Fun with Fire and Heat

One of this Cook's Favorite Snacks--Spicy Red Sauce Rigatoni

Brown Butter with Amaretto and Sage(for Butternut Squash Ravioli)

Old Apples headed for the composter...

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Originally uploaded by 1WheelDrive

Gumbo

It's time to make Gumbo. Shrimp, crab, okra, file, sausage, black roux, onions, bell peppers, garlic, dried cayenne peppers.....(recipe coming soon)

Soup is good food

Lately I've been making and eating alot of soup. A good cup of soup at or around noontime really warms up the soul, the attitude, and I'm all set. Broth soups are best, but a good pureed vegetable like squash or tomato is just as good. All natural or as natural as possible, fresh ingredients. Chicken broth, veg broth, beef....Swanson's I believe makes the best in terms of flavor, value and naturalness... just make sure you don't get the one that includes msg. As I've mentioned before, cooking with salt is important, but don't overdo it with soup.

Some recent soups:

Ribolitta

Beef and Mushroom

Vegetable Minestrone with lentils and cannelini(very similar to my Ribolitta recipe)

Southwest Indian-style Chicken(with the three sisters, among other colorful and flavorful ingredients)'Southwest' meaning the flavors and heat. The Three Sisters is a more widespread planting/culinary practice dating back to at least the Mayans(read the link and google some more it's interesting stuff)

Clam Chowder with Yucca and Yukon

Ham and Lentil

kitchen personalities #1

I've met many people over the years working in the kitchen. Many GOOD people. Not really many scumbags, believe it. And every situation I've been in, I've found someone who has schooled me in some quotable way.... 

A manager at the muffin place I started cooking at, when I customarily greeted him with "How ya doing?", he'd ALWAYS respond, "Excellent!!" As a teenager I just couldnt fathom why he always said that.

The owner's kid at the same place, showing me for the first time how to clean and cut a head of iceberg lettuce, peeled off the outer layers of brown and wilty leaves, referring to them as 'shit lettuce'. I always remembered that, and have used that one ever since, that is, when I get the opportunity to train a new guy who speaks english...

 

Joe Zazz, a manager at TGIF--his motto was "One Stop Shopping", meaning, make a list and go get everything you need in one trip. Never come back without both hands full.

Chef Bundy at NECI always wondered out loud about the trendy menu descriptions of vegetables being cooked "crisp tender". He really amused himself with that.

Chef Patrick at NECI could hear a stock at a rolling boil from across the kitchen and would come stomping over the wooden floor in his wooden clogs,  12" knife in hand, red-faced and screaming,  "THAT STOCK IS BOILING!!!"

Chef Michel, drilled into us that, following our graduation from culinary school, we would NOT be chefs, but would likely have to work like dogs as sous-chefs for many years, before being able to refer to ourselves as chefs. 

Steve H, a fellow sous at St Cloud, would always say, "Chicken is poison!", referring to the potential for sickness with mishandled poultry...he had many more sayings, which I can't remember, but upon his last day in the kitchen, chef Murcko unrolled about 12 feet of butcher paper and wrote, in black marker, every one of his quotes and hung it on the wall next to his station, just to remind him how sadly he'd be missed, I guess....

I guess this would be installment #1, as there are many more, but I'm fading.....