How Much is Too Much?
Name: Estefano Torres
Age: 23
Occupation: Architect
Location: New Rochelle
No. of days in quarantine: 39
Quarantine happy hour drink of choice: Sangria
Ideal quarantine partner (real or imagined): Will Smith (He just seems like a chill guy)
Most ambitious cooking project attempted: Lasagna Dome
What has staying at home taught you about cooking? Describe a typical day of cooking in during this period, your favorite meal that you’ve cooked, your failures, attempts, and the lessons you learned (or didn’t learn)
The first days were difficult. I struggled to comprehend this situation and in regards to the kitchen I would eventually come around and grab a drink or a small meal like a sandwich made with whatever was around. This worked for the first week…
When I began to come to terms with what would become an uncertain reality and future I took all the energy that I had initially had invested in work and school and gravitated that energy towards creating. Creativity came by way of content on social media and afterward a lot more focused on the kitchen. Prior to our current situation, I always had an interest in cooking small meals or large meals — I didn’t care, it was all very interesting to me. The one thing that I always struggled with was that I always needed to go by the book. This obviously led to successful meals that were both tasty and more importantly edible but it was as I told myself later on, “Expected.”
Now that my family was in an indefinite quarantine I learned that it was time to take some risks, strive away from the typical recipe, and create meals that were more to a taste palette that I wasn’t used to. The first few days were rough as this led to either over-seasoning, odd taste, or just a missing ingredient. Later on as I started to learn from these mistakes I began to understand why I loved to cook. It was that, like architecture does, cooking evolves and you have the creative freedom to go away from a standard recipe and create something unique.
The lasagna dome was a unique challenge and despite taking a while to prepare, it was definitely worth the added effort. The inspiration came from a Tasty video my mom showed me. She followed up by telling me “why would you put that much work into something that is just any other lasagna.” The competitive and creative part of me jumped at the opportunity. The recipe, in short, is similar to a basic lasagna but instead of preparing it inside a baking dish, it’s assembled in a bowl. The lasagna noodles were made from scratch (my new favorite thing to do) and an additional level of presentation that elevates the dish to a new level and extra experience.
