Food Multitasking

Because of the recent hellish heat in the Philadelphia metro area, I've made the switch to my summer cooking style -- eating in restaurants.  Well, that's a slight joke, but our take-out consumption dramatically increases along with the temps and my oven gets little gas between mid-june and mid-september.  It is with great reluctance that I heat the kettle to feed the french press demon coffee maker. I only do it in the early mornings when the sun hasn't quite turned everything to burning plasma.

However, adaptation is survival, so I've developed some other hot-weather cooking skills.  There are very few things that I haven't tried to grill over the years and I'll make most anything in my Weber Kettle.  Also, I'll make dishes that can be served cold later in the day and do any prep-cooking early in the morning when it's still cool.  Which brings us to today's planned meal -- salade nicoise from the current issue of Saveur.  I think this will be really refreshing come 6:00 PM, with the temp solidly in the 90s.  That means, however, there are a bunch of things to cook this morning -- potatoes, beets, green beans.

The perfect part of the "cooking in the morning" thing is the multitasking aspect of it.

I can throw a couple of pots on the stove and check in as needed, but none of this is labor-intensive, so I can go back and forth with the food prep and writing. "What?!!" you say.  You aren't sitting at the computer, staring at the screen the whole time, sweating blood and dreams onto the keys?  Well, um, no.  My writing process involves a lot of walking around.  I can't stay sitting for too long and when the flow seems too slow, I walk around, fiddle with stuff.  That's why the cooking is good, 'cause I have something to check on when I'm pacing, and I don't get too distracted.

So, right now, I've got two pots on the stove to boil/blanch things, music streaming to a bluetooth speaker, and I'm off-and-on cleaning veggies.  The music is coming from my laptop in my summer home office -- my dining room table.  On the monitor, I've got this blog, the Soulwalker script draft, and the novel draft open on the desktop, as well as all the other usual internet distractions.  When a good thought comes, I type it up, then head back to check on the food.

If it's a good writing day, the food will be done before the writing, so then I need another distraction and I can focus on cocktail prep. I'm going to haul out the juicer to make fresh orange/lime juice for desert sunset cocktails to serve before the salad.  Booze, food, music, and writing.  That's my idea of multitasking.