With all My Senses

I'm very pleased to report that last week I finished two more of the books in my unfinished stack: A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, and The Lady in the Palazzo by Marlena de Blasi.  On top of that, I added The Friday Night Knitting Club to the stack and I finished it too!  I'm feeling quite proud of myself:)

I've not been spending much time in the kitchen of late;  reading the de Blasi and the Wizenberg books reminded me how much I've been missing it.  Both have luscious recipes.  I decided to head back in there and a good place to start is by cooking the recipes from A Homemade Life, beginning with these meatballs.  You can find the recipe on Orangette.

The theme for the month over at Creative Every Day is the 5 senses.  I've been trying to really engage all of my senses today, paying close attention to what I'm experiencing.  The kitchen is a good place for that.

Of the five senses, I'm most affected emotionally by the sense of smell.  It's very connected to memories for me.  And strangely, I can smell things that aren't there.  For instance, when I'm reading a story and it mentions limes, I can smell those limes as if they were right in front of me.

I love cooking Middle Eastern inspired dishes because they are full of scents I love.  Like cilantro.  I could roll around naked in that, I love it so much.

And the fresh, bright scent of lemon....

the pungent smell of garlic.....

the earthy man-smell of roasted cumin...

The yogurt has a sour smell.

Get your hands in there and feel the different textures.

Wizenberg says to use damp hands to pull off bits of meat and shape it.  This really makes a difference.

The recipe called for bread crumbs, but we're experimenting with not eating wheat gluten to see if we notice a difference.  So, I substituted steel cut oats I had soaked in hot water for a while.  Can you hear the meatballs sizzling?

Yum!  Dinner:)