Pink of Perfection

Alright, now we’re cooking with gas. For the first time since my lesson on cutting up a chicken, my Grand Diplôme program has served up something of use: how to make a white sauce. This may be what stands between me and never having to make a casserole with cream of mushroom soup again (not that there’s anything wrong with that). With my yellow apron hanging officially from my neck, stirring at the stove yesterday, I felt for the first time in a long time that I was actually learning something new in the kitchen. I’ve tried to wing a roux before, but following instructions for this sauce made something thrilling happen with the most basic kitchen ingredients and in a matter of moments. It was almost as transfixing as those grade school rockets made from vinegar and baking soda.

I grew up in a house without sauces (unless chile con queso and ranch dressing count). In fact, I don’t think it was until I worked at a restaurant that I really began to understand all a sauce can do. As my course book says, “An inventive sauce can transform a simple dish into something superlative.” (I wish I knew more short-cuts like this in life — how, for instance, to take a simple outfit to something superlative. Know what I mean?) But really, when it comes to sauces, it seems that the sauce need not even really be “inventive”: plain pasta can be transformed into mac and cheese with a mornay or cheese sauce. Instant supper update.

Continue reading “How to Cook: White Sauces” »

Sometimes the mythology of a thing is more prevalent than the actual experience of it. Take, for example, running a marathon: hard, really hard. You and I both know that. In fact, even if we can’t run more than a few miles, we are convinced of its difficulty to the point of impossibility and have a feeling it’s not in the cards for us.

On one hand, this is great: word gets around in our gossipy little world with its love of quickly boxing and defining experience, and we are able to make shorthand decisions about what’s worth our time without even having tried something ourselves. We give a quick no thanks to War and Peace (too long), childbirth (too laborious), Antarctica (too cold, too desolate).

This is where I stood with puff pastry. If Mark Bittman said it wasn’t worth making from scratch, then Pepperidge Farm it would be. Enter book 5 of my Grand Diplôme program, and there it was in black and white: puff pastry. My heart sank. My contrarian side rose up. I resisted for weeks, ignoring the lesson. “Why not skip it?” a friend suggested. Tempting, but what kind of student would I be if I just skipped the lessons that seemed too hard?

And then last night, as I had courage enough and time, I went to the grocery store for butter. Then my phone rang, and it was my mom. “You’re making puff pastry? Oh, I’ve heard that’s really hard.” It is a credit to her mothering, I suppose, that I did not respond, “I know. You’re right,” shelve the butter and head back home for some pasta. I soldiered on, like, well, a marathon runner.

When I stopped long enough to look at the actual recipe I was deeply encouraged by this:

Rough puff pastry originated in farmhouse kitchens where lard from home-butchered pigs and homemade butter were readily available.

Haute cuisine makes me shake in my clogs a bit, but farmhouse cooking? Farmhouse cooking is in my bones. And can you feel what’s coming next?

I could hardly believe how simple puff pastry was. I didn’t struggle with the dough, I didn’t wipe away tears from a flour-streaked face. I pulled out the food processor, measured a little of this and that, rolled and turned and rolled and turned and rolled and turned the dough, and then thought, is that it? It was. Feeling a little too pleased with myself, that doubting voice of mythology was heard saying, “yeah, but just wait to see how it comes out once it’s cooked.” The happy reply was flaky and buttery and as puffed up as I was.

This triumph is exactly why I set out to cook from these booklets. So often we take on expert account what is and is not worth trying for ourselves. But if we have the time and the inclination and the will, we may find that our own opinions differ from those heavyweights of the cooking world. This amateur, for one, thinks puff pastry is more than worth the effort to make at home, if only for the wild sense of triumph from accomplishing what others deem too troublesome.

Continue reading “Homemade Puff Pastry & My First Chicken Pot Pie” »

September means back to school, which for me signifies a return to my grand diplome course. No, I didn’t forget about it, but truth be told, I’ve been hung up on the cake lesson. Who in their right mind, without a birthday to commemorate, wants to bake something like this on a hot summer day?

The September issue of Everyday Food with its recipe for a plum cake, however, got me in the mood. There is just something about plum cake that seems to have a hold on people’s psyche. Just the words sound anachronistic to my ears, like an antique baking tradition in which brunettes with twin braids in long, calico dresses carry hot baked goods to the prarie neighbors after picking the last of the season’s plums. Or something.

Whatever the connotations, there is an undeniable bit of cozy magic at work. Because everyone I mentioned this to got a dreamy, far-off look in their eye, remembering plum cakes of days gone by. Meanwhile, I had never had one in my life. Plum tarts — sure — but not a cake. And even still, there was something so dear about just the idea of it, like a treat Mama Bear would pull out of the oven to serve with a tiny china cup filled with weak, milky tea.

I served it instead to the man I’m going to marry in 52 short days, dusted with powdered sugar, and chased with a small glass of whiskey (it had been a rough day). The reviews were raves, and the wedding’s still on.

Continue reading “Super Moist Plum Cake” »

Once, a very long time ago, I desperately wanted a job at Vogue as an assistant to their food editor. I went to the library and there, spread out on the floor, read just about every food column ever written in the magazine. The one that has really stayed with me all these years later, was the writer’s attempts to make the perfect omelet, and the omelet quest seemed more like a hero quest. It was all such a test of fortitude, so maddeningly just out of reach, as if the writer were flying on the back of Falcor trying to get to gain access to Fantasia. I didn’t have enough cooking experience at the time to know better, and didn’t have enough real world experience to not buy the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. Omelets are the province of the truly skilled! Once you can make an omelet you’ve really made it!

There is a lot to be said for knowing the rules before you break them (pretty much the reason I’m doing this Grand Diplôme thing to begin with), and Escoffier would probably slap me if he could hear me say this, but I don’t think cooking is codified. One of the many reasons why Ratatouille is such a delightful movie is because it’s so empowering; just as Auguste Gusteau encouragingly proclaims, anyone can cook. And even the most classically trained chefs can go about the same dish differently.

Continue reading “The Great Omelet Hero Quest” »

Put on a stripey top and an apron. Grab a whole chicken. Wielding a boning knife and kitchen shears — or, if you are a girl with a less fully equipped kitchen, a sharp knife and a lot of determination — cut chicken into pieces, fearlessly, and with the cold detachment of a surgeon. For dinner, sauté the chicken parts with shallots and fresh tomatoes; serve with a chilled Macon Chardonnay. Toss the leftover neck and back into a stockpot with whatever bits you have rolling around in the fridge: celery, carrots, an onion, some sprigs of parsley and thyme. Cover with water and let simmer for a few hours to make stock while twist in the living room to Francoise Hardy.  When tired, recline on the couch with Cheri, and later, when complimented on your cooking prowess, shrug your shoulders as if it’s nothing. Buf.

Even if you skip the French shenanigans, I would highly recommend attempting to cut up your own chicken. I was scared, I’ll admit, and had successfully avoided the task since I first learned to cook chicken. But then there it was in Week 3 of my Grand Diplôme program, and I couldn’t hide anymore. I channeled my imaginary boyfriend, Jacques Pepin, and his relaxed efficiency as well as his no-waste policy, and here’s the thing: there was immense satisfaction in buying the least processed poultry available in the highest quality available and doing the heavy lifting myself. Some people may squirm at the up-close-and-personalness of this process, but I saw it this way: if I choose to eat animal products, the least I can do is learn how to handle it with skill myself and not to waste a bit of it.

Continue reading “How to Cut Up a Chicken and Feel Totally French” »

It seems to me that the Grand Diplôme program has about 47 lessons in pastry which, in my book, may just be 45 too many. But at the very least, I’ll be learning the difference among them, which is probably a basic culinary knowledge requirement.

We begin, class, with Pâte Sucrée, a rich, slighty sweet pastry made with flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. This is the backbone for sweet tarts and pies (though people also make pies, of course, with pâte brisée, a pastry dough made without sugar and sometimes without egg). It’s nice to have options.

I made this tart to bring to a barbecue on Saturday night. This means I spent hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon, listening to Lauryn Hill, showing off my mad rapping skillz, slicing strawberries, rolling out dough, and admiring the silver shine of a tart pan. My meditation practice, sadly, has never really made the jump from “sporadic thing I do” to “part of my daily routine” but weekend baking is a great stand-in. In the relaxed assemblage of a baked good, it seems we have no choice but to be in the moment and enjoy the crack of thunder and hiss of rain on the black pavement.

Continue reading “Pâte Sucrée: Strawberry Tart with Buttermilk Vanilla Pastry Cream” »

“Does this look ’50s?”

We were trying to take a picture of the perfectly browned roast chicken and peppers sauteed with ham in a way that didn’t look like a culinary flashback. I think the parsley garnish is working against our efforts here; maybe you should leave it out.

Retro looks aside, this was delicious. As I mentioned last week, I was definitely averse to all the flipping involved in roasting this chicken. And what kind of thrifty girl uses half a stick of butter rubbing the chicken? But then I channeled Julia Child giving her chicken a “butter massage,” and I felt as if I were part of an important culinary lineage. And more importantly, this was the best looking chicken I ever roasted with a crisp, lovely brown skin. And who cares that all the flipping made me so dizzy I finished the roasting backside up? Next time I’ll get it right.

Continue reading “Roasting: Chicken Basquaise” »

Talk about striking gold.

On Saturday night, my sister handed me — or should I say “dropped on the dinner table with a bit of effort and a heavy thud” — 72 issues of an at-home cooking course put out by the Cordon Bleu in the ’70s. Edited by the venerable Anne Willan, each issue contains 1-3 lessons that cover basic cooking techniques. I am both in awe of and slightly afraid of these booklets. First off, there is entirely too much aspic and gelatin for my liking. Secondly, to say that food photography has come a long way in the past 40 years is the understatement of the week. Case(s) in point:

On the other hand, I am a big fan of programs of study and a regimented approach to a field. I like coming at things systematically, learning how to roast, then steam, then fillet a fish, then make pie pastry, and checking off boxes when I achieve something (list makers out there will know what I’m talking about). And hello, if you’re going to embark on an at-home cooking school education, it might as well be from the Cordon Bleu in a series edited by Anne Willan.

So I think I’m going to go for it. I’m stoked, and yet terrified. I’ll admit to having tried my first lesson last night (more on this next week), and I was reminded of what my friend Kim said recently when she decided to study Hebrew: “It feels good to learn things. You appreciate it more as an adult.” Having roasted a fair number of chickens in my life, it was interesting to try something in a new way, no matter how initially resistant I was to the extra effort involved.

So I’m jumping in with both feet. I’ll adapt the ingredients slightly (if necessary) to bring them into the 21st century, and cross reference Mastering the Art of French Cooking when necessary, but basically I’ll go by the book. Grand Diplôme, you shall be mine!