Some Thoughts About Food And Cooking

It takes a lot longer to make an omelette than it does to eat one. The imbalance resolves, at least in part, by slowing down to enjoy the meal. I associate this bit of wisdom with my experiences as a tourist in Europe and in particular visiting family in Italy and France. Meals both in homes and in restaurants are high points, even focal points, of the day in these countries. This should be an everyday sort of ethic. Good food means a good life.

Italy and France are the culinary champions of a continent full of all sorts of good food, and not coincidentally they are also the places where the ?Slow Food? movement enjoys the most visible support. I love the ethic behind the movement even if I do not always live up to it. Below the fold, I have some not-all-that formally organized thoughts about implementing it here in the USA. I will suggest that in the comments you all share your own ideas for getting more devoting more time to?increasing the pleasure of life based on what goes on your table.

There?s farmer?s markets everywhere these days. Take the time to go to them if you can. If you live in an urban area, you may be?surprised at how much agriculture is going on in close proximity?to your densely-built big city. Prefer local to mass-produced. Sure, you can take the responsible consumer side of this to take this to a silly extreme, but I don?t prefer local to mass-produced because I wish to be a responsible consumer.

Fresh fruit, vegetables, and eggs?taste better. I now know that this is true and not a function of?paying more for the product, at least for eggs. I?ve become fortunate enough to get very fresh eggs for free. My friend keeps chickens and they produce more eggs than his family can eat. So I get fresher eggs from better-fed chickens than I could possibly get at the supermarket, and I get them for free. They taste?better, and passed a blind taste preference test.

My eggs come with a quartet of seasonings: large-crystal salt, fine-ground black pepper, a dash of cayenne, and chopped chives. The best way to prepare an egg so as to?maximize its taste is to poach it. But I like mixed eggs (scrambled eggs, omelettes, quiches?and other custard dishes) very much too. I know it?s possible to have scrambled eggs without cheese. I just don? t know why anyone would want to have them that way. Nor do I understand why anyone would want ketchup on their eggs; the ketchup would completely overpower the taste of the egg; this would be true for most tomato-based salsas as well. Hot sauce, however, I do understand and sometimes a dash of Sriracha or Tabasco (especially the chipotle Tabasco) is just the thing.

Americans typically wolf down their food. Before I got serious with cooking as a hobby, I too often wolfed down my food. And I confess that I still eat faster than I should when I?m very hungry. But something about eating food one has prepared oneself, and finding it pleasing,?makes one wish to savor and prolong the experience ? not at all unlike like sex. Knowing by experiencing the amount of preparation and cooking that goes in to making food really good infuses a speed limit into one?s consumption of the product emerging from the process.

If you eat better food, more slowly, you eat less of it because it?s more satisfying. As Leaguefest?alumni know, I?m far from the most slim and trim guy out there ? but I?m slimmer and trimmer than I used to be?not so many years ago, and that?s in part a function of stepping up my game in the kitchen, and making better food and eating less of it. Stepping up my game in the kitchen has also increased the vegetable content of my diet.

I?ve not yet found a good solution for my hands. While cooking a meal, I?m likely to wash my hands a dozen or more times to avoid cross-food contamination. This leaves my hands very dry. Regular lotions are fine well after preparing a big meal, after eating it, and after cleaning up,?but every lotion I try is too thick and oily to be suitable for kitchen use.

Coffee is better when it?s denser, and in my opinion, the Mediterranean styles of coffee-making ? Italian, Turkish, Arabic ? produce a superior product to what comes out of your typical North American coffee maker. But, that Mr. Coffee machine is really convenient. To make a good espresso, you either need a very expensive piece of equipment or something that takes time to prepare and operate. A Keurig?can make American drip-style coffee as well it can be?made, but it seems to me that the point of a Keurig?is not that it makes really good coffee, but that it makes good-enough coffee, very quickly. I much prefer my slower Bialetti, because the end product is the best I?ve found that doesn?t come out of a high-pressure espresso steamer.

I prefer caff? corretto, using Bailey?s Irish Cream or better yet, Amarula?from South Africa, to provide?a mild relaxant against the stimulating effects of the caffiene. This isn?t true caff? corretto, of course; in Italy the coffee is ?corrected? with stronger stuff than a cream liqueur, typically with grappa but also sometimes with brandy or an anise-flavored liqueur like Sambucca?(damn do theose?the Italians love the licoricey flavor of anise!). Obviously, adding something with even a moderate amount of alcohol to coffee isn?t for everyone, but the point is to take the coffee made well, take it in a way that you can enjoy it. I never put a moment?s?worry into caff? corretto, because I?m not going to be driving a car immediately after drinking it anyway.

No matter how bad?your life sucks at any particular moment, a?world that has ice cream in it can?t be all bad.

I generally only eat a big breakfast with eggs and meats on the weekends or while on vacation. A typical breakfast for me these days is a cup of yogurt with some cereal or granola mixed in, and maybe a piece of fruit. The point is just to get the motor running, not to consume half of the day?s calories before you take your morning shower. About half the time, I have a big lunch and a lighter dinner; the other half of the time the last meal of the day is the big one.

I prepare nearly all of my meat in my sous vide water oven, and I only finish them on the grill or in a saute pan to get that nice browning color and taste of the char. In Ca? Likko, only fish and ground-meat burgers meet the grill while raw. A gas grill is fine for me because I?m only using it to finish the meat and not to do the cooking. But I notice a lot of people have come to like the Big Green Egg?or something similar, which looks right to me it?s deep to store a lot of coals, and it?s ceramic so as to?absorb and radiate the heat. Barbeque is cooking by indirect heat, not direct exposure to fire ? and it takes time if you?re going to do it right.

Pasta should be boiled in a large pot with lots of water. The water needs lots of salt. Mix in the salt while the water is cool, then boil it ? this raises the boiling point of the water and thus causes the water to absorb more heat and that cooks the pasta better. A pound of pasta needs a gallon of water. Bring the water to a rolling boil before you add the pasta. Test the pasta by eating a piece of it and feeling for the resistance to the pressure of your teeth. Remember that the pasta will continue to warm and soften after you remove it from the boiling water, so if the center of the pasta still feels a little hard and crunchy, that?s good. Do not rinse your pasta before adding the sauce, any sauce.

Tomato-based sauces for pasta may need sweetening but don?t add sugar. Sweeten your sauce with balsamic vinegar or, you know, actual tomatoes, which have a high sugar content when they are fresh and ripe.

Bolognese sauce is not simply?marinara sauce with meat added to it. Learn the difference, enjoy both. Carbonara?is not Alfredo sauce with bacon added. There?s nothing at all wrong with pasta in a cheese sauce, but Alfredo sauce was invented in the United States, not Italy. Fettucine Alfredo is really only two steps removed from maccaroni and cheese ? a different kind of pasta, a different cheese used for the sauce.

Wash your mushrooms with the gills down, facing away from the water. Don?t flood the gills of the mushrooms.

Sharp knives are safer than dull ones. Good knives are worth the extra money.

The house cocktail at Ca?Likko is the Aviation. 3 oz. gin vodka, 1 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice, 1/2 oz. Creme de Violette, a dash of Maraschino, shaken over ice and served in a martini glass and garnished with a cherry. Bartending beginners, please use the links I?ve provided before going shopping: Maraschino is a clear liqueur, and it is not?the sugary pink syrup in which one packs cherries destined for ice cream sundaes. But the Aviation is being challenged for supremacy?at Ca?Likko?by Hendrick?s gin and tonic water garnished with thinly sliced?cucumber?rounds served sparkling over ice. And if you come for dinner, you?re as like to be served wine with dinner as cocktails unless you express a preference along the way.

A good apron made of thick material is important.

Eating outdoors enhances the pleasure of food. Eating under stress or time pressure isn?t any fun at all, really; if life imposes stress on me at mealtime, I will opt for cheap and fast because my mind is elsewhere anyway. But I always regret eating like that. One day I will be dead and no longer able to enjoy good food, the experience of?wine, and the society of friends to share these with. The Romans put skulls and other images of death on their artwork to remind themselves of this fact. Or, as Warren Zevon advised David Letterman (and thus the rest of us), you should make an effort to enjoy every sandwich.

It?s lunchtime. Go enjoy your sandwich.

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