Now we're cooking
Good morning, friends. It seems that fall has "fell" here in central Kentucky, so to speak as I played golf in shorts on Sunday and today I expect to wear a jacket all day. It IS late October, of course...
I love to cook. I don't recall mentioning that in any detail in the past in this space, but it's something I really enjoy. Strangely, neither my mother, who was what I would call a "utilitarian" cook, nor my father, were that interested in preparing interesting dishes.
I think my first efforts to cook anything to actually be eaten came when I was ten or twelve, when my mom allowed me to heat up a can of pork-and-beans for lunch. That was fine, but my next attempt involved adding stuff to the canned goods to the point where I was taking more time to find my add-in ingredients than to actually cook the final blend.
Fast forward to my first years post college, where I devised a recipe for chili that has served me, my family and friends well ever since. Not going to give away a lot of details but there are a couple of unusual ingredients that make it, well, unique. My son won a chili cook-off with a variation of that recipe, a contest that I didn't enter (I cited Marlon Brando's stance about the Oscars when asked why I didn't also enter).
My first roommate situation was interesting, as my roomie had lived on his own a couple of times previously, but I had not lived outside of my family home. I quickly learned how to combine certain items (fresh and/or packaged) into edible, if not spectacular, finished meals, leaning heavily on things like steak and salad.
Then I met my wife. From her I learned the basics of grilling (we didn't cook out when I was a kid, as my parents lacked the patience to properly light a charcoal grill) and that was that. And since her kids became OUR kids, I now had an audience of three who were all interested to see what I could put together.
Inspiration came from a trip to a hibachi-style restaurant here in Lexington (no longer in business, sadly) and after watching the teppanyaki chefs do their thing and attempting to replicate their cuisine in our existing cookware, I found a wok under the Christmas tree one year. Rick's stir-fry became a weekly staple of our meal planning.
Over time I gradually cooked more frequently for my family, as my wife and I both worked full-time outside the home in office jobs, so we each arrived home about the same time. But eventually something shifted where I worked more flexible schedules and locations and assumed the greater responsibility for cooking.
Skills were also borrowed and obtained from television chefs, and this was well before the advent of the Food Network or the Cooking Channel. My two primary instructors were a man named Pasquale who was an Italian on Canadian television. One of the minor cable channels we had showed his program, called "Pasquale's Kitchen Express," in which he would cook an entire meal in about twenty minutes and then serve it to an audience member. He sang opera while he cooked, which I found amusing. I learned from him how to "steam saute" certain meats and how to season them for added flavor. So now I could cook more things indoors that were not Asian, so that was a big step!
I also frequently watched Jeff Smith, known as the Frugal Gourmet, and picked up a number of things from him.
And when we got the Food Network things really took off. Because, after all, most knowledge is shared and learned and not invented. Thank God.
So today I do virtually all of the cooking here at the Smith house. And my wife hasn't experienced any health issues as a result, so that's a plus. What's for dinner tonight? I don't know, but hope it will be tasty and won't take too long to prepare!
I love to cook. I don't recall mentioning that in any detail in the past in this space, but it's something I really enjoy. Strangely, neither my mother, who was what I would call a "utilitarian" cook, nor my father, were that interested in preparing interesting dishes.
I think my first efforts to cook anything to actually be eaten came when I was ten or twelve, when my mom allowed me to heat up a can of pork-and-beans for lunch. That was fine, but my next attempt involved adding stuff to the canned goods to the point where I was taking more time to find my add-in ingredients than to actually cook the final blend.
Fast forward to my first years post college, where I devised a recipe for chili that has served me, my family and friends well ever since. Not going to give away a lot of details but there are a couple of unusual ingredients that make it, well, unique. My son won a chili cook-off with a variation of that recipe, a contest that I didn't enter (I cited Marlon Brando's stance about the Oscars when asked why I didn't also enter).
My first roommate situation was interesting, as my roomie had lived on his own a couple of times previously, but I had not lived outside of my family home. I quickly learned how to combine certain items (fresh and/or packaged) into edible, if not spectacular, finished meals, leaning heavily on things like steak and salad.
Then I met my wife. From her I learned the basics of grilling (we didn't cook out when I was a kid, as my parents lacked the patience to properly light a charcoal grill) and that was that. And since her kids became OUR kids, I now had an audience of three who were all interested to see what I could put together.
Inspiration came from a trip to a hibachi-style restaurant here in Lexington (no longer in business, sadly) and after watching the teppanyaki chefs do their thing and attempting to replicate their cuisine in our existing cookware, I found a wok under the Christmas tree one year. Rick's stir-fry became a weekly staple of our meal planning.
Over time I gradually cooked more frequently for my family, as my wife and I both worked full-time outside the home in office jobs, so we each arrived home about the same time. But eventually something shifted where I worked more flexible schedules and locations and assumed the greater responsibility for cooking.
Skills were also borrowed and obtained from television chefs, and this was well before the advent of the Food Network or the Cooking Channel. My two primary instructors were a man named Pasquale who was an Italian on Canadian television. One of the minor cable channels we had showed his program, called "Pasquale's Kitchen Express," in which he would cook an entire meal in about twenty minutes and then serve it to an audience member. He sang opera while he cooked, which I found amusing. I learned from him how to "steam saute" certain meats and how to season them for added flavor. So now I could cook more things indoors that were not Asian, so that was a big step!
I also frequently watched Jeff Smith, known as the Frugal Gourmet, and picked up a number of things from him.
And when we got the Food Network things really took off. Because, after all, most knowledge is shared and learned and not invented. Thank God.
So today I do virtually all of the cooking here at the Smith house. And my wife hasn't experienced any health issues as a result, so that's a plus. What's for dinner tonight? I don't know, but hope it will be tasty and won't take too long to prepare!
Comments
Post a Comment