Today we will be cooking

I started this and now have to start again because Firefox froze. Thanks.

Last night, I saw Julie and Julia with my mother and sister. I thought the movie was adorable. If you don't know what it is/don't follow movies religiously like I do, it is based on two true stories; one about Julia Child's life in Paris and the way that she worked on getting her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, published. The other is about Julie Powell, who in 2002 blogged about cooking all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. WOW. I am secretly jealous, but not really. Making all of the recipes I'm sure was difficult, and I think the only thing I'm jealous about is having the prowess to finish something as daunting as that. And also, to get to eat French food. Because. I love it. Anyway, the movie was really cute. As a child, I used to do a spot on impression of Julia Child and I enjoyed watching the reruns of her show. Also, the fact that she is SUPER tall is amazing as I am tall as well. The movie also made me want to read the two books that it was based on, which I ALMOST bought at Barnes and Noble the other day with my father. The only thing that stopped me is that they only had the movie covers of the novels. I hate movie covers. But that's a story for a different day.

If you don't know me (and, perhaps you don't), I am really into food. I love food. Eating for me is an experience that cannot be replaced with anything else, even if it is money. Eating brings me intense joy, and while I sometimes have the not-hungry disease (when I am not hungry), I make myself eat something, anything, to help bring me out of that issue and return to being hunry. But the downside to this is that food costs money. Food costs energy. And food costs time. Since I have not been working while waiting for school to start, I have been cooking. Usually, I bake. I am a baker. I have only really ruined one baked good in my life, and it wasn't even ruined. It was the summer of 2007 and I made red velvet cupcakes. 48 of them to be exact, a double batch. I didn't have enough red food coloring and I cooked them a smidge too long, so they came out a weird red-brown color. Some of them were more red than others, but all in all, not the vibrant red that you usually see. It was disappointing. However, they were delicious and moist, just not the right color. My cousin and his friend would eat about five a day, and they were gone pretty quickly. Still, it is my biggest baking failure to date. I am thinking about going back to baking. I don't do anything during the day except look for part time jobs and watch tv on dvd or on the internet. And I got all caught up yesterday while at my mother's house. So I found a recipe online that I would like to try. To be honest, I can't write what it is because it is going to be a surprise for my boyfriend, who has kind of stopped lurking on this blog (lame), so I can probably tell you anyway. (It's a red velvet cake). It's his favorite. I know, I am really lame. But it's also one of my favorites.

I secretly follow food blogs, and I read Bitten by Mark Bittman at the New York times online all the time. When I had a job, it was one of my favorite things to read to waste time during the day. Food blogs make me jealous that I'm not doing some thrilling cooking in my life, but I have been trying. I have made two Giada recipes, one tyler florence recipe and my Ina staple that I kind of change everytime I make it. those are my favorite Food Network Chefs. I like Paula for watching; I think I would secretly hate half of the food she makes, because she uses too much not freshly made mayonnaise. I hate mayo unless it's freshly made and you may be wondering, where did you try fresh mayo? And the answer is, my host mom in Spain used to make it. And we would eat it on EVERYTHING including vegetables and calamari and it was the most mayo I've ever eaten in my life. And I plan on asking for the recipe, although that might be a smidge more difficult because of the metric conversions. But I'm going to try it.

Man. This has kind of made me hungry. Fortunately, I haven't eaten yet and fortunately, I have a fully stocked fridge and pantry with lots of food for me to eat.