“If you cook with love and affection you will create magic in the kitchen.” — Alex Guarnaschelli, Executive Chef, Butter restaurant and Food Network TV personality. I heard her say it in a commercial and I liked it. It’s so reassuring that if you only put a certain amount of patience and enjoyment into whatever it is you’re doing, it comes out great.
Baked another batch of brownie cookies tonight, this time for a friend. She and her husband loved them so much the first time I made them that she requested them again. And as you know, no excuse is too small for me to do some baking!
It’s only past 10PM and I’ve finished baking for the night. On nights that I bake I usually end up going to sleep around 2AM, because I’m cleaning up after myself and then I sit here, typing away and blogging about the evening’s baking…
It’s funny how when I first moved into my apartment, the kitchen was the most alien room to me. I’d walk in from a day at the office, look at my living room with appreciation, go right into my bedroom to change clothes and if a glance was ever cast at my kitchen, it was often accompanied with a feeling of dread mixed with disdain. And then I’d pull out my manila folder full of take-out menus and order sushi. Or sometimes Indian. Or Thai. You get the idea.
And now, 7 years later (yes, I’ve lived in the same apartment for 7 years — you can’t beat all utilities included and a great location with just a half hour commute to work!), the kitchen is my friend. It’s tiny, my appliances are way outdated, but it does what I need it to do.
It’s kind of funny how people around me are already looking forward to 2010, as though the remaining three months were chopped liver. It’s almost like the last three months of the year are like the end slices that come with a loaf of sliced sandwich bread — just because they’re at the ends, somehow they don’t count as part of the bread. Nobody I know eats them, including myself. I wonder why that is. They’re still bread. Anyway my point, I suppose, is that time is time, whether it’s at the beginning, the middle or the end of the year. No need to wait until the new year to implement our plans of self-improvement. Or maybe it’s just the procrastinator in all of us, knowing that the task of changing for the better is not the easiest of undertakings and so we put it off. I don’t really know.
A Girl Bakes In New York 
You need to come use my kitchen. I use it as a reception space for people to have wine before heading to our dining destination of choice.