by Deborah Rogers –
I love cooking, I hate cooking – that just about sums it up!
I love it when it’s on my terms, when I have time, ingredients and an enthusiastic audience. I hate cooking when it’s the every-single-day, slam together something quick before we all get too hangry to enjoy it, uninspired, just-missing-one-key-ingredient sort of fare.
I think I’m like many people; it’s the decision making and grocery shopping I find a chore but I enjoy the activity of cooking. For a while we tried having a long laundry-list of meals that everyone would eat to make meal planning less painful, but the list got lost somewhere in a declutter and now I’m back to square one each week, wracking my brain for a combination of meals that will fit the tastebuds and budget of our family.
Apparently you can use AI to help your meal planning. Give it some suggestions of the types of meals you like to eat, and a few ingredients that you have at hand, and “it” will write you a menu. This backfired in Australia recently where one of the meals suggested by a grocery store meal planning app was “poison bread sandwiches.” I’ll probably stick to my old favourites!
How to get out of a rut (safely)? Well, our September Culinary issue has lots of ideas to get you started. As well as the recipes, I find the enthusiasm of the contributors is inspiring too – people who have made food their life: growing it, harvesting it, cooking it and selling it. A season change is also a good time to switch things up. I look forward to soup making on a rainy weekend day, and not being afraid to heat the kitchen up baking cakes or homemade pizza.
Where do you get your inspiration from (besides Seaside Magazine of course)? Do you still use cookery books or do you rely on the internet for recipes? Do you even use recipes or are you a free-styling cook with a flare for experimentation? However you do it, I hope you take pleasure from the abundance that September brings – Bon Appetit!
Photo by Janis Jean Photography.
Styled by Shai Thompson at House of Lily Koi, Sidney.
