cook pot stories

This week was the first installment of a gift from my sweetheart , a six-week Technique of Cooking class from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts . When I first heard about this class I had some initial resistance. "Do I really need to spend that much time on basic skills? Am I not already a decent cook?" What I was really experiencing was resistance , that insidious force that keeps us from doing the things we most love. What I was really thinking was, "Am I good enough? Will I be the worst one in the class? What if I screw it all up and make a fool of myself?" Kevin cut through all of my questions and just gave me the course as a gift. "You love cooking," he said. "You're already a good cook. Go learn some more." The first class was this past Monday. We focused on knife skills. The instructor, Dave Ramsey, was relaxed and informative, clearly enjoying the class and the opportunity to share his knowledge. Fourteen students with vary...

Tomorrow I start a six week class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. It's an in-depth look at cooking techniques - we start out with knife skills. Assuming I have any fingers left, I'll blog about each class. Wish me luck!

I was in the market today and came across a little container of peeled garlic for 78 cents. Now, I use a lot of garlic in my kitchen. I keep a garlic jar, purchased in Italy and made for this purpose, full of the papery bulbs. I enjoy breaking them apart and peeling each clove, seeing its imperfections and individual shape. I even enjoy the stickiness the comes to my fingers when I've peeled enough cloves that I know the scent won't go away with a quick wash at the sink. I like keeping the whole bulbs handy because they last longer. They don't lose their sting. Because I can touch each clove as I prepare a meal. But this little container was alluring, the ivory cloves looking up at me. What would I do with 35 or so peeled cloves of garlic all at once? I didn't want to roast a 40 clove chicken tonight... Ah. Roasted garlic, so simple and with such benefit. I scooped up the container and spent my 78 cents. I had a plan. Once home I pre-heated the oven to 350, poure...

By Donald Hall Twelve people, most of us strangers, stand in a room   in Ann Arbor, drinking Cribari from jars. Then two young men, who cooked him, carry him to the table on a large square of plywood: his body striped, like a tiger cat’s, from the basting, his legs long, much longer than a cat’s,   and the striped hide as shiny as vinyl. Now I see his head, as he takes his place at the center of the table, his wide pig’s head; and he looks like the javelina that ran in front of the car, in the desert outside Tucson,   and I am drawn to him, my brother the pig,   with his large ears cocked forward, with his tight snout, with his small ferocious teeth   in a jaw propped open by an apple. How bizarre, this raw apple clenched   in a cooked face! Then I see his eyes, his eyes cramped shut, his no-eyes, his eyes like X’s in a comic strip, when the character gets knocked out. This afternoon they read directions from a book: The eyeba...

We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are. - Adelle Davis