In the Beginning, There Were Pea Shoots

Truthfully, not a lot of actual cooking occurred in our kitchen for the first, oh, say 10 years of our 11 years of togetherness. To start with, mostly we ate out or whatever could quickly be unwrapped and plated, re-heated if necessary. Grilled cheese sandwiches were probably my grandest affair.

Certainly, there were spurts of random culinary inspiration along the way. Sister Annika got the ball rolling when she went down the macrobiotics pathway. In fact, Annika plus Mom are the ones that gave me my first REAL knife (cuts cans and tomatoes!) and set me on my first experiments with recipes.

Grief and school and life sort of swept me away from our kitchen for many years there. For quite some time, I fell into a fairly steady brown rice and bean, with the occasional veggie stir fry, routine. I've been trying to figure out just exactly what got me back into exploring my creativity in the kitchen, and I think there are a couple of factors.

First, The Husband surprised me when I returned from an international trip with new kitchen: "the great orange paint/new cabinet doors remodel of 2008." From there, I spent a long time puttering around, getting things organized, preparing the canvas, so to speak.

Second, the Pea Shoots recipe. Who knew such a thing even existed? I sure didn't! But, thanks to my fabulous friends Melissa & Dale Kent and their Tassajara Dinners & Desserts cookbook and wares at our spring Farmer's Market, I learned.