Food Obession

I always loved cooking. I can't recall when I cooked my first meal. But I remember regularly assisting at night my mom as she was busy with work. And I remember as teenager cooking at a friend's house with a bunch of my girlfriends, and my friend's mom noticing a certain ease and ability maneuvering a dish.

Cooking, but also eating, has always been an important part of my life. My husband sometimes finds that with my family devotes too much time talking about the next meal, preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up afterward. As I grew up like this, to me this is "good living" and I don't see any problem obsessing about the next meal...
I also read a lot of cooking books. I have a number of favorite cooking websites, look here here or here or here again. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, it is a relaxing time for me, even when I have guests. I remember after my assignment in Congo, where I did not have access to the kitchen (a rule of a shared house with cook), I landed in Paris at my friend's, and just invaded her already tiny kitchen, cooking four or five course meals, and gorging myself on fresh berries and other goodies unavailable in Africa. Bliss.
Recently a friend showed me this book from Ottolenghi. He is a well-known Israeli chef in London. I could not resist, I ordered it.
His approach to food is completely different than what I have seen before. His recipes are always fresh, amazingly tasty. They are mostly simple and easy to make, but they use a number of ingredients that are often mis-loved or harder to find. Think quinoa, eggplant, tahini, za'atar and other middle eastern goodies. Yet is food cannot simply be described as "Middle Eastern". It is more than that. More subtle and researched (Middle Easterner, please don't get offended, I love your food).
After trying several of his recipes, I realized that the selection was entirely vegetarian. I mean, this book is about vegetarian cooking, and I did not get that right away! What a feat!

It is something important to note, actually. I have to confess slowly de-vegetarianazing my dear husband. I love my meat, so I should not have minded, getting more on my plate that way. But to be clear, it was by shear laziness.  Yes, I always found vegetarian dishes to be more complicated to make, and taking much longer to complete. A big piece of meat get slapped with a bit of mustard or something, and stuck in the over, et voilà! Dinner is ready. Can't do that with a bunch of lentils, right? Well, wrong. Wrong, since I have my slow cooker. And wrong, says Ottolenghi. And wrong, says me, more and more convinced that not only there is an easy way to be eating less meat, but also that less meat is more healthy.