Your Inspiration on an Off Day

[Katie Nell]

Sara,

There are some days where I just don't feel like cooking (and I adore cooking.) Or last week, for instance, everything just seemed to be going wrong... none of my meals turned out the way I wanted them to. Assuming that you, too, have an off day every once in a blue moon, what do you turn to for inspiration? Is there something that will just bring you out of a cooking funk everytime?

Thanks,

Katie

P.S. I really enjoyed meeting you at the Culinary Center here in Kansas City! Your picture is hanging in my kitchen framed! http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=78039&hl=

Edited January 23, 2006 by Katie Nell (log)

[Sara Moulton]

Katie,

I have plenty of off days, usually when I have been making the same recipes over and over again so what I do is pull out a cookbook with the kind of food I am not so familiar with (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Puerto Rican) and then I just make a new recipe. I try to follow it exactly the first time.

This ALWAYS makes me happy. It is like a new kindergarten art project.

[Susan in FL]

Thanks for listening to the ramblings of a Sara fan!

...Taken from the post linked by Katie, above.

I so identified with that sentence and the entire post! Katie, you reminded me how I would post, when/if I ever get to meet Sara.

I am so thrilled that you're here, Sara, and I'm trying hard to maintain some degree of refinement and restraint about it, and not gush out with my own fanatical ramblings!

So I hope you and all the viewers of the Spotlight Conversation will pardon me when I ask you something that Katie's post reminded me about, and something that is probably a typical fan question. How tall are you? Are there times when you are doing cooking demonstrations or other appearances and you have to stand on a platform or anything like that? Being a short person too, I've often thought I would like standing next to you.

[moosnsqrl]

How tall are you?  Are there times when you are doing cooking demonstrations or other appearances and you have to stand on a platform or anything like that?  Being a short person too, I've often thought I would like standing next to you. 

I know you want to hear from Sara, not me, but I had to share this picture because your question reminded me of it. A picture is worth a thousand words! A quick search located it on Sara's website:

Sara & Julia

It won't answer your question in inches but should give you some idea. And imagine, if Ms. Child's expertise and "aura" weren't initimidating enough, having her tower over you by a good two feet!

[Sara Moulton]

How tall are you?  Are there times when you are doing cooking demonstrations or other appearances and you have to stand on a platform or anything like that?  Being a short person too, I've often thought I would like standing next to you. 

Susan,

I am 5 feet even, at least for now. They keep saying if you do pilates you can get a little taller (stretch your spine?) but who knows...

Anyway, for the first 2 1/2 years of my show I had to stand on a riser that was 6 inches high. I spent the whole show every night worrying whether I would fall off. I never did but it sure was a distraction.

When I finally got my own set we built it to my size. My counter was lower than the standard counter. I think that is why the first comment most people make when they meet me is, "Wow, I had no idea you were so little!" I of course reinterpret that to mean "skinny" but I know they mean short.

My husband is 6'2 and he is constantly making short jokes. I don't mind, I have been this short since I was 13 and captain of the basketball team (I used to pass between people's legs)

[Katie Nell]

My husband is 6'2 and he is constantly making short jokes. I don't mind, I have been this short since I was 13 and captain of the basketball team (I used to pass between people's legs)

←

Whenever people comment about my size, I just tell them, "good things come in small packages!" and they usually laugh and shut up after that!

[fifi]

I, too, am short . . . just barely making 5'2". The kitchen in the new house has been designed with almost no overhead cabinets. I have windows instead and plenty of lower cabinet space (drawers) so I won't miss them at all.

There are other advantages in the kitchen as well . . . you can't see the grungy dust on top of the fridge. When my 6'+ son visits he often says "Mom! The top of the fridge is gross." I just tell him that it couldn't possibly be gross since I can't see it.

Sara, I didn't play basketball but we did have a girl on our high school girls' team that was about your height. Yes . . . She was a whiz at getting the ball around and underneath her taller opponents. I can absolutely picture you doing that.

[moosnsqrl]

Looks like I'm the outsider on the lollipop guild thread here.

I can't imagine trying to keep up the pace of a live cooking show, period, never mind worrying about falling off of something the entire time. I would have been taping the next show from my hospital bed and several thereafter on crutches.

While we're discussing the vertically challenged, though...was Julia Child's kitchen (or were her kitchen sets) higher than average? When we do bbq contests we use folding tables with extending legs to accomodate heights ranging on our team from just over 5' to 6'4". Before the advent of those, someone was always pretty uncomfortable, one way or the other.

[Sara Moulton]

I cannot verify this but I feel pretty sure Julia's counters were designed for her. At least I remember having to compensate (get on tippy toe) when I was on the set of her show on GBH and at her home on Irving street.

Actually, now I remember, her tables at GBH were put on blocks (each leg had a booster under it) to make it work better for her.