Wrangler Dani

I wrote a big holiday recipe piece for our paper a couple of weeks ago. I spent a weekend chopping, dicing, glazing, tasting and re-trying recipe options before we took photos of the final menu, standing rib roast with wine sauce, low and slow grits, collard greens, and cowboy beans, laid out in all of their succulent glory on my charmingly nicked and chipped barnwood table.

Food enraptures me. My editor and photographer were asking me about the recipes I’d created, the techniques I’d used, and I realized afresh just how much I love this topic, stopping myself at anecdotal, informative replies before I talked their ears off. I could blab on about food for hours – the new things I’m learning, the things I’ve tasted, the ingredients I want to try, the way recipes change with time and experience.

Hospitality is revealed (for me at least) in the effort put into these dishes, the never-empty wine glass, the extra drizzle of good olive oil or sprinkle of finishing salt. One of my great joys is cooking for people who love to eat, which is one of the many reasons why Adam is my perfect partner. His appetite is legendary (we have friends who always order an extra pizza when he’s coming over) and his appreciation for good cooking is wholesome, convincing and hearty.

I love how flavors bounce from my nose to my mouth, exploding in a symphony of acid or comfort or freshness or home. I love sharing these flavors, watching the faces of my friends and family discover what I already did when I created the dish – there’s a slight funk from the goat cheese, here, a briny bite there, a gentle pop of herbs or a vegetal crunch in this forkful.

It’s a bit like gift-giving, another of my great loves. I’m so thrilled by my craftiness that I can hardly stand to wait until Christmas morning, beaming as Addy pulls out a stuffed kitty she’d been eyeing or Adam opens the latest fishing gadget or workshop essential. When the perfect gift is opened, it’s a way of telling the one you love they are seen, known, valued. I am not buying what I want, I am watching you for the thing you want and imbuing it with love beyond the payment required. When I cook for others, I am also cooking for them – no seafood for my mom, heavily-cheesed options for Adam, approachable, homey menus for friends – and never, ever running out of food.

I feel so grateful to be writing so often about food and drink these days, sharing two things I love and hearing that maybe other people love them too. To me, food is love, and love is hospitality, hope and health. I could use a bit more of that today, so I guess it’s time to cook again.