(Heads-up: this is wayyy long, and a bit of a rant, but, I tried to offer solutions and not just a list of gripes...unfortunately, it's what I see all the time. There IS hope!)
A few years back, a buddy in
residential construction called me.
“Hey, I got a brand-new Wolf
stove…you want it?” I paused for a few moments, wondering what
the catch was.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked,
“does it work, what’s the deal, how much is it?”
“Dude”, he continued, “the crazy
lady had it installed and doesn’t like it. Can’t return it
either. Oh, it’s free, too!” Tony was over the following
Saturday morning, backing his work trailer into my driveway as I
stood in a wool robe, barefoot and sipping my first cup of coffee.
“You’re good!” I hollered, giving
him a yelp and clenched fist indicating a perfect landing. He
bounced out of the cab of his growling, diesel elk hunting rig and
began loosening the tie-down straps. “Nice, huh!?” he grunted
with a grin, “you’re gonna love this. Gimme a hand…where you
want it?”
This will be really nice, I thought, to
finally have a Big Bad Wolf. What did I do before this extravagance?
Well, I cooked like everyone else in America on whatever I had.
Would this new stove make me a better cook? Not likely, but, the fun
factor just went off the charts. Odd isn't it, I thought, so many
families have top of the line stoves, but, use them only
intermittently. What's the story on American lack of cooking
anyway!? It's not for want of equipment, tools and books, that's for
sure. Why don't we cook as much as we used to...?
Families for the last 40 years have cut
the apron strings to their home kitchens in increasing numbers and
it’s become a crime of epic cultural consequence. The scourge of
convenience has inundated our homes; wracking our health, stealing
our traditions and is responsible for the general dumbing down of two
generations in basic cookery.
As a country, our cooking skills are in
the toilet. Actually, we suck.
Is it just prepared foods that have
wrought the demise of the home cook? Not entirely; there are a host
of additional reasons for the downfall of the family meal.
Single-parent families became more prevalent and the time to prepare
a meal at the end of the day became diminished. The Women’s
Movement of the 60s and 70s, instructed us that a mom cooking for the
family became a foolish and demeaning endeavor. Running a household
was akin to indentured servitude and women were encouraged to find
themselves outside the home. The era of both parents working
stressed more income and subsequent better lifestyles.
Unfortunately, this pulled the cook out of the kitchen. Men stood
back, ignoring the vacuum and didn't lift a finger, seldom if ever
preparing anything more complicated than meat on a grill during a weekend beer session. Therefore, some girls growing up since the 70s weren’t
taught the basics by their mothers. The chain of tradition was
broken. Industry picked up on this shifting demographic and began
offering more and cheaper substitutions. If you didn’t know how to
cook rice, mash a potato, or make a gravy, no sweat. Here’s a
packet that will do it for you! Better yet, just go out to eat.
Now we have millions of families that
genuinely don’t know how to prepare a balanced and nutritious meal.
When I speak to people on their reasons for avoiding the kitchen,
I’m met with a raft of sorry excuses.
“ We have so many activities, the
Costco chicken is only $5, it never turns out like the picture in
the magazine..."
As of 2016, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics states that the average household spends $7,023 annually
on food. Of that, $3,008 is spent on eating out, a whopping 43% of
our food budget! As a chef, I know that the food cost in a
restaurant is around 33%, so, the money spent on eating out could
have purchased over $9,000 in groceries.
It must be hard to cook a meal at home
when you don’t know what you’re doing. Imagine the frustration
of the home cook, the sheer terror of failing again in front of loved
ones. Without skills, we're forced to rely on following a stifling
recipe by rote; flailing about like a clumsy, wooden puppet only to
collapse at the end of each performance. The torture that has
become the kitchen experience is revisited each time because we
reinvent the wheel with every recipe, we never learn the skill of
cooking. Recipes are guidelines, as every chef in the world will
tell you, but, you have to use your sense of taste and powers of
observation to create a dish. How could you cook without recognizing
Sweet, Sour, Salt, Bitter and Savory (Umami)? You don’t cook
because you can’t cook, therefore, you assemble and re-heat factory
prepared products. Wow, it only took 12 minutes, yay!
And so, it continues…the food
industry has now created our palates for us; loaded with sugar, salt
and fat. As my 10-year-old daughter and I drive to school in the
morning, she notices and we pity the cars lined up at a McDonald’s
drive-thru at 7:30 for ‘breakfast.’ “Dad, you mean all those
people don’t know how to toast an English muffin or crack an egg?!
That’s saaaaad…”
Our American Palate. If we are what we
eat, then this has become a nation of boneless, skinless chicken
breasts.
What absolutely kills me is how parents
have become spineless enablers to their children’s’
pseudo-sensitive palates. “My kids won’t eat anything but
chicken nuggets.” “He doesn’t like anything green,” “She
only eats buttery noodles.” Really?! I've always found hunger to
be a key motivator.
How many kids in Mexico have the same
afflictions? None.
How many kids in India, France,
Vietnam, Wherever-istan won’t eat but a few select items? Zip!
They eat everything and do you know
why? Because they aren't afraid of food, they savor it. Look at
America in the last 40 years and the Food-pocalypse, tripe-du-jour we
have been fed. Butter, gluten, nuts, animal fat, red meat and
cheese are just a few of the killers lurking the aisles and cases of
our grocery stores. The real 'Killers', however, are the gargantuan
portions now expected by an increasingly sedentary population glued
to screens and subsequent inactivity. Remember when a Coke was 6 ½
ounces? If you’re worried about weight, get off your butt and get
physically active. That means play so you sweat, kids. Get away
from the screens and be an active, sentient being. The equation is
very simple: Calories in = Calories Out.
Cooking in America has become an almost
gladiator spectacle as well, replete with winners, losers, king
makers and tyrants. The Cook has become the Spectator; cheering the
victors, critiquing the vanquished and yet, never once entering the
arena to soil their leggings or infinity scarves. In some instances, the food channels
have taken a beautiful and essential part of every culture since the
dawn of humanity and debauched it into culinary pornography. The
scorched-Earth eating, cooking and baking competitions, the
voyeuristic intrusions into businesses and personal lives, and the
close-ups of staged emotions are sad and pathetic exhibitions. I’m
waiting for “Kitchen Injuries” to be next…let’s see some
blood dripping, third degree oil burns and minor amputations. Hold
on! To really get the feel of a commercial kitchen, nothing tops the
calamity of a dinner-time grease fire with cooks screaming in 3
different languages. Maybe we could ride along with a county Health
Inspector and see how our food is really stored; the fluctuating
holding temperatures of over-used refrigerators, listen to the
stalling, song-and-dance of the chef/owner while prep cooks scurry to
cover, label and date foods. “Cual es la fecha?” they yell,
“What's the date?”, to be told by the sous chef to use
yesterday's date for prepped food containers.
Yet, like a pining, would-be lover
desiring acceptance, the home cook still longs to be a part of the
kitchen. We may purchase the latest, glossy book oozing with
Tuscan romance or romp through a chain kitchen store to add another
glistening thing to our appliance garage. Look! I bought a crock of
wooden utensils for my mirror-like counter top. Big deal, you'll
never get them dirty. We want the association of being a ‘foodie’,
but, really we're just too lazy to learn and petrified of failure;
like the kid in elementary school that had the best baseball glove
and new kicks, yet, still couldn’t make contact and struck out
every time. Tools are useless, inanimate objects
without our knowledge and skill guiding them.
When we do try, American home cooks
want to it to be convenient too, hoping that skills can be absorbed
through osmosis from either the shiny covers of our cookbook
collections, making dinner reservations at the latest ‘farm-to-table’
establishment or a weekend in Napa.
Puh-leez.
It’s time to drop the oven mitts and
fight back! “But Chef, I don’t know where to begin…” We
start with fundamentals and must come to terms knowing we are
ignorant, have been lazy and selfish, and in need of emergency
assistance. Call it a 12-Step Healing Process. Here’s how…
1) Buy a digital meat thermometer and
learn to use it: on-off, Celsius-Fahrenheit, battery replacement.
This will take the guess work out of ‘doneness.’ I use one and
own 3.
2) Roast a seasoned, whole chicken on
a half-sheet pan in your oven at 350 degrees. Using a digital
thermometer, cook to 160 degrees when inserted in the thigh. That’s
the piece connected to the drumstick. When done, cut away the drums
and thighs, remove the breast meat and save the pan drippings for a
sauce or gravy in a saucepot. Put the carcass in a large pot and
cover with cold water. Place this on a medium flame burner, bring to
a boil and reduce to a simmer for 2 hours. This will become a stock
for soup. Pour 1 qt hot water on the sticky bits of the roasting pan
and scrape with a cookie spatula. Place this in the sauce pot with
the original pan juices. Thicken with a roux and adjust salinity.
This is do-able; I just taught this same lesson to 12 and
14-year-olds in a 50-minute elective class at my daughter’s school.
3) Take your children grocery shopping
and task them with selecting 2 fresh vegetables and 2 fresh fruits.
Let them choose a dessert which will be served one night per week as
a special treat. Period. They now have ‘skin in the game.’
Don’t flinch on this!
4) Vow to have 3 distinct components
to the meal: carbs, veggies and protein. They can be integrated in a
pasta, soup or baked dish. The Big 3 can be combined on a skewer,
rolled in a tortilla or artfully arranged in concentric circles on a
dinner plate.
5) Look up these words in the
dictionary: Saute’, Fry, Roast, Braise and Steam. Take notes on
when to apply these techniques. It will prevent you from ruining
your meals.
6) Never buy Top Round Beef, it will
only be edible as a burger patty slathered with vinegar-based
condiments. Avoid factory breaded fish, it’s never as good as
doing it yourself. “But, Chef, I don’t know how…!?” In a
mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, beer, salt and white
pepper. Mix to a pancake batter consistency. Easy. Learn to ‘Cook
with your eyes closed,’ that is, braise a chuck roast or pork
shoulder overnight as you sleep. When you wake, the house smells
fantastic and you have 2 or 3 meals of protein completed to
perfection.
7) Surprise your family and cut up a
fruit tray to be served at a meal. It’s colorful, delicious,
healthy and sparks conversation at the table. Left-overs can be
recycled for breakfast smoothies. If your knives are dull, learn to
sharpen them. Dragging a blade over a sharpening stone is like
slicing thin peels off the top of a cold stick of butter. 5 times on
each side at a 22 degree angle (¼ of a 90 degree angle) until
sharp.
8) Gather at the table each night for
dinner, together. Show children how to properly use their utensils.
They didn’t arrive pre-programmed, therefore, we are tasked with
uploading their software. When cutting your food, you must see the
pointer fingers on the backs of the knife and fork, pointing down at
the plate, providing support as the remaining fingers wrap around.
Chairs are for butts, napkins are placed on the lap and used to wipe
the mouth and fingers. They are NOT hats, tissue for a cold or
receptacles for partially chewed food. Set a timer for your meal at
30 minutes. No one may leave the table until then. All screens,
phones, and TV are off. Music may play quietly in the background.
9) Clean out your fridge once per
week. All those Tupperware petri dishes of remnants are just dying
to make you ill. We tend to save everything and continue to push
foods to the rear of the fridge until they grow fuzzy jackets. If
you don’t use something within 3 days of preparation, either pitch
it in the trash or freeze in a Ziploc bag. ‘But Chef, how do I
know food is good or bad…?!” Label and date all your foods with
masking tape and a Sharpie marker. It’s what the pros do. If we
don’t use it in 3 days, it’s adios amigo!
10) Organize your shelves and pantry
with military precision, including the fridge. Put those items used
regularly the closest to you; kosher salt, pepper mill, peanut
butter, soy sauce and honey are on my first cabinet shelf. Same goes
for the pantry. Place your reserves on the shelves according to
type: pastas together, beans and rice, canned goods, baking spices,
savory spices, juices, vinegar and flour. In the fridge, here’s a
novel approach: put big things in the large spaces and the small
things in the small spaces. Store foods in square, stack-able
containers since the refrigerator is a square, empty cube! Drives me
berzerkawitz when I see a big-ass salad bowl in the fridge. All
around it is wasted space.
11) Your refrigerator door is your
saving grace, the straw that stirs the drink. Load that baby up with
condiments; Sriracha, Red Hot, 4 different kinds of mustard, mayo,
pickles, salsas, relishes, hoisin, sauces of any kind. These small,
intensely flavored condiments will take a simply prepared group of
protein, starch and veg and turn them into a regional favorite.
Pivot into the Crisper section of the fridge and garnish with green
onions, sweet peppers, citrus zest, cilantro, and Bammo!, you’ve
got a new face on a pretty ordinary dish.
12) Make your Kitchen Space your Happy
Place. Put on some music, pour a glass of wine or a Northwest IPA,
set up your station with cutting board and favorite knife, grab a bib
apron that you like, and start from an immaculately clean work area.
Arrange the pans you’re going to use, set up your spices and herbs,
arrange your ‘mis en place’, all the things you’re going to use
in an orderly fashion. Invite family members to assist in some small
task. Glance out the kitchen window and take a breath. Think to
yourself, “I’m about to have a great time, because I’m
prepared, and they will love what I cook because I know what I’m
doing.” Look over at your stove and wink, because it’s big and
bad, but, you’re no longer afraid.
You’ve domesticated your Wolf.
Take Care, God Bless and Remember:
"Food, Faith, Family and Friends,
the Best Things in Life Aren't Things!"
chefbq
