Chicken Marsala

... with porcini mushrooms and pancetta, served with linguini. The second recipe I have made from my new subscription to Bon Appetit magazine. The first was a vegetarian dish--curried lentil stew, garnished with a spoonful of plain yogurt, an unusual touch that added just the right freshness to the heavy, spicy lentils. But back to the marsala--mmmmmm--dredging the chicken lightly in flour made the breast melt in your mouth and the richness of the sauce (butter and the pancetta, which is mostly fat, will do that) made a little go a long way.

In my culinary experience, I am constantly amazed at how a short but stellar list of ingredients coupled with a bit more prep time makes restuarant cuisine managable in the comfort of your own home. In your slippers and pajamas no less! So many people claim that they cannot cook, as if it were a talent that got handed out at birth and they were sold short. I believe it is more a matter of interest, of the enjoyment of food not only in the moment when it meets your tongue but at every step of it's creation. The pleasure of smelling an orange for ripeness, the sharp crunch of chopping parsley, the crackling of a saute. The satisfaction of doing something yourself. Maybe it's cannibalism, really--infusing yourself into the food you eat. And of sharing sustenance/life/energy with your loved ones and sharing it in such a way that the pleasure derived turns that basic survival need into a celebration.

I know I'm not the first to find cooking sensual. Not by far. In fact, it brings me back to the book I just finished (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I know, I know. I've been on a Rand kick lately). In that novel, the main character is a strong independent woman, whose thoughts on this subject I definitely identify with:

"The special plesaure she had felt in watching him eat the food she had prepared--she thought, lying still, her eyes closed, her mind moving, like time, through some realm of veiled slowness--it had been the plesaure of knowing that she had provided him with a sensual enjoyment, that one form of his body's satisfaction had come from her... There is reason, she thought, why a woman would wish to cook for a man... oh, not as a duty, not as a chronic career, only as a rare and special rite in symbol of... but what have they made of it, the preachers of woman's duty? The castrated performance of a sickening drudgery was held to be woman's proper virtue--while that which gave it meaning and sanction was held as a shameful sin... the work of dealing with greases, steam and slimy peelings in a reeking kitchen was held to be a spiritual matter, an act of compliance with her moral duty--while the meeting of two bodies in a bedroom was held to be a physical indulgence, an act of surrender to an animal instinct, with no glory, meaning of pride of spirit to be claimed by the animals involved."

The Boyfriend said, "Two thumbs up. We are having this one again, yes? Please?"