Domestic goddess-in-training, part the second

Yesterday, I indulged in what used to be one of my favorite pastimes: cooking. This is very closely related to another favorite pastime: eating. How I love to eat! But that's a topic for another day.

Back to cooking. I used to subscribe to Cooking Light, a wonderful magazine about cooking food that's good and good for you. Plus a whole lotta other stuff, like recipe makeovers, travel (yawn) and fitness (sigh.) I'd let my subscription lapse because I never had time to deal with all the fussy ingredients, but I was getting tired of the same old same old, so I bought a copy a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday, I needed inspiration for dinner, so I settled on a chicken shawarma recipe from the magazine. After scouting Stop & Shop for tahini for more than 20 minutes, I finally found it in the natural food section, not in the international foods aisle, where anyone with half a brain would stock it. I had Greek yogurt in the fridge already (quite unusual) so I got to work about 4:00 yesterday afternoon. I was also making sweet cherry pie, a recipe from the same issue, at the same time.

Multitasking is not my forte, but both recipes got made and onto the table. Abby liked the shawarma, Timmy tolerated it and Brian hated it. But Earl and I had a great time, remembering what it was like when we'd try new recipes regularly, and enjoying this one. I didn't love the pie; I think there's a reason most cherry pies are made with tart cherries, not sweet ones. But Earl did, and Timmy, too.

The whole cooking/baking thing took me nearly two hours, and I was tired of standing in my kitchen afterwards, but it helped me reconnect with a part of my life that has been noticeably absent for a few years. I've been so concerned, wanting the kids to always like what I'm cooking, but now I'm thinking that once a week or so, it won't hurt them to try something new. I'll just plan to have parts of the meal that they do like, and if they don't like the entree, they can have the sides. After all, there's more to life than chicken nuggets.