Cooking: a love and life story
I like to cook, but I have to admit that I'm not the best at it. You might think I'm being hard on myself, that my skills are better than I think they are, but believe me I'm just average. It's been over ten years now since I had to learn how to feed myself in order to survive. I started with zero skills, and by that, I mean: I had to ask my flatmate whether or not to boil the water before putting the spaghetti in the pan — a flatmate who, despite graduating with honors, told me that he had long since given up trying to answer that question and had solved the problem by becoming a raw food eater.
I was fortunate to grow up in a family where a good meal is sacred, where to this very day, gathering at the table and sharing time around a plate is cherished — where long ago, when our grandfather, a good Christian church-goer, once told my little sister at lunch that she should stand still and thank the Lord for our food, she stopped rocking back and forth in her chair to look him in the eye before turning her head to our grandmother to say: "Well, grandpa's wrong, grandma made this meal, so let's thank her!"
Yes, she had it all figured out by the age of six.
Looking back on our childhood with my sister, it's strange that I was so surprised to learn that she didn't want to go to university, but rather become a chef. Come to think of it, she was always fascinated by the strange concoctions and magic that went on in my grandmother's kitchen. While I was in the garden with my grandfather, taking care of the tomatoes, she asked our grandfather to "plant more potatoes and harvest them while they're still small because once they're cooked and peeled, they're a 'vrai délice' by themselves even if they're even better with a little butter and a pinch of salt" — to quote the French eight-year-old girl she had become. She was the one who created vinaigrettes and tasted them as if they were a Grand Cru.
When she went to culinary school, my mother began researching recipes and mastering new techniques at home. Our mother is an excellent cook — as many mothers are in the eyes of their children. But as her daughter, I must insist that she IS exceptional!
Both my mother and my sister studied hard and spent hours experimenting in the kitchen. Experiments that sometimes got out of hand, like the day they made so many quiches — twelve to be exact, plus a small one to use up the rest of the preparation — that they ended up going around the block to offer them to the neighbors. And while they were making pickle tests and quiches à gogo, my father and I had the immense privilege of becoming their official testers and finest critics.
But even the most beautiful stories have darker sides. In this case, it was a) a lack of culinary skills that I first discovered when I started university and b) a fine palate developed over many fine meals that was constantly thwarted when I tried to feed myself over those years.
Whereas my father hid his cards well and had learned, after years of listening and observation, to sublimate very banal salads by giving them colors, textures, scents, and above all tastes by not being afraid to add oil, nuts and fine herbs, as well as seasonal fruits such as strawberries in summer and clementines in winter, thereby rendering his salads exquisite. I, on the other hand, had a few problems with cooking.
After solving the tricky question of "how to cook pasta properly" through trial and error — far too many —, I lived on the great pasta/pizza/tomato and mozzarella salad combo — a meal rotation that kept me alive for the first three years of my fast-paced college life. As I slowly but surely became sick of that menu in every possible way, I set out on the quest of learning how to eat. Looking back, I've made some progress, although I sincerely believe that you learn and improve with every potato you peel and every pan you put on the stove.
However, I must confess that this quest for learning is slowed by the fact that sometimes — far more often than I care to admit — I become obsessed with a recipe for days, weeks, or even months. Recipes I will cook and eat over and over until I get bored and almost sick of them — RIP linguine al pesto di noci. This phenomenon even happens with whole vegetables like sweet potatoes and squash, which I hardly enjoy anymore as I ate them too many times last winter.
Knowing this, I try to cook my favorite recipes of the moment, like Ottolenghi's Couscous with Grilled Cherry Tomatoes from his book Simple — by the way, a great gift for bad cooks, a nice present for hungry avid learners, and a page-turner for the rest of the readers and eaters — only on special occasions so as not to ruin them, but some of them, like Monroe's Coconut Dal with Kidney Beans or the ramen, somen, and soba recipes from Yuka in Tokyo, are hard not to cook weekly.
As my mother is calling for dinner, you will have to excuse me, but work is calling. So enjoy your meal and don't forget to thank the cook.