3/15/2004 11:42:00 AM|||Andrew|||I bought my first alcohol today, just over a month past my 21st birthday. I picked up a bottle of Messina Hof White Zinfandel from HEB. It was, sadly, much less exciting than I thought it might be. She asked for my ID, I gave it to her, she glanced at it and punched some stuff into the computer and handed it back. Ah well. In any case, I may try a bit later on to see if its any good but the main reason I picked it up was for its use in a recipe I'm going to try out later today. Speaking of which... So last night I'm watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico with some friends down in Houston (and, parenthetically, it was awesome!), and Johhny Depp's character in the movie keeps going on about this particular dish, Puerco Piblia (or something like that). After the movie we check out the special features, and tada there's a 10 minute "cooking" school with the director, Robert Rodriquez, telling exactly how to make this dish. Oddly, I watched Another movie with a cookie segment in the special features recently, Bend It Like Beckham. Is this the newest cool thing or what?

Anyway, in the segment, Rodriquez takes a few minutes off from his cooking to talk about his general philosophy of cooking, and I was inspired by his message. According to him, to start learning to cook (and I don't consider myself a beginner, but it was inspiring nonetheless), get just a few dishes that you really like, and learn how to cook them well. Really well. Cook them once a week, once every other week. Then, he said, actually print up a menu of the things you know how to cook well, and leave it in display in your house. Then, when someone comes over, you can show them the dishes you can cook really well. So I'm enthralled with the idea, and will almost certainly try to do something like it in the near future.

And so I went out today with my grandmother's car, stopped by a few grocery stores, picked up some food and ingredients, and am planning all kinds of lovely dinners the rest of this week. Too bad no one's here to enjoy them with me, but I guess it's my time to make sure I can do them. I'll let you know how things turn out.|||107937973262976369|||