On school and simplicity

Cooking school provides opportunities where entire evenings are completely devoted to making three different cookie doughs, rolling them out into logs, wrapping them in parchment paper and slipping them neatly into plastic bags to be refrigerated, then later frozen. Those white logs sitting side by side in the refrigerator are more than enough to make a girl feel proud.

And of course, a half log snuck out of line, sliced up and baked, yielding midnight black sablés to be eaten in between batches with a glass of wine...well that's one of life's best and simplest pleasures.

I've been thinking a lot about how I eat recently (that probably comes as no great surprise), and I've discovered that simpler things really do satisfy me.

I had a phenomenal dinner last night that consisted of steamed asparagus, tossed with olive oil and thinly sliced, quickly blanched, spring onions. The whole mess was then showered with grated aged goat cheese and left alone for about 10 minutes for the cheese to melt slowly over the still-warm asparagus and onions. Then we took it outside with some cut up bread and ate to our heart's content, enjoying the mild weather, view of the church and the great company.

That's the kind of dinner I want to eat all the time.