Cooking As Therapy

Who knew a vegetable could be so pretty? I would like to wear these colors.
Beautiful swiss chard photo from www.greenchicafe.com.
To be honest, my chard did not look like this--H. got it at ShopRite.

I have a pan of Swiss Chard and Caramelized Onion Panade in the oven. The savory bread pudding/stuffing-ish dish is supposed to bake in a water bath for about 1 hour @ 325 degrees F. That will take me to 11:21 P.M.

I had a day from hell, for a few different reasons. I can't even begin to tell you. But throughout, I had planned to make a nice healthy dinner, involving this and some salmon with a simple sour cream sauce on the side.

Dinner didn't quite work out.

But H. had gotten the ingredients, and I was eager to nurture myself with a dish that revolves around healthy greens rather than chocolate, butter and sugar.

Slowly but surely, I'm changing. I feel it in my heart.

My family is asleep now, but I caramelized onions, rolled Swiss chard leaves and sliced them into ribbons, cut a Balthazar baguette [from Kings] into one-inch cubes, separated eggs, whisked the yolks, grated a wedge of very expensive Fontina and one of Parmesan. Doing these things feels positive, productive, accomplished, nurturing. Though the recipe was a bit complicated, the idea of feeding oneself [and others] good and natural things is simple.

Melt. Stir with wooden spoon. Slice. Chop. Rinse. Grate. Whisk. Butter.  Bake. You can do all that. Yes, you can. 

I figure that while it bakes, I can finally read and rest a little, something I've been craving all day. The dishwasher is humming. I plan to sample a spoonful while it's warm, but the panade should be nice tomorrow for lunch or dinner, and we can make the fish then.

I'm tired of soothing my soul with chocolate and sweets. I'm weary. And besides, I've folded over the pages for dozens of recipes from my review copy of a new cookbook: Michael's Genuine Food: Down-to-Earth Cooking for People Who Love to Eat, by Michael Schwartz, whose Michael's Genuine restaurant is hugely popular in Miami. I'm interviewing him for an assignment tomorrow morning, and was motivated to try one of the recipes.

Here's the link: www.michaelsgenuine.com.

P.S. BTW, to cap off my day from hell, Sugar barked to go out while I was writing this post. So I took her out front, and promptly slipped and fell on my butt under the moonlight. Then I leaned on the snow bank next to me to get up, and the icy top cracked loudly and collapsed. But I'm fine, and my tights didn't run, either.

Monday morning update: It was delicious!!!!!!