Jamie the Sexy Hyper-active Food Cowboy

Taking Human Sexuality got me jazzed up to eat well. I got an "A" in the class but a "B+" for cooking. This latter grade is self-imposed because I didn't quite reach my goal of six recipes in three weeks.

In an effort to save money, I promised to cook six dishes from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home. The book itself was a Christmas gift, a work of rural photographic pleasure. Jamie became my guide through sex and herbs.

After awhile, Jamie irritated me, and I cooked five instead of six recipes.

Yes, he is a masculine free-spirit, a sort of British food cowboy who was the perfect guide for my three weeks of sex. At first, I loved his sexy disregard for measurements, freedom in throwing spice and flavor. After five recipes, I got tired of Jamie's "good splash of olive oil" and wanted him to calm down, stop flying around his farm, and tell me how much olive oil, how much thyme.

That being said, I got high on Jamie's hyperactive confidence, actually buying and cooking fish from a Chinese fish shop. I also roasted shoulder butt, and it was good.

Here are the things I've made:
1. Beautiful zucchinei carbonara, p. 134: Excellent but must cut vegetables before boiling pasta. I overcooked the pasta in the time it took for me to cut them up. I used real Parmesan for this. It made a sensual lunch when paired with wine (shown in photo) and the poetry of e.e. cummings.
2. Spicy pork and chilli-pepper goulash, p. 257-Very, very good. It took more than three hours to make, but the meat fell off the bone. This was my first shoulder butt, also known as pork shoulder.
3. Superb squash soup with the best Parmesan croutons, p. 361-Delicious. Freezes well.
4. Old-fashioned sweet shortcrust pastry, p. 352-Interesting. Hardly any butter. I made a pumpkin pie with it, which is more of an American thing, but the crust was good, toasty with a lemon zest zip.
5. Roasted white fish and leeks, p. 334-I wasn't wild about this, but the cod turned out okay, and the bacon added a buttery taste. I could have added more pepper though. A little bland.

These meals sustained me through Human Sexuality. I ate while reading the textbook, everything from  Anal Warts to Zoophiles. Not all sex is sexy.

Naked College Eating

A month ago, I made the best meal I've ever made, Jamie Oliver's chicken tikka masala. Having watched him on the Martha Stewart Show, I was pretty sure I could do it, and I took extra care at the super market, looking for items I'd never used: coconut milk and curry paste.The first bite was a joy. As my boyfriend said, "This is alive with flavor."

For Christmas, he gave me Jamie Oliver at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life. The f irst recipe we tried, "Crispy and sticky chicken thighs with squashed new potatoes and tomatoes" (p. 189), was pretty and fragrant but a little sparse with recipe detail. My boyfriend and I could not figure out why he wanted us to use boned chicken thighs if we had to cut them into three pieces. It just seemed a time-consuming task that left us vulnerable to bone fragnments. The cherry tomatoes, however, added a wonderful pop of flavor.

The next, "Smoked beets with grilled steak and a cottage cheese dressing" (p. 109), worked better, although the beets would have been better on the grill (as Jamie suggested) instead of in the oven. The cottage cheese dressing was really zingy, although I overcooked the steak.

Yesterday, I made some lovely baked potatoes (p. 280), but tonight I made "Superb squash soup with the best Parmesan croutons" (p. 361). I can't believe how delicious the soup was, how naturally sweet and how satisfying with the croutons. I'm also pleased to have attacked my first butternut squash, two to be exact. I debated buying pre-cut squash but decided to "give it a go," as Jamie says. I roasted the seeds as topping to next week's salads. I froze the remaining soup and decided on a New Year's goal.

For three weeks in January -- starting January 4 -- I will give up restaurants in favor of my own cooking or my own food preparation: salads, sandwiches, and leftovers. During these three weeks, I aim to cook a total of six Jamie Oliver recipes, working with at least one new vegetable, like fennel. My reward for completing this challenge is to pay for a legit-Chinatown massage from my favorite massage guy, John A., on Mott Street.

My happy endings come from healthy eating, not to mention my intensive winter session course in human sexuality. While I satiate myself with home cooking -- preparing sensual squash and the like -- I will go to class every day, earning three credits toward my Health Education Masters Degree. Suck on that.