dcscover 003 | Cooking
I’ve never cooked as much as I have in the last few months, as our weeks of sheltering in place stretch into entire seasons, and a general mindfulness about how to conserve/extend/remix produce and pantry goods pervades daily life.
As I continue making simple variations on stir fries, noodles/pastas, and soups, I’ve found myself becoming more aware of all the things that go into preparing a meal, such as the utensils I usually turn to, the combinations of ingredients that often come up in recipes, and the mistakes I keep making.
There are so many techniques to practice and dishes to try, but I don’t feel rushed. I hope for cooking to be a lifelong journey—the kind of steady companion it has already proven to be during this rollercoaster of a year.
I went deeper on this topic in a new journal entry on the Dream Color Scheme website. These journal entries are meant to be slow, evolving records of various learnings and experiences. In the “Notes on cooking” post, I documented a few things I’ve noticed so far and current go-to meals.
Have you had a memorable cooking experience lately?
This month’s finds
“I Need Space” by Mounika. — Light, dreamy, chill sounds for working, lounging, or puttering around.
Two cabbage recipes: A veggie/fruit kimchi with perfect summer colors and a true 5-minute stir-fry that tastes surprisingly restaurant-y.
Perfect shorts for a summer at home—100 percent cotton and on sale at Gap.
Fashion meets algorithms—Love Diarrablu’s exuberant colors and patterns, born of experimentation with code and equations.
WindowSwap—the simple concept of looking out a stranger’s window, executed impeccably.
One more thing
A few weeks ago I made some very summer-appropriate mungbean jelly noodles, which is my favorite thing to order at any Sichuan restaurant. The cool, slippery chunks of jelly are fantastic vehicles for slurping down an addicting spicy-sour sauce. I’ve never thought about making it myself until the “need for new-ness” of quarantine cooking took over. The process is surprisingly straightforward: combine mungbean starch and water, heat it up, let it cool, then slice it, pile it on all the good stuff, and mix mix mix.
Opening scene: View from a drive outside NYC earlier this month.