I really DON'T eat all of the time!

From all of my previous posts (and this one too.  I'll just admit this now, so you don't go thinking that I've strayed away from the kitchen), you'd think all I do is cook and eat.  I actually have a life, outside of cooking.  While I'll be the first to admit, it's not much of a life without food, I do other things.  For instance, take today.....While it started out decorating a few cupcakes and then delivering them, my day progressed into cleaning.  Yep, unfortunately, that's part of my life too.  While I try and do as little of this cleaning thing as possible, I find myself doing something of that sort of nature every single day.  How this got to be such an important element of my life, is beyond me.  When I was little young I did not know I would have to resort to "cleaning up" so often or I would have had no desire to become an adult so quickly.  These are just some of the little things Adults should tell a child.
Anyway, the cleaning of the master suite became a two person job today.  First, Chris decided to hang the new towel rack by himself.  (Let me explain....if he's not level with something that requires a screw into the wall, there will be a lot of putty, sanding, painting and yelling involved when I see it.  I'm anal and a perfectionist, what can I say?)  It actually turned out to be level and looks really nice in our bathroom.   Yeah for more spaces to hang things!
Since this little project required Chris to step into the tub and drill holes into sheetrock, we had to clean the tub.  Well, since we were cleaning the tub, we might as well clean the rest of the bathroom.  Since all this cleaning was going on, we might as well do the entire bedroom.  I mean, all of the cleaning tools were out....Doesn't this just mean "get it all done, now!?"  Poor Chris, here he thought he was going into the bathroom to work on the towel rack and I had to go in there and find him, mid-project.  So much that we got accomplished!  Bathroom is sparkling and bedroom is not dusty.  (Well, of course, by the time you read this blog, the dust will have piled up an inch and a half thick.  It's Arizona for goodness sake and we're about to have a haboob/dust storm!)
Another thing that I do outside of cooking, cleaning and eating, is a little photography.  I have played with my camera for years.  While I will never be any sort of professional photographer, I enjoy seeing things come to life thru the lens, hearing the click of the shutter and seeing the finished product on my computer.  While I love all types of photography, it seems that I'm drawn to food styling lately.  I've been reading blogs and books, trying to understand how it is, that certain pictures make you want to jump into a screen or onto a page, and eat what's being presented to you.  How can I do that?  I'm sure it's something that I'll be asking for a long time, but I'm always a work in progress and love a challenge.  Here's a picture that I just took and am thinking it's one of the best I've taken to date.

This was actually tonight's dinner.  Baked Salmon on a bed of Mashed Potatoes with a Lemon Butter Sauce.  I can almost taste it again.
It's actually a funny thing about this meal above.  I HATE seafood.  Don't like the taste, don't like the texture, don't like the smell.  This is absolutely the only seafood that I will ever eat.  I have it once a year and I have to cook it and it has to be cooked the same way.  Not only do I have to cook it, but I have to buy it from one of the most expensive stores around, due to quality of the salmon.  There's a funny story behind the plate of food and it goes like this:
A long time ago, before I married my Husband (of course), I dated a guy that lived in Napa.  Since his parents still lived there, we would often go out to eat with them.  I was in love with his parents.  Best people around and they really treated me like family.  One particular night the four of us decided to go out to eat.  They lived less than a mile from Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa.  I had never been and was looking forward to a great meal.  Unfortunately, I'm a very picky eater.  I mean, if it's not the norm, I'm not one to try out something new in a restaurant.  (Why pay for something if you're not entirely sure you're going to like it, right?)  We get to the restaurant and Mr. "C" ( The Dad - names are being omitted to protect the innocent) orders appetizers.  Love appetizers!  Carpaccio.  Wait......what?  Carpaccio?  Isn't that uncooked meat?  Uhhhgggg!  Well, since I wasn't paying for the meal and I needed to be polite, I'd better hunker down and think of a way to get this down, without losing it in the middle of the restaurant.  Meanwhile, as I'm contemplating the ways to make a break from the establishment, I begin looking over the menu.  I can see that I'm in some real trouble.  Duck.  No thanks.  Halibut.  Seafood....No.  More game options......no thanks.  Seared Salmon on Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with tomato, chive and butter.  Well, everything but the Seared Salmon sounds good.  Seriously, why in the world was everything on the menu looking so inedible?  In the mean time, the appetizer arrives.  Carpaccio is looking rare indeed.  I hate seeing any red in my meat.  Something that screams "I was alive 12 hours ago", doesn't appeal to me.  I know, I know.....I eat meat all of the time.  I just don't eat uncooked bloody meat all of the time.
Now the waiter wants to know what I want to eat.  With very little to choose from, for this particular crazy picky eater, I panic and choose the first thing that has the most "sides" that I can eat without making a face.  That happens to be the Seared Salmon.  Can't think about that now, I have to dig into this Carpaccio, before Mr.& Mrs. C think that I'm ungrateful.  I take some on my plate, along with as many capers and parm slices as possible and with a small grimace, put as little as I can in my mouth.  Hmmmm......that's kind of different, yet surprisingly tasty!  Maybe I'll have another bite.  A little less apprehension this time and the flavors together are wonderful.  Who knew I could like something like this?  Not me.  Because I never would have tried this on my own.  Wonderful!  Now that I've realized I like this dish, I suddenly remember that I have a meal coming, that I'm even less sure about than I was with the dish in front of me.  Now that the wheels are turning, my obvious thought was to get full on Carpaccio and then just claim that I ate too much of it, when someone noticed that I hadn't touched the salmon.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to fill up on Carpaccio?  Oh well.  It was a good thought.
My meal arrived and I could swear that I smelled it coming a mile away.  Most of that was in my head, as I'm sensitive to seafood smells.  Again, with a grimace, I daintily took my first bite.  The buttermilk potatoes were to die for!  So creamy and mixed with the lemon butter sauce.  YUM!!!  Since I liked the potatoes so much, if I just buried a small piece of salmon in a giant bite of potatoes, I would never taste the salmon and it would appear as if I'm eating everything on my plate.  Trouble with that was, I really liked this food.  I mean, the salmon wasn't overpowering, the smell was almost non-existent and the texture was really crisp and not meaty or mushy.  I felt like I could break into a dance, I was so happy.  2 new things in one night.  Something that hasn't happened to me since and probably will never happen again.  Thanks, Mr. & Mrs. C for pushing me along and making me try new things, without ever knowing you were doing so.  I will always be grateful.
So, that's my story on how I came to eat this meal once a year.  I craved this after I had it and was bound and determined to figure out how to make it myself and I did.  I've tried other salmon since, and I still don't like it.  I get a craving for this meal and have it and then don't want it for another year.  One of these days, I'll go back to Don Giovanni and have their dish that inspired me.  But for now, I've got a whole new year ahead of me.