Our first foray into the world of post-college cooking began the same day Mary told me about tastespotting.com. The website is truly a foodie's heaven. It describes itself as "a highly visual potluck of recipes, references, experiences, stories, articles, products, and anything else that inspires exquisite taste," and it is a serious step up from the frozen White Castle burgers Mary and I would microwave and dip in ketchup after school when we were ten.

Anyway, Mary and I settled on a risotto recipe, and we decided to give it a go. For those who didn't graduate college in the past ten years, it may be hard to remember what a college student's kitchen is like. It's not pretty. Fresh veggies are a rarity, and the only thing you are guaranteed to find is pasta and cheap wine... and this is coming from someone who enjoys home cooking. Cooking my first meal back in my parents' home was a drastic change. The main difference is that my mother manages to keep the kitchen fully stocked with anything one could ever need to cook anything, literally. Mary and I stopped by our grocery store to pick up some key ingredients and were on our way.

Mary ate a lot of risotto in college, and every few minutes would interject our conversation with different quick, tasty things you could add to Arborio rice (edamame? asparagus?), but it was my first experience with the grain. It is pretty labor intensive, this isn't the kind of meal you can put on the stove and ignore while you drink a glass of wine. The prep work involved a lot of dicing, but once the ingredients get cooking, you can expect to be standing over the stove for the better part of an hour.

In the end the recipe was a total success. We ended up having to ditch the original frying pan that we used for the mushrooms and leeks and substitute a wok in its place - the recipe makes a LOT of food. Thankfully leftovers are not a problem with risotto, as they make great "risotto pancakes" the day after. Just form them into little pancakes and fry in olive oil. Yum.

Here's the recipe: http://whiskflipstir.com/2010/09/01/mushroom-leek-risotto/