The Reach of a Home Cook
I've been cooking since I was 10. My best friend found this quite impressive, as she wasn't allowed in the kitchen when her mother made dinner. With 7 kids, her mother found it easier to banish them all than to try to teach them to cook. My mother, on the other hand, went back to work when I was 3, and she needed all the help she could get.
I knew how to light the old gas stove with a match when I was about 8. I was frying chicken when I was 11. As a young adult, I considered myself a great cook, as did my friends. When I think about my limited abilities then, I have to laugh at my reputation.
I'm still known as a great cook, probably better than I actually am. I'm a simple cook. I don't make gourmet food. I'll spend hours on some dishes, but I don't make anything that's too complicated, has a large amount of ingredients or calls for something that requires a special trip to the store. And I'm starting to feel like a fraud.
I read a few food blogs - The Accidental Hedonist, Eat at Joe's, and Michael Ruhlman's are my favorites. I read them every day.I check out others occasionally, and I often don't know what people are talking about. They use terms I've never heard, talk about ingredients I know nothing about, and do food combinations I've never considered using.
When the discussion on Ruhlman's blog get really animated, I have to back out. I feel like I don't belong there. Some of the commenters on his blog are the worst example of foodies - condescending know-it-alls who will condemn you for using Land O' Lakes butter and call you a hypocrite for not wanting to see a pig being slaughtered. And when they start throwing around the names of high-end restaurants they're so entranced with and chefs they worship, and talking about the food they make, I don't know if I'm out of my league, or if they're just self-important blowhards trying to impress Ruhlman and Anthony Bourdain, who occasionally blogs there.
Maybe they're on to something and I'm being left in the dust. I'm a firm believer in Ina Garten's advice to have about ten recipes that you've mastered, and using them as a jumping off point. That's pretty much how I cook. I do try new things, and I've learned as much from my mistakes as I have from my successes. Even so, I could well be stuck in a rut, and I'm staying too far in my comfort zone. A step out would never hurt me. But do I also have to cook my way through The French Laundry Cookbook to prove to myself I still have it? I gotta say, Thomas Keller scares me.
It's not that I think I'm not good enough; it's more about not feeling adventurous enough, I suppose. I am thinking about cooking my way through a cookbook, but which one? I hate The Joy of Cooking. I'm not doing The French Laundry. I can at least come up with a different book to use. I've considered starting with a section from Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World, broken down by country of origin instead of type of food. I'm so comfortable in my American/faux Italian niche, even that scares me. Which might be the best reason to do it.
Comments
My favorite cookbook. Fell in love with the woman right there, 20 years or more ago. :) And it's still in print, albeit in a hard-to-find, cheap, sale-book edition.
I have seen a pig being slaughtered. While I wish that more people have had some of my experiences, I'm not going to pick and choose what fragments of my life I'd push on someone else, because the possibility for abuse is too great. :/
Thanks for the plug. You, as always, rock. :)
So why would you ever need to see a pig being slaughtered? Other than to need to do it yourself? The only animal I can kill are fish and I know how to gut them and filet them as well as the masters, but I'll eat just about anything that moves (besides people... ahem).
Anyhow, I'm from the soul food genre of cooking, I was always in the kitchen and learned a lot of southern favorites and how to put a bit of myself (not like that) into each prepared meal. I haven't cooked in a while, but thanksgiving is coming and my niece and nephews are excited for my cranberry glazed fried turkey! Yum!
Oye, I like the Joy of Cooking, and for one reason only: their pie crust recipe is the first one I learned and it works. That and my mom stole mine (she didn't cook, which makes it funny) and I was too cheap to replace it.
Speaking of chefs--Over here there is a reality show I will watch. It's Gordon Ramsey, where he goes in and helps struggling restaurants. He says fuck more than Deadwood. (Eli and I counted once how many times they say fuck in one episode on avg; we got overwhelmed with the first one we tried counting. We were up to thirty something. They call him, Gordon Fucking Ramsey. I love him. He says it like it is. (he called this woman a lazy bitch recently. She is.)
Foodies, schmoodies. You and I, Joe, Mitch, we could be called as such, and probaly are as such. To me, a foodie was originally someone who liked to cook and use good ingredients, not make canned shit dinner (do you remmeber horrifically, the Chow Mein in a can? What brand was that, Chung King? Scarier than Michael Jackson's noseholes.) Butter is butter unless you care if it's organic or not. We are a bit of a snob, but that's when it comes to green bean casseroles and canned biscuits. That's just common sense and decent, not even necessarily good, taste.
I grew to hate Foster's Market. The more publicity she got, the crappier (and more expensive) the food got, in my opinion. Huge chunks of onions in everything, not even half cooked. Wassup with that? Horrible service a given. Closing at bloody seven pm. Are you kidding me? And cookbooks. YAWN! My mom could have written a better one.
What always ruins something, is the wannabees get ahold of it. The young between 25 and 30, "hip", lameos who MUST be of the moment. (no offense, not everyone between 25 and 30 is in that bracket, okay? Plus, I was that age once, thanks) It is one thing to become interested in something and make it yours, and another to say anyone that is not right ontop of it, is not good enough to do it/wear it/listen to it. Remember the Bluegrass thing? Oh Brother came out and I siad, Good Lord, now all the people who are pretentious will be listening to Bluegrass...and lo and behold...
Dang, I have PMS (just wolfed down a homemade cinnamon roll). Thanks for letting me bitch and giving me something to bitch about!
Stix, so you have a better understanding of where your food comes from. In theory, I suppose it's a great idea, but I don't need to be told I'm a hypocrite because I eat pork but can't handle watching a pig being butchered. Hell, I won't even take a biology class because I refuse to dissect an animal.
Anyhow, I'm from the soul food genre of cooking, I was always in the kitchen and learned a lot of southern favorites and how to put a bit of myself (not like that) into each prepared meal.
Hee. I know exactly what you're saying. For me, it's a sign of love.
I don't even want to call myself a foodie. I don't like the connotations.
I tend to skim the comments on his blog now, because it gets nasty so quickly. Have you read the discussion bout The Next Iron Chef America? You'd think Michael Symon had just been voted to rule the world.
In case there is anyone who doesn't know it yet, Mark Bittman is my cooking hero. I haven't started the cooking project yet, but I think I am going to use The Best Recipes in the World. I just have to figure out how I want to approach it.
Thanks for your advice.
There's no need to cook through a book to maintain your foodie status. Your post is thoughtful and well-written, and that speaks volumes itself. Are you looking to cook through a book to gain some skills? Or simply to say you've done it?
I'd like to cook through a book to gain more skills. I also think it's a focused way of doing it. Instead of digging for recipes all over the place, having one source is a good way for me to stick with it. I probably will be using The Best Recipes in the World. I just have to decide if I'm going to go with a category of food - appetizers or entrees - or an ethnicity. Being able to say I've done it would be nice, but for the accomplishment itself. Not for bragging rights.
It truly must be exhausting to eat like an exclusive foodie- sourcing only the finest ingredients and eating at the finest restaurants.
Amen to that. I'm too lazy to put that much effort into it. I do my best to find good ingredients and use good techniques. But I'm not going to get all tied up in the latest thing just because it's the latest thing.