasta gave a better result than your standard pasta. The linguine size probably would have been just as good with fettuccine. I admit I lucked into that one. My usual pasta choices were absent due to my not having bought a box of fettuccine in a few weeks.