I like cooking a lot, the art of matching textures and flavors and pairing dishes. It feels aesthetic and creative, and there's the technical expertise required to understand recipes and improve on them. But certainly there are some things I don't enjoy about cooking. For example, a hot oven on a hot day, or the tedium of chopping vegetables, or guessing if meat is done to avoid defacing it by cutting it open to check. Though, I like sifting, whipping, folding, sauteeing... it is fun to see ingredients turn in to something entirely different.

At the top of my kill list, though, is the double-boiler. If you aren't familiar with this, the idea is that you are making something that must be heated, but can't go above the temperature of boiling water. Since your stove can't handle that, you put a pot of water on the burner, and put whatever you're cooking in a bowl atop the boiling water. Maybe if I just bought a real double-boiler, with pieces engineered for easy use, I wouldn't mind so much. But I don't have one, I just have pots and glass bowls, so I put one inside the other and prepare to have a hard time separating them, or to spill water all over the stovetop and put out the pilot lights. Grrr.

And I've been wanting to make ice cream, and most ice creams have a custard base, and unfortunately, a custard without a double-boiler turns into scrambled eggs in cream. Last night I finally persevered long enough to make cardamom ice cream, from a great recipe that used both ground cardamom and infused, crushed cardamom pods. I love the flavor of cardamom so much, and have wanted to make ice cream from it ever since I had the cardamom gelato at Naia in Berkeley. If I had matcha, I'd make green tea ice cream next.

I love sourdough bread, I love fresh bread, and I love crusty, artisanal bread. Living with Ben involves compromise and working together to make sure we are both happy, but it also involves me taking advantage of things that he does which I am too lazy for, like homemade sourdough bread. The laziness factor dropped considerably, though, when my mom (and Ben's mom) gave us a Kitchenaid mixer for Christmas, which does all the kneading for you. Nevertheless, I have been happy to let Ben make us fantastic bread while I don't lift a finger. But Ben's leaving soon, and leaving the sourdough starter here, so today we are making bread together so I can see how he does it. There are lots of recipes out there, but the way he does it works really well. So I want to write it down for my use over the summer, and if any of you are interested in making tasty bread once you have a starter going, here's a way that works.

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PS. Something else we made that was really delicious is honey orange pistachio ice cream, using the ice cream attachment to the same mixer. It is very delicious.

...only somewhat different. I made this recipe from the New York Times this week and really liked it, despite the olives. It made our house smell like saffron for a day, and it was the first time I bought saffron threads, which are a beautiful dark red and leave powder on your hands so that they turn bright yellow when you try to wash them.

Recipe: Lamb Tagine With Apricots, Olives and Buttered Almonds
Time: 2 hours

4 pounds bone-in lamb shoulder or neck, or 21/4 pounds boneless lamb
stew meat, cut into 2-inch chunks
4garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
2 large Spanish onions, peeled and quartered
2 cinnamon sticks, each 2 inches long
Large pinch crumbled saffron
1 1/4 cups dried apricots, sliced
1 cup cracked green olives, pitted and sliced if desired
2 to 4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sliced almonds
Cooked couscous, for serving
Chopped parsley or cilantro, for garnish.

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Trim excess fat off lamb. Put meat in
a deep Dutch oven or cast-iron pot with the garlic, salt, black
pepper, paprika, ginger and cumin. Rub spices and garlic evenly all
over meat.

2. Thinly slice onions, then mince enough of them to yield 1/2 cup.
Add minced onion to pot with lamb; reserve onion slices.

3. Place pot over high heat and let cook, turning meat on all sides,
until spices release their scent, about 3 minutes. You need not brown
meat. Add 3 cups water to pot (it should come 3/4 of the way up lamb),
along with cinnamon and saffron. Bring to a simmer, then cover pot and
transfer to oven. Let braise for 45 minutes.

4. Turn meat, then top with onion slices. Cover pot and braise for
another 45 minutes to an hour, or until lamb is very tender. Use a
slotted spoon to transfer meat to a bowl, leaving broth and onions in
pot.

5. Place pot on stove over high heat and add 3/4 cup apricots and the
olives. Simmer broth until it reduces by a third and thickens
slightly, about 10 minutes. Return lamb to pot and keep warm until
serving. (Tagine can be prepared 4 days ahead; chill, then remove fat
and reheat before serving.)

6. To serve, chop remaining 1/2 cup apricot slices. In a small
skillet, melt butter. Add almonds and cook until well browned and
toasted, about 2 minutes. Put couscous in a serving bowl and top with
almonds and butter and chopped apricots. Pile tagine in center of
couscous and garnish with herbs.

Yield: 6 servings.

From the very beginning, when we first started to move in, the beating heart of our house has been the kitchen. It isn't very large, but a big window and a skylight make it easily the brightest room we have. It has counters, a sink, and a stove along one wall, and enough space for one person to work at the counter and another to easily pass behind them. It is an excellent two-person kitchen. The cabinet space is sort of limited, but we've compensated for that in two ways: firstly, by putting rarely used kitchen stuff in the basement, and secondly, by putting lots of stuff on the walls. We have a big shelf of oils, vinegars, and sauces, and a large spice rack, and a pizza peel and some other stuff up on the walls. I have hopes to get a Great Chile Poster, in memory of my first home. There is a window, for some reason, which looks into the dining room, and on the shelf of this window we have two bowls, one for fruit and one for vegetables, and some bottles of rum and scotch, and a container of sea salt.

We got a bunch of new stuff for the kitchen for Christmas, including a very nice blender and a Kitchenaid mixer, along with an amazing assortment of attachments (pasta maker, meat grinder, sausage stuffer, ice cream maker, etc. etc.). It is really fun to have these things together, because we both make so many more things together than we would separately. We had cocoa pasta with chipotle cheddar sauce tonight, green chile pizza last night, rosemary pepper pasta with parmesan and cream the night before that. It's sort of insane how much cooking we've done together since moving in, and it's really fun getting to try lots of new recipes that I had always meant to try, and some I would never have thought of.

I think that if you are going to try to be with someone your whole life, there are a lot of requirements they have to fill. You have to get along nearly perfectly, at least well enough that an argument are smoothed over and forgotten before the next one begins. You have to love and value each other, of course. But I'm a strong believer in the idea that there has to be an aspect of growth, as well. It's more interesting if your friends (all friends, really) challenge you, and teach you things, and help you to grow. A partner should be the ultimate in this, helping you to better yourself and explore new things, while you do the same for them. It's sort of idealistic, I know. But I think the way that Ben and I are in the kitchen is the most perfect representation of that ideal, at least in our relationship. Of course, it's easier to be adventurous and clever and cooperative, with anyone, when there's little at stake.