Inhabiting Your World: Home Cooking

During our recent life's journey, I became the chief cook for our household. We had a change of chore responsibilities during my wife's illness that suited us both. I was working at home, so I no longer had commute time to deal with, I liked cooking, she was tired of it and too sick, so I took up the kitchen chores.

Let me say off the bat that my wife is a brilliant cook. My grandmother and hers were brilliant cooks and she learned from them both and went on to surpass them. I burn rice. I burn beans, I burn potatoes. Anything that can be burned, I have found a way to burn it. On the other hand, I don't mind experimenting and I'm comfortable making a meal out of whatever's in the cupboard and can make something out of nothing. Missing ingredients do not bother me.

When I took up the cooking chores, I took it up in typical man-fashion. I bought kitchen tools. I bought cookbooks. My son Micah had told me which cooking shows to watch, so I checked them out. I learned to cook the way a student learns chemistry. Sheila was my coach and chief critic. In the early days I was a one star cook - maybe less.

But as I got better at it, I learned three great lessons about cooking.

1.  Find your style and learn to cook accordingly.  If you're a by the book cook, then by all means measure and set the time and temperature accurately. If you're more of an artistic temperament, then learn to cook with dashes and dabs. However you do it, you'll soon understand how things work together to produce a delicious dish and you'll soon be making up dishes of your own creation. Don't try to cook like your wife or your cooking teacher. If you need to use every dish in the place, do it. If you hate to use more than a bowl and a spoon, then figure out how to do it that way. To your own style be true. Instead of fighting with the kitchen organize it so the layout matches the natural flow of your own peculiar brand of food preparation.

2.  Cook to make yourself happy.  Cooking to impress the critics is the reason so many great chefs become madmen. Cook to please yourself first and soon you will find that others are pleased with your cooking too. The great truth of life is that only you can make yourself happy. This is true in the culinary arts. Cook what you want to cook the way you want to cook it.

3. Be not afraid. This is the first thing an angel always says when he appears to a mere mortal.  It is the first thing an angel would say to a beginner cook I imagine. The tragic death of a souffle' is not the end of the world. It may just be that you aren't ready to do a souffle'. Me? It's highly unlikely I will ever even attempt a souffle', but I've taken on bread-baking, scratch-cakes and pies and homemade pizza. With my Mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook, I can take on anything. Besides, cooking is wonderfully forgiving once you get the bones of cookery learned.

Cooking for ourselves is what separates us from the beasts. The gradual loss of our ability to cook is, I believe, what is causing the collapse of civilization.  There is virtually no difference in temperament between a pride of lions loose amongst the wildebeests and a gang of teens descending on an unsuspecting Pizza Hut. They are consumers of food, not participants.

Until you work a ball of bread dough with your hands, flatten a pie crust or lay down a lasagna layer by layer, you have not fully participated in the holy act of feeding yourself.  Unless you have prepared a meal from scratch, with your own hands and your own brain fully engaged, you have not fully savored one of the finest things in life. Without learning the intricate interplay of flavors, textures and colors that go into good cooking, you miss an essential part of life.

You can choose to be a critic or an artist. The critic knows nothing. He nibbles at food. He often criticizes what he does not understand or appreciate. He looks around to see what the snobs say before he makes up his mind. That's why foods and cooks and restaurants that make me smile are often blasted by food critics. The critic is a sad little king on his sad little hill, looking down on a life they will never fully appreciate nor never fully savor. 

New York Style Pizza Recipe

So go out and find a recipe and make it. You might want to try this New York Style Pizza recipe.  You can find it at this link.

Start easy. It's fun to do stuff like this and, if you're a guy, the women-folk in your life will be mightily impressed.  AND the great thing about it is, you don't ever have to eat food you don't like again if you're the cook.

© 2013 by Tom King

The Comedians are Wrong About Olive Garden

Mmmmmm, Ravioli de Portebello

Ever once in a while some sitcom makes a joke about the Olive Garden as though the food there isn't the real deal. It amazes me how liberal comedians and writers who purport to be such friends of "the people" can be such utter snobs and elitists.

Yes, it's true. The Olive Garden is a chain. You go there, you know what you're going to get and there are few surprises. Go there a few times and you know what your like and what you don't like.  The food is good. It's well presented and you can eat till you're full. 

Yes, I know that they are a chain.

I know they aren't some pretentious mafia hang out on New York's lower east side. I like that about them. It's unlikely a mobster would ever be caught dead in there. Which is a good thing to my way of thinking. After all, who wants blood and little bits of cannoli sprayed all over your lasagna?


Also, I suspect Italians probably don't put a tiny little bit of pasta on an enormous oddly shaped  plate drizzle a little unidentifiable sauce over it and the two pieces of asparagus and a slice of some kind of exotic squash next to it and call it "cuisine".

My wife and I recently went to the Olive Garden because she had a yen for their Ravioli de Portebello with the smoky sun-dried tomato sauce.  It was a lovely meal. The waitress was a sweetie - very professional and attentive without being intrusive.

It does cost a little more than some other middle-class restaurants, but I don't mind so much. Sometimes you go to a restaurant to feed your soul.  The OG is close so I don't have to wander around some huge city looking for somebody's idea of an "authentic" Italian place.

When your get to the OG, you can rely on them to bring you good food. If you're a salad snob, they'll bring it without tossing it in the dressing.  They'll even put it in a bowl so you can have it "on the side" and enjoy the illusion that you prefer your salad fresh and that you're not going to dip the heck out of every bite and lick the dressing bowl.

Don't get me wrong, I love discovering these wonderful little Mom and Pop restaurants where the food is great and the place run by lovely people in the same way I love restaurants in general - as a treat from home-cooking. The truth is, home-cooking around our place is pretty danged tasty. The prime attraction of a restaurant is not having to cook the meal or clean up afterward and the reduction of stress you get from having a waitress or water running back and forth to fill your glass for you.

So I want to be sure I'm going to enjoy the food.  The OG and places like that are a sure thing. They're consistently good.  I know some things can go wrong even at well known restaurant chains, but it's far less likely to.  I have a few favorite places to go for my favorite dishes.  My top ten favorite purveyors of middle class haute cuisine are listed here. In the meantime, it's Sunday. Treat yourself to a nice lunch  at your favorite middle class fancy restaurant after church or before the baseball game.  You deserve a treat.  Enjoy!

Just one man's opinion.

Tom King