MOUTH-WATERING GOOD

After The Bountiful Sprout -- my primary source for locally grown and gently raised ingredients -- shut down, I found myself drifting away from my scratch-cooking habit.  Not only were we eating out more often, I also found myself taking more short cuts when I did cook -- using more processed, ready-to-go, just-heat-it-up stuff. We seemed to be consuming more and more, but enjoying it less and less.

All these photos are old ones of things cooked from my own recipes, not the Blue Apron stuff.

But, then I got that free box of food from Blue Apron. And then purchased another. And another. A few weeks in, I found myself wondering just why that food had so much more flavor than anything else I had prepared or eaten lately.

A few weeks after that, it finally hit me.

You see, cooking from scratch is all about anticipation, and the little steps you take to build it up --  from heating a bit of fruity-yet-peppery olive oil in a pan until it shimmers, to the sizzle you hear and the aroma that engulfs you when you toss in a bit of minced garlic and some chopped onion. From those bits scraped up from the bottom of the pan to add even more flavor, to the rich color that a dash of wine adds to your sauce, the final swirl of a wee pat of real butter to finish it off, and then tossing in some fragrant chopped herbs grabbed from the pot on your porch. Not only do these steps stimulate our senses in anticipation of that first orgasmic bite, they are what actually triggers the production of saliva in our mouth -- which is why we refer to something truly delicious as "mouth-watering good". And, I hate to tell you but, you simply can't achieve that kind of reaction by warming up pre-cooked foods.

Which is why I'm still cooking from scratch.