articles

By: John Snell on Thu Mar 27, 2008

It’s a strange truism about cooking – prepare a four-course dinner for a group of friends, and while the effort involved may seem gargantuan and unmanageable, purchasing the right amount of food and using it isn’t difficult. Preparing a wonderful meal for two, on the other hand, that doesn’t leave you with wasteful extras lying around is a challenging and demanding task.

Stores more often than not cater to larger families, with perishables, meat and produce being more economically purchased in large amounts. This can leave the two person chef with an overwhelming amount of ingredients, many of which won’t be utilized in the dish, and may not even be used before ending up rotten in the bottom of the crisper.

If you’re creative, you can transform what seems like a difficult situation into an opportunity to create, a chance to expand your culinary horizons, and even impress whomever it is you’re cooking for. A little bit of research on the internet, and you’ll soon be in possession of many easy-to-make recipes that you might never have even knew existed before. The trick is to find recipes that taste different, but use the same ingredients, so you’ll get more mileage out of your ingredients. Also try to make the presentation of your dishes aesthetically pleasing to your partner, manipulating the smells, tastes, and looks.

Cooking for two requires a little bit of foreknowledge about your partner’s preferences, as well as his or her dietary restrictions. In this day and age, it’s not uncommon to meet, even in the smaller cities or towns, a macrobiotic, a vegetarian, a lacto-ovo vegetarian, or even a vegan. Ensure you’re properly informed before going shopping, as it might be disastrous to have a new paramour break a South Beach diet!

Cooking is one of the easiest and most creative activities that human beings engage in, but because it’s often a daily process, and the hassles and demands of the rest of our lives interfere, we often forget that it can be more than simply the mundane heating of a can of soup. Cooking combines all of the senses, and when we take time to do it right, it can activate the libido, relieve tension, and provide a sense of well-being and respite in these hectic times. If we were more reverent towards it, thinking of our meals not as the natural predecessors of bowel movements, but as a daily affirmation of life, occupying the same sacred place as daily prayers did in years gone past, we would realize that the breaking of bread would enrich our lives, and the lives of those around us.