God I love cooking. I mean, I really, really love it. You’d think nearly twenty years in and out of kitchen, burger bars, cafes and pizza joints would have put me off it, but I still get a real kick out of making something, putting it in front of people and watching their eyes light up.
It started way back when I was wee, when I was washing dishes in a restaurant called ‘Hendriks’ in the Mount. I remember being amazed by the marinated fish, and loved making the curried eggs. Shrimp cocktails were a joy. We had a pot-luck-lunch thing at school when I was in 7th form, and I baked a Grand Marnier cake. The teachers looked at me like I was “a poof”. God bless closed minded small towns. I still work to shake the years of ingrained prejudice.
Anyhow. I was given this cookbook for my recent birthday, and it’s a cracker. Bourdain is very much a ‘character’, as anyone familar with him will know, and that comes through in the cookbook. What distinguishes this cookbook from the million other books out there, is that he writes the book with the user in mind.
If you’re at all experienced in commerical kitchens then you’ll be aware that preparation is the most vital part of cooking. A decent meal is at very best sometimes prepared on the spur of the moment. All those dinner parties you’ve been to where the chef just “magically produces” a fantastic dish? Bullshit. They’ve been in there slaving for a day or more.
Mise en place is the fundamental tenet of decent cooking. The idea is that you do all the background cooking (stocks and sauces for example), then you do all your immediate preparation (chopping vegetables, cleaning meats) well in advance of the actual cooking.
What this leads to is less stress when it comes time to the cooking bit, and a better product because of it. There’s no “FCUK, gotta run to the dairy to buy [something you should already have]“, and consequently the kitchen is a much more enjoyable place.
What Bourdain does is divide each recipe into different types of preparation, and it makes for much better reading. One of the things that has always annoyed me about Jamie Oliver (for example), is that he uses pretty expensive ingredients, but doesn’t let you know that. He also doesn’t tell you when something is relatively hard to find. Bourdain spells all that out, which in combination with the staged preparation approach, means you’re not scratching your head wondering how in the hell the dish you’re trying to make is both cooked, and more importantly, assembled.
I’m looking forward to using this book. First recipe? choucroute garnie. In english? Types of pork with sauerkraut. Then I think I’m ready for cassoulet.
6 May, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I love cooking. We had good friends around for lunch today, so I tried a couple of recipes out of Annabel Langbein’s latest. A winter lentil soup (lentils, chicken stock, tomatoes in various guises, diced carrots, diced kransky, flavoured with onions, garlic and paprika) – yum, yum, yum. And for dessert, my maiden pavlova. It was a triumph. Thank you, Annabel.
Here’s the thing. The ingredients weren’t expensive, and the meal was comparatively low fat (until we all put large dollops of cream on our pav).
And the joy of it was that, apart from the last minute serving flurry, all the preparation and cooking was done well in advance, so that when our friends arrived, I could sit and gossip (and drink) until it was time to eat.
6 May, 2007 at 8:47 pm
you know… i don’t think fat actually counts unless it’s the fast food kind?
8 May, 2007 at 7:18 am
I’m not great cook, but I do love the way Bourdain manages to stay on the right side of the line between being a foodie and tooth-grinding food snobbery. (Not quite as painful as wine bores, but pretty close.) Nice to see someone who gets the pleasure principle – and incidentally is a damn good, and genuinely funny, writer.
8 May, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Nice to read your blog Che (and Hi, after many years!). Thanks for the Bourdain reference. I too love to cook – and actually enjoy Jamie Oliver and a little book called Bowl Food which I’ve been playing with lately.
Serving good food to guests is really a pleasure
9 May, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Bowl Food? I have a copy of that – its been quite good value for money in terms of the number of times I’ve used it and the number of recipies which have entered my standard repertoire. Current favourites include the Cresti di gallo penne with creamy tomato and bacon sauce, and the chilli beef (which, if you muck with it, can be a bit saucy, like the beef kung pao at KK’s). And yes, I agree on the joy of serving good food to guests.
As for Bourdain, I haven’t read any of his books – only seen one of his TV shows a few times (he went to Paris, ate food I wouldn’t touch, and indulged in antique absinthe). The TV version of “kitchen confidential” was however a scream (unusualy for me, as i think Americans are typically incapable of comedy).
23 March, 2012 at 4:11 am
Adam was the best baker in New York City
9 May, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Damn – no HTML in comments. My strikethrough for “credti di gallo” disappeared. Why use funny shaped and harder to find pasta when its not essential and penne (or actually, spirals, dammit) will do?
OTOH I brook no compromise or substitution on pine nuts.
9 May, 2007 at 6:43 pm
most dried pasta is much of a muchness.
the italian chefs i used to work with had an interesting perspective on fresh pasta tho. they described it as the ‘meat’ of a dish, and insisted that the shape had to be appropriate to the sauce it “held to it”.
took me a while to figure that one out. but it’s kind of true.
try to check out bourdain if you can. he has the most accurate perspective on kitchens i’ve ever read. failing that, i’ll be posting recipes i’ve tried of his online. that should save you student types a wee bit of $$ on book outlay.
9 May, 2007 at 6:53 pm
PS. hi brenda! nice to meet you.
10 May, 2007 at 8:56 am
from bowl food i can recommend the laksa recipe. when i was living in amsterdam where there was no laksa to be found anywhere for love nor money, i resorted to making my own – and the bowl food one was the best.
also the beetroot salad with goat cheese is surprisingly delicious!
5 June, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Meanwhile I’ve just picked up Bowl Food’s companion volume, “Fast Food”. Flipping through it there were a good half-dozen recipes in the first section alone that I wanted to try, though further in there’s far too many “big hunk of meat” dishes, and way too much fish. Still, I think I’ll get similar value for money from it.
5 June, 2007 at 4:56 pm
i’m trying out bourdains duck confit recipe this evening. will keep you posted.
and i’m thinking that cookbooks is likely to be a good post for future.
5 June, 2007 at 6:58 pm
it just dawned on me… i/s is probably a vegetarian?
7 June, 2007 at 12:11 am
Che: I can see how you’d get that impression given my stated distaste for “big hunk of meat” dishes, but actually I’m not. If you read upthread, you may notice I also have a taste for creamy tomato & bacon pasta sauces, and chilli beef stir fry. I’m just highly picky about what I will eat and how it is prepared.
7 June, 2007 at 7:14 am
good good. no point offending more readers than i have to!
8 January, 2010 at 11:29 am
I heard that he was to eager do a Coronation Street appearence Lol. Sounds a bit dodgy to me. There’s a part of me that kind of hopes this is not true lol.