Over the years I have thought about being a gourmet cook at home. Just never happened. I am much better at tinkering with my various gadgets than I am at tinkering in the kitchen. I have some very good friends like Fernand Sarrat, CEO of Cylink, and Harry Brawley, entrepreneur on Mt. Desert Island, Maine , who are superb gourmet cooks. In spite of my lack of skill in this area, I nevertheless get the urge every once in a while to prepare dinner for the family and tonight was one of those occasions.

There are no menus for any of this. Totally on the fly, make it up as I go along, approach. I love pasta so that is always a part of my preparations. I started out by making a sauté of veal in olive oil , pepper and lemon juice. I then cut this into small pieces and added it to a couple of jars of sun dried tomato sauce. I added some fresh mushrooms I found in the refrigerator. For pasta I used a pound of rotini. I always add some olive oil to the water to keep the pasta from sticking together and then cook it for just 6 minutes or so. I usually make a salad but tonight I made two vegetables .

First was brussels sprouts. These can be disgusting to some people but I have always liked them. I sautéed them in olive oil with lots of onions and through in some pepper, parsley, paprika, garlic, and a few other spices I don’t recall. The other vegetable was fresh corn on the cob from a local farm here where I am vacationing. Since I had our two large pans tied up with the sauce and the pasta, I decided to do the corn on the grill. Lucky decision. I did five ears. Takes about 20 minutes in total at a low setting and turning the ears every five minutes. I sprayed some PAM artificial butter on them. They were really delicious. For wine we had a 1990 Chianti Classico Riserva by Castello Di Brolio. It was good but not great.

After dinner I put the pasta in the refrigerator so tomorrow we can add some Miracle Whip and make a nice pasta salad. Likewise, I added some tarragon vinegar to the brussels sprouts to make that into a cold salad.

Some day I am going to take time to learn more about cooking. Who knows, I may even start using recipes!