Cooking is another of my interests and hobbies. I do not cook a lot now, because I am very busy with the garden. However when I lived on my own in Switzerland I greatly developed my cooking skills, and I like to invent my own recipes, adding a few special ingredients to existing recipes.
I lived for the first time on my own a summer, in Grenoble, in 2012. At the time, I knew nothing of cooking. But with practice, I learnt, and immediately had fun innovating. For instance, I had only a limited number of pans.
So instead of doing the pasta in the usual way: boiling a large quantity of water, cooking the pasta inside, and throwing the water afterwards (what a waste of water and salt!), I had another idea. I decided to cut vegetables inside the water where the pasta would boil, such as tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants, etc. to get pasta with its integrated sauce, and instead of throwing the water in the sink, it became a tasty soup as the vegetables had boiled in it.
Later when I made discover my family my new recipe, they were astounded, because instead of spending 45 minutes cooking and using three pans, with just one pan, and in 25 minutes, I obtained the same results. When we traveled in Italy, we slept in "agriturismi", farms with guest houses, and often, instead of eating at the restaurant, we liked to prepare our own meal for dinner, as the food in restaurants is always heavier than what you eat at home. But we were tired after a long day of tourism, so my simplified, yet healthy recipe was ideal, to prepare a dinner for five persons.
This was the beginning of my interest toward cooking. I later learnt to do all sorts of things, always trying to be innovative, in order to simplify recipes, while at the same time enriching the taste of dishes. I learnt to prepare yoghurt, and cheese. I learnt to prepare bread. I learnt to prepare chocolate, and jams, and sauces and pickles. I learnt to prepare vinegar even, and liquors.
There are a lot of men who do not know how to cook, or who know to prepare only very elementary things, buying frozen meals and canned food when they are on their own.
I personally always believed in the equality of men and women. When I read novels, and when I write novels, I loved strong heroines. Because, in my opinion, it is women who will change this world and improve it. For too long, decision-making has been in between the hands of men, or in between the hands of a few women who sound like men with their pragmatism and their harshness.
This world will become a better place only when more "feminine" values start to rule countries.
And this starts with letting go of the traditional feminine and masculine clichés.
I personally never bought frozen food, or canned food, when I lived on my own, making it my pleasure to prepare more elaborate things, to share with others when I had the occasion to. To me, cooking is an important dimension of sustainability. It is not enough to have a garden, as knowing what to do with the fruits, vegetables and grains you harvest from your garden is an art. I am also interested in conservation techniques, that allows to prepare homemade jars and to keep them for long. I think there is a lot of beauty to be found in a slower life, that resembles the life of our grandparents, while applying some new elements of wisdom and spirituality, and this concept of equality in between men and women, and this thought that the world needs more "feminine" virtues such as nurturing, care, and compassion, and less "masculine" traits, such as pride, conflictual attitudes, and rationalism.
The Faerie Princess discovered about my life ideals since our first encounter, in 2014. I made it clear to her, back then, that my worldview wasn't traditional, and it is something she greatly appreciated in me. For me, men, and the mindset they imposed to the world, have done a lot of mistakes and damages. It is time to let women rule. But they should rule with the values they themselves cultivated during centuries, and not with the masculine traits women leaders nowadays have. So, in fact, I believe that movements that ask for a perfect equality between men and women have not well understood their own cause. What we want is not women who start resembling men, but rather men who start embracing more their feminine values. Only this will lead to global peace and harmony in the world. Put five typical men who disagree in a closed room, and they will start figthing with their fists. Put five typical women who disagree in a closed room, and they will reach a compromise, or even perhaps find harmony. This is what we want, and what we need.
The Faerie Princess complained to me that back then in her homeland, people called her naive, and did not listen to her worldview, as they were atypical. To me, it was the greatest delight of my life to listen to her talk, and I fell in love with her ideas. Because the Faerie Princess is a strong, clever person, yet she is also extremely sensitive and compassionate, having found a balance between feminine values and masculine traits, a balance I too have found, I believe. This notion of balance is very important, and it is what lacks today. People ask themselves a lot of questions about their "identity", yet forget about what is essential. What is essential is not in the physical appearance, or in the body, but rather in our mind and in our soul.
In the video below I show a 2.5 kg pumpkin (butternut squash, moschata type) I cultivated in the garden, and that I myself prepared today, as you will see in the images below. I prepared it with an onion, green ginger and green curcuma from the garden, basil, half a hot pepper, and salt.
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