Month Two in Review-3/31/09

This is the second month that I have made every recipe in Gourmet magazine and I am still learning from this experience. So what did I learn this month? ...

One of the things I noticed this month is that I am getting much better at the planning part of cooking. I can better gauge how long a recipe will take me to make and how to make several recipes at once without frantically spinning around the kitchen. I don't often invite guests to my house for dinner because I worry that they will arrive with me nowhere near finished cooking and the kitchen piled high with dishes. I often try to do too much and end up not doing each component of the meal well because I wasn't able to focus. The St. Patrick's Day dinner I made this month went off so well that I am feeling more confident about inviting people over. My grandmother was a great hostess and her meals always appeared to come together effortlessly. I would love to master that effect.
I am also getting better at my knife work. I'm no professional chef by any means but for example, my Cucumber Apple Pickles for the Korean menu looked really good. I sliced the apple and cucumber thinly and evenly. I think that's just a result of chopping and slicing regularly as a result of this project.

My favorite recipe of the month may come as a surprise. I loved the Garlicky Black Pepper Shrimp and Black-Eyed Peas on page 50. I thought this dish combined the elements that make an outstanding meal. The recipe was pretty simple to execute and took under an hour but had the flavor of something more complex and time-consuming. I would be proud to serve this dish to guests.
My least favorite recipe of the month reinforced some of the comments I've made throughout this project. Vegetables should taste like vegetables, healthy and low in fat. The Fennel and Carrot Confit on page 86 was so soaked in oil that I could not taste the vegetables. The recipe took two crisp fresh vegetables and made them fatty, limp, and tasteless.