Sometimes inspiration finds me. And sometimes it does not. A cook by trade, I have found my inspiration in food for the past ten years, my interests hop-scotching from homemade sourdough bread to an oatmeal-raisin cookie obsession, poached eggs on anything, or a perfect afternoon cup of tea.
Of late, inspiration has been hard to find. I suspect it’s been hidden in the over-tired shadows of my new-life-with-baby. I have found that sheer exhaustion trumps any inkling of creativity when dinner time rolls around. Or lunchtime, for that matter. Almond butter and jelly have become required staples in our kitchen. Especially since I’ve gone back to work. The ten hours out of the house including the commute to and from work doesn’t leave much time for chores or eating or playing with my beautiful daughter, or sleeping. Truly, I offer a huge applause to working/nursing moms who manage to get dinner on the table for the family. Tonight I ate almond butter and jelly. Again. I wolfed it down actually. Because who has time to eat? Seriously!
And then I sat down and read one of the cookbooks I received for Christmas. It’s a cookbook I’ve been wanting for a couple years now and it made me hungry for real food! The book is called My Bombay Kitchen by Niloufer Ichaporia King and the foreword is written by Alice Waters. I’m really looking forward to cooking from it. There are already more dog-eared pages than I could possibly try in the near future, but I read cookbooks optimistically!
So inspiration has found me this evening and perhaps, despite the exhaustion and the ever-growing list of chores, I’ll manage to have something decent for dinner at least once in the next few nights. And this book….YUM! Take a peek and see if it inspires you…I suspect it will!
