When I started cooking in college, I was tied to recipes. If I didn't have an ingredient (even something as simple as 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg) I wouldn't skip it, I'd dash out to the store and buy it so that I'd have everything exactly right. I was nervous if I diverged from the recipe in any way. I'd see those people who'd just sort of instinctively throw things into a pot and wonder how they did it. Beginning as a baker taught me to be structured and orderly about what went into my pot. Baking does not tolerate things just being instinctively thrown around. If baking were a country, it would be Switzerland or Germany. Cooking would be Italy or someplace nice where you could lounge with a glass of wine. In baking country, the trains run on time.

Over the years I've become more comfortable with cooking, able to veer from a recipe if necessary and recently, even able to concoct recipes of my own. So when we had guests over for dinner the other day, I decided on a roast boneless leg of lamb (grass fed lamb, of course). I made this mint pesto from Epicurious. (Notice the recipe doesn't say whether the leg of lamb should be boneless, this made me anxious when I read it, so clearly I still have baker's issues.) I decided it didn't matter, and I rubbed the pesto inside the lamb and then rolled it up, and slathered the remainder on the outside. It was my first leg of lamb roast and it turned out quite well.

Technorati Tags : cooking, baking