Oh, the weather outside is frightful, and pretty much everything we hear about the economy points to bleak, hardscrabble times ahead. Noted Great Simplifer Thomas Friedman was on Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN today, where he pronounced, "I go into restaurants and I look around... I want to come up to people and say, 'You shouldn't be here. You should be home having tuna sandwiches. What are you doing here? Don't you understand?'" (His expenditures going out to eat are implicitly acceptable, unless he just walks into restaurants to tsk-tsk and march right back out the front door, but that point was not raised.) His provocative statement brought to mind two things for me: a) restaurants shouldn't necessarily be singled out as unworthy recipients of our discretionary spending, and b) yes, cooking at home makes so much sense for so many reasons, including thrift.
The most indomitable advocate of home cooking today has just come out with an updated edition of the best cookbook out there, How to Cook Everything. Mark Bittman, a New York Times colleague of Mr. Friedman, is a longtime champion of home cooks and believes passionately that everyone can use their kitchens--even tiny Manhattan versions, like his own--to produce healthful, delicious food to really be proud of.
On chilly days when leaving the cozy sanctuary of home to brave the outside world is just too intimidating, there are many simple, quick treats one can whip up in no time. Today I craved chocolate, and I craved creamy, and I realized that chocolate pudding could become reality with very little effort. I had just received my copy of HTCE and sought out the recipe for pudding, p. 950. Using gorgeous Guittard Nocturne (91%) chocolate I had received in a goodie bag from a pastry chef event, I invested approximately $0.85 of ingredients and 15 minutes, plus chilling time, to make a luxuriously silky chocolate pudding that would stomp all over some wretched instant version from a box.
There is ample comfort in knowing that the simple pleasures of life will consistently make us happiest, so if winter blues or financial woes have got you down, nourish your belly and soul with homemade food, the best kind there is.