Erina Malarkey

As we were growing up, seldom did a day pass that we didn’t eat as a family together. When I was nine years old and my parents divorced, both my Mom and Dad kept the family dinner alive, fumbling at first, but slowly finding the way.

To this day, shared meals are something that I both adore and consider very important. The act of getting together with those that you love, those that you’re getting to know, those that perhaps you don’t love quite yet, but might some day, is a ritual I hold dear.

I have always enjoyed cooking, but have admittedly not always been particularly good at it. Ply me with enough wine and I might tell you the tale of the night I served undercooked chicken bobbing in water with little bits of corn floating to the top. Another glass and I might admit to how I got the scar on my upper left arm where somehow in an attempt to remove a pan of croutons from the oven I ended up flinging it in the air and catching the 45o degree dish with my biceps.

Yes, I have not always been a graceful or delicate cook, but a few years ago I decided that god dammit, I was going to learn how to be a great cook. Life sometimes falls apart at our feet, things don’t always go as we plan, we often aren’t sure what we want or how to get there, but no matter how crazy, how maddening, how overwhelming life is, one can always just…

Shut up and Cook.