On Cooking Time

I hate it when a recipe book goes like

Preparation time: 25 minutes

then, along the recipe you discover that after the 25 minutes you will need 1 hour in the fridge for the mix to rest, then 45 minutes in the oven for cooking and then of course “just” 2 hours to let the stuff cool properly before it’s served.

It’s probably me not having the proper mindset to fully enjoy “real” recipe books.

I also used to feel like an idiot before their glossy, mouth-watering photos because my food just never looked like it came from the same universe.

Then I found out about the profession of food make-up artist, had a great laugh, and trashed all of my glossy-photo cookbooks (and kept the non-glossy, photo-light ones). See for yourselves…

But I still have issues over preparation times. You see, I cook to put food on the table, not to swoon over it before an audience. This means time is a key functional indicator for me: no 40-minutes recipe if wife is going to be home in 25.

This is why you’ll find “apron-to-dish” time on all Where Lemons Blossom recipes.

Other times I feel like having something more structured for lunch, but I still cannot spend hours in the kitchen. Enter SoHo time and while-you-work recipes. SoHo time is the actual time you’ll need to take off doing something else (useful information if you are a SoHo or a work-at-home person like me —that includes service staff in my view).

So, the inevitable Adams quote is of course:

It’ll take thirty seconds. I hate to interrupt, but I’d hate even more to miss my flight for the sake of thirty seconds. That’s thirty actual seconds, not thirty “just one” seconds which could keep us here all night.