Oui, Chef

Banana Bread

The Z-Man....the Z-Meister....the Z-Dude.... His Royal Z-Ness....or just plain Zooz. 

My recent guest sous-chef goes by all of these names and more, but for the purposes of his temporary assignment to the Oui, Chef kitchen, we shall simply call him..... Z-Chef!

Z-Chef, quite an accomplished young cook in his own right, joined me for a day of his recent summer vacation to roll up his sleeves and have a little fun in the kitchen.  Also an aspiring actor, we thought it might be nice for him to make something that he could share with his Summer Stock acting brethren, you know, a little something to grease the wheels of his thespian experience.  Much to the dismay of a group of colonizing fruit flies, the practically rotting pile of bananas on my counter shouted at us to put them out of their misery, et voila, we were presented with an ideal cooking project....Banana Bread.

Provencal Wheat Berry Salad

I was alone this weekend.

Totally alone. 

No wife, no kids, no pets (except for Monty, Boris’ Ball Python).

So this post will be a little different from the rest.  On Saturday I was not cooking to teach, or to satisfy a crowd, I was cooking for me.  So....what was on the menu you ask?  Let’s see....I had some fresh herbs and arugula from the garden, and some impossibly sweet corn, fresh garlic, and cherry tomatoes from the farmer’s market.  I had some wheat berries in the pantry that I was itchin’ to put to use, and a lovely, locally raised skirt steak for the grill.  All the makings of my favorite kind of meal.  Fresh, healthy and locally produced.

The steak got about 4 hours in a South American style marinade before it spent a scant 4 minutes ( 2 min. each side) on the searing hot grill.  It was served with a chimichurri sauce made from my garden herbs and freshly chopped garlic.  The corn stayed on the cob, simply steamed and served with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.  The wheat berry salad I threw together turned out really well, so I thought I’d share the recipe with you all.

Blueberry Oat Muffins

 

One of the things I am trying to teach the kids in our cooking together, and to be honest, trying to get better about myself, is to be comfortable experimenting in the kitchen.  To be able to cook on the fly, without a recipe, or to take a recipe you have and tweak it to either suit your tastes, or the contents of your pantry, is an excellent skill to have in the kitchen.  My wife, who is an excellent cook is really good at this.  In fact, I think she prefers to cook by instinct as opposed to breaking out a cookbook and cooking from a recipe.  She likes the creative challenge of working this way.  Inspired by her, I have become much more comfortable “using the force” when cooking, applying techniques I know well to ingredients on hand.  Sometimes working to capture classic flavor combinations and profiles that I love, sometimes letting it all hang out and shooting for something totally new.

Working this way while cooking savory dishes is one thing.  I have the occasional total failure, but for the most part, I can wing-it and end up with a pretty tasty dish for the table.  Cooking baked goods or pastries without regard to a recipe however, is just asking for trouble.  There is a real chemistry to baking that cannot be ignored, and if altered in the wrong way, will more often than not lead to poor results.  If you have the time, knowledge, and inclination to set up an honest to goodness test kitchen at home, then have at it, but know that success in developing “new” baking recipes will likely depend on your willingness to work and re-work them many times before hitting upon a winner.  If, like most people, you lack the masochistic bent required for test kitchen work, there are a few other routes you could follow to exercise your creativity.

Duck Fat Potatoes

Living in France for two years ultimately offered great culinary awakenings not just for me, but also for my kids, and they now look back fondly on all of the culinary "firsts" they enjoyed while living there.  That said, I am fairly certain that I was the most hated person on the planet in the days just following our expatriation (remember, we were moving there so that I could go to culinary school), because the culture shock for them was immediate and intense. The kids’ first few weeks in-country were predictably awful (gastronomically speaking), as they were forced to change their diets literally overnight.  Gone were chicken fingers and Velveeta Mac and Cheese, american burgers and dogs, and most breakfast cereals they were accustomed to. 

We had lived there only a couple of days when Arthas hit the wall.  We were buying lunch from a little concession at the entrance to the famed “Catacombs” of Paris.  He ordered a hamburger, expecting no doubt, “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.  Instead, he was handed a fairly suspect patty served on a day old baguette, topped with some WICKED STINKY cheese, and a runny fried egg.  I can still see the poor kid banging his head on the side of the kiosk while fighting back his tears.

Thankfully, within just a few weeks, things started looking up for Arthas on the food front.  It all began turning around for him when we dined at “Le Relais de l’Entrecote” just off of Boulevard Saint-Germain.  “Le Relais” is a restaurant that serves just one dish, but they do it exceedingly well.  If you happen to be in Paris, and are in the mood for Steak-Frites, then “Le Relais” is your place.  The meal there is served in two stages, each filling your plate with perfectly cooked, sliced steak slathered in a fabulous butter-herb sauce (the subject of endless chat-room banter, and the recipe for which appears to be a more closely held secret than that for Coca-Cola!), and a huge pile of golden, crispy fries.  Arthas had just cleaned his plate when the waitress came back around with seconds of everything, the fries fresh from the kitchen, and his fate was sealed.  He was so smitten with the frites, that from that day forward, he would devote considerable energies to searching out the best potato dishes on the planet, a quest that keeps him busy to this day. 

Our time in Paris would present him with two more contenders for the title.

A Final Feast

With all the focus we have had lately on teaching the kids how to cook their favorite meals, it was no surprise that we fell into a lengthy dinner table discussion the other night about the idea of a “Last Supper”.  I know, it sounds a bit morose, to talk with your children of life just before death, so perhaps you would want to change it up a bit should you decide to engage your own family in a chat about the subject.  If your kids are very young, or you anticipate that they would be sensitive to the topic, could always make it a “If you were stuck alone on a desert island, and could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?” kind of thing.  If, however, your kids are like mine, and don’t seem the slight bit phased by the fact that what you are asking, is for them to tell you what they would choose to eat as their last meal before they DIED, then by all means, stick with the “Last Supper” format.  Either way, I guarantee it will be an interesting conversation, one that may surprise you in many ways.

Our conversation was also partly prompted by my recently revisiting a book I received as a gift from my wife last year entitled, My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes .  It is a work, that as the title suggests, profiles 50 famous chefs as they answer the question, “if you could choose one final meal to eat before leaving this life, what would it be?"  The book’s author, Melanie Dunea, does a great job not only documenting the details of the meals, but also who the chefs would want to have cook them, where they would want to be when they sat down to enjoy them, and perhaps most importantly, with whom they would wish to share their final meal in life.