Equifinality and the 30 minute meal
First,
since I can't put the link in the title, and I was recently at a
writing workshop where it was pointed out that you shouldn't throw out
obscure words without enough context to make it fairly clear what you
meant: equifinality While I have been know to snark about Rachael Ray
(hereafter known as RR) from time to time, she does have a good idea
from time to time. I even laud some of her goals: if 30 minute meals
(hereafter known as 30mm) got people "into the kitchen" (whatever that
means; is there some study somewhere?) and if CAKE
helps get people thinking about some of the problems we've got with
kids (and adults) and food in the US (and elsewhere), then brava!
I've
not bothered to write about her good ideas so much, probably because
much written about her is less about her cooking and more about other,
ahem, attributes and I really get tired of talking with guys who think
the most important part of a woman is ~4 feet off the ground. And RR's
choice of media exposure has, to be fair, encouraged the "woman is the
sum of her cup size" crowd. Also, I also am not much of a fan of nose-wrinkling cute from anyone older than about 10. Maybe it makes me un-something, but the only time I like Meg Ryan's public persona is when she's played by Nicole Sullivan
— and who knows, Meg is probably perfectly lovely in person, celebrity
seems to highlight not the best aspect of a person, just the most
marketable, and nose-wrinkling cute women sell because they are so cute
and non-threatening — and I find I like Meg more now that she's not as
ubiquitous as she was in the 1990s. I used to like Martha before she
was really famous, and I am liking her more post the stock-trading
debacle, so maybe when the foodverse stops orbiting 'round RR, I'll
finally see past the brand that is RR to the true RR underneath. Maybe
once Rachael isn't quite so everywhere I look, I'll like her
more. (Seriously, I just flipped through the TV schedule for this
evening: It's mid-afternoon and of the 10 hours remaining before FoodTV
rolls to permaCommercial, she's got 3.5! And that's not counting her
yell, err, I mean, talk show.) (Did I mention that it'd also help if she didn't do this again. Really.) And if it turns out that I still don't like her that much, well, she's still the bazillionaire queen of her own empire
with throngs of adoring fans. I just wish she would spend use of that
money and fame promoting other "cooks not chefs" instead of herself.
There are many voices and they aren't all quite so loud. But I digress. What
I truly object to about RR is her approach to cooking. I mean dinner in
30 minutes is nice and all, but can you take a few more minutes, buy
whole vegetables and teach some knife skills? Stop piling up foam trays
and plastic? (she just said pre-cut vegetables are the best thing in
that sort of "since sliced bread" tone) Don't assume that everyone can
afford the 50-200% premium for pre-sliced vegetables; In fact, your
primary audience of busy parents isn't the demographic with the most
disposable cash. I know you don't have kids, but they cost. A lot. I offer herewith an alternative to the RR 30mm: Let's
pretend I just got home from work. Which I suppose I did, except that,
in my case that means something more like "finished the chapter" from
right here. When I poked my head out the door to round up kittens from
their twilight hunt, there was a steady splash of water off the roof
and most of the snow is gone. But the thermometer says it's barely
above freezing, which is what it feels like. Chili weather! (see,
winter... today is salad weather... but i digress...) Much as I
would love to go play in the kitchen this evening, I've got other
things to do — at least other things to do first. So the 30mm approach
sounds rather appealing. I've got half an hour to spend on cooking
dinner. (See how insidious it is? If you agree to the premise, the rest
is simple. I'm thinking that if I'd first encountered RR when I was a
parent living in the city with convenient shopping and working loooong
days at softwareBehemoth...nah, probably not even then...) Anyway,
lacking a handy grocery store at which to buy an assortment of "fresh"
precut vegetables, I'm clearly not the targeted demographic for the
widely marketed approach to the 30mm. Not that I will let that get in
my way or anything. Back to my 30 minute meal, (time for each task noted: And there's your 30 minute meal. Well, mine at least. counts on fingers
I get 11 minutes on my feet, and 15 additional minutes while I drank
tea and wrote parts of this. But let's round up and call it 15 minutes
of activity (I am not calling that "work") from freezer to table. Note
that if you live with other people, it is possible to get them into the
kitchen with you; this will both get dinner on the table more quickly
and maybe give you a minute to talk...or teach knife skills...or
something. I'll even cop to spending the other 15 minutes doing
actual work making the bread and chili; if a dozen baguettes and a vat
of chili takes about 3 hours of work over an 8 hour day, that's 15
minutes per meal. But that's part of the beauty of this. RR has an
expensive grocery store with pre-packaged stuff; I have a not-expensive
freezer with homemade stuff. She spends time in the car and extra money
every single day, I buy on sale and spend a day cooking like a mage
possessed every now and then. I've usually got an assortment of
homemade food in the freezer: soup, bread, cookies, and other basics
like pizza dough and marinara sauce. I find that it's not that hard to
keep the frozen larder well-stocked; I pick a day every 2-4 weeks and
spend it hanging out in the kitchen in a blur of cooking: 2-3 kinds of
bread, a double batch of cookies, and whatever else is running low.
Plus, I seldom make a single batch when a double batch will freeze. When
my freezer is full, I feel like I can take on the world...or at least
the world's empty stomachs! (seriously, a friend of theKid's called one
day from the road and asked "Do you have any food at your house?" You
could hear the answering laughter in the next room. That was most of a
decade and we still give her a hard time, because, really, it's the
kitchenMage's place. Of course, there's food! Pay no attention to the
freezer behind the curtain.) In practical terms, this makes me damned
near capable of 30 minute meals to order. What's that you
say? Your freezer isn't that big? You would never use enough of any one
thing to make it worth cooking a vat of it? How about a soup swap party? Alanna's also got an interesting roundup of dishes that each use only a few ingredients and a bit of time. The one that has me wondering is this Chocolate Chantilly over at the Kitchen Exhibitionist. I've even got several bars of good chocolate, courtesy of theKid and this very tasty looking elk steak for a dinner with friends. My
point is that you can spend thirty minutes in many ways: drive to
McDonald's, open the individually shrinkwrapped vegetables, walk to
your garden and pick a salad, or pull something healthy, homemade and
tasty out of your own pantry. I vote for the latter options. How about
you?
