Cooking can be a solitary endeavor — each of us foraging alone in our pantries, trying to muster a tasty bite for dinner. Day in, day out. No small task. And one that cries out for fresh ideas and coaching — a wise friend with a winning recipe employing just the ingredients we have on hand.
In earlier days a resourceful cook turned to a reliable cookbook or recipe box. Perhaps phoned a friend or knocked on a neighbor’s door. The same process still works, but in addition I consult a resource pool my parents didn’t have — an on call line-up. 24/7. There’s Mark and Melissa. And Heidi and Sarah. Not to mention Tori and Elise. In this age of Facebook and Twitter, where friends can sometimes be more illusory than real flesh and blood — people we may never exchange words with and perhaps never meet — these are my cooking buddies, my culinary coaches. Not treasured in the same fashion as the friends I genuinely know, but when faced with putting dinner on the table tonight, a virtual friend with a tasty solution is as good as gold, or a pot of fragrant stew — which is really what has value at dinnertime, anyway.
