How to eat when you have to : The taste of Gurnisht
What do you know about real Jewish cooking? You know Kugel? You know Chulent? You know Kishka? You know Gurnisht! Actually, you do know Gurnisht, because Gurnisht is "Nothing" in Yiddish. "Nada" in Spanish. When I was a kid, and I refused to eat what grandparents offered, they used to say "Well, you can always eat Gurnisht".
This post is an intermission between a long introduction into how to eat when you have to and a more practical and applicable how-to guide. The real thing is coming right away. But before that I want to reiterate, what will be our approach to cooking and how will it be different from the usual cookbook , cooking show, cooking blog cookie-cutter approach.
As we showed in the previous post, EVERYTHING is a problem. You can't buy EVERYTHING. You can't cook EVERYTHING, you can't make EVERYONE happy, you can't follow EVERY dietary guideline and you can't make EVERY meal exotic, memorable or even blog-worthy. You can't - so stop trying.
Instead, draw two lines:
First - on the lower end, separating Something from Nothing, Gurnisht, Nada
Second - separating Something from Something-Something, Something Special, Something To Write Home About
Now you have three distinct areas: Nothing, Something and Something-Something.
The area of Something-Something is well-lit, crowded and noisy. It is the area of the cooking shows, cookbooks and cooking blogs.
The area of Nothing is being covered now, in this post. The only significance of Nothing is its contrast to Something.
And the area of Something is the area we are going to focus on. What do you cook on a weekday? How much money, time and attention should you spend on a regular weekday meal. How special should be the Regular? And how special should be the Special?
In the following posts we will look closely into the nastiest corners of our kitchen and will try to manage three major aspects of cooking: People, Ambitions and Costs.
Did you learn something from this post? Anything? Well, it's better then Gurnisht.
This post is an intermission between a long introduction into how to eat when you have to and a more practical and applicable how-to guide. The real thing is coming right away. But before that I want to reiterate, what will be our approach to cooking and how will it be different from the usual cookbook , cooking show, cooking blog cookie-cutter approach.
As we showed in the previous post, EVERYTHING is a problem. You can't buy EVERYTHING. You can't cook EVERYTHING, you can't make EVERYONE happy, you can't follow EVERY dietary guideline and you can't make EVERY meal exotic, memorable or even blog-worthy. You can't - so stop trying.
Instead, draw two lines:
First - on the lower end, separating Something from Nothing, Gurnisht, Nada
Second - separating Something from Something-Something, Something Special, Something To Write Home About
Now you have three distinct areas: Nothing, Something and Something-Something.
The area of Something-Something is well-lit, crowded and noisy. It is the area of the cooking shows, cookbooks and cooking blogs.
The area of Nothing is being covered now, in this post. The only significance of Nothing is its contrast to Something.
And the area of Something is the area we are going to focus on. What do you cook on a weekday? How much money, time and attention should you spend on a regular weekday meal. How special should be the Regular? And how special should be the Special?
In the following posts we will look closely into the nastiest corners of our kitchen and will try to manage three major aspects of cooking: People, Ambitions and Costs.
Did you learn something from this post? Anything? Well, it's better then Gurnisht.