BE IN THE MOOD FOR GOOD FOOD

I don’t like to cook. But every now and then there are times when I have fun in the kitchen. Okay. Okay. I must admit one thing. Only love can inspire something like this out of me. But what’s great is that I’m cooking from the soul.

One of the things I love to do when I’m in love, is cook for my man. Everyone knows, a way to a man’s heart is to cook him a great meal. It brings me great pleasure to not only cook from the soul, but to design the food on the plate. If I were a chef, I could work in a high-end restaurant with these signatures. And by the look of things, I can say, I not only touch the heart, but the gut too.

You may be wondering, what are those creative, colorful pieces of flavorsome dishes above. I’ll explain.

On the top we have right smack dab in the middle, butter garlic mashed potatoes, shrimp and tomatoes, with collard greens around, and sliced cut fried candied yams surrounding everything to close it off. This dish of food was placed in a circle symbolically illustrating to my lover, security, union, and a never-ending kind of love. Take a look. Get lost in its swirled pool of love.

The second photo to the furthest left is a creative feast with all sorts of weird looking, but scrumptious details. When I was a kid my Godmother would make the white “throw-up” looking dish. If you know what it is, and love it, please don’t be offended. I love it as well. And to those who don’t know, trust me, it doesn’t taste how it looks. So, what it is? Cream of mushroom chicken. And yes! It is soooooo good. Paired with this dish is a salad I created. The salad consisted of what is known as a spring mix (red romaine, baby spinach, radicchio, green romaine, red oak leaf, mizuna, red leaf, lollo rosso, arugula, red mustard, green mustard, red chard, frisee and tatsoi), raisins, pecans, and sliced in half grape tomatoes. The salad was made in a bowl before placed on the dish. I created my own dressing. The dressing was composed of vinegar, honey, cranberry juice, and olive oil (or as I like to call it cranberry vinaigrette). The last dish to the right is the candied yam again. This dish symbolically speaks of an all or nothing, balanced, nutritious, citrus kind of love.

The third photo in the bottom middle, is hard to see all of what it is. For some reason, I’m covering up those savory garlic onion olive oil turkey wings. I guess I was expressing to my love, don’t worry about the top, it’s all about the bottom. (Peek-a-boo). I’m just kidding. Most times, the surface of things is soft and easy to penetrate. The bottom is usually where the heart lies. On top, are of course, mashed potatoes, carrots, onions, and again hints of garlic. The seasoned string beans are placed parallel to each other on the sides to show congruence. And just because I always want to remind him of how sweet our love is, strawberries were placed on each corner. Does it go with the food? Not really, but it made the dish look beautiful.

The last dish is pretty simple. We have the home fries around the front of the tender red pepper and onioned steak, with the spring mix on top. Everything was seasoned well, and humbly placed. The greens make the dish look extremely healthy and are mid-center of the meat to display a quarter of the steak’s rarity. The cream-colored home fries at the front makes everything look lip-licking delicious. This meal symbolically states, read in between the lines.

Now I wish I could show the whole set up of the apartment and table as well. I decorate so beautifully. However, there were some things lying around I can’t show. Wink. Wink. However, this food was amazing and believe me a lasting impression on my lover’s mind. Too bad my creative crafty foods are only for special occasions. I hate cooking.

P.S. The scissors were used to cut open the bag of spring mix.

THE END