The Butterfly Effect Meme - what influences here and there inspired me to cook
1. An ingredient
I hate peas. I have always hated them. Even the fresh ones that seem so appealing and green and cute, they taste like peas. You can't avoid the essential pea-ness of them, and I hate that. My mom and stepdad insisted on cooking canned peas with dinner every week or so, even though I despised them. I think this is because they wanted to include something green and vegetable in the meal, and misguidedly reached into the CANNED GOODS and not the crisper. Blech.
One day the peas were different. They tasted interesting, and almost OK. I was so excited! I thought there was now a magical ingredient that made peas OK, it was such exciting news. HOWEVER. The ingredient did not work next time, though I then found out that this ingredient could be found elsewhere, and was delicious. Garlic!
2. A dish, a recipe
I recall the first time I had really good cheese. We visited my stepfather's brother's house, and they had this swirl of creamy goat cheese with sundried tomatoes in the swirl. I had never tasted anything so good, ever. I thanked my aunt profusely for this, so much that it was embarassing to one or both of us how much I liked this cheese. I wouldn't say that this incident was the start of my interest in good food, but it was probably the first time I realized there was even better stuff out there, that I had never had.
This, however, did not convince me to eat the other novel dishes they served those days, including what they called "Tiger Meat" but was really just steak tartare. It looked like a gigantic raw hamburger, waiting to go on the grill, but the bun would've been the size of a pizza. And they just ate it and ate it. On crackers. So Gross. And my mom speculates that the indigestion they all felt after a big holiday meal might not be simple indigestion from eating a lot, but from eating a lot of RAW MEAT.
3. A meal (in a restaurant, a home, or elsewhere)
If you ask what my favorite restaurant is, I might say Castle Hill in Austin, though I have been there but twice or three times, and I don't even live in Austin anymore. They have a changing menu, every few months, I think, but their overall notion of what goes together appeals to me. Nice salads, salty and fruity and cheesy, but not too heavy. Entrees that are put together with great vegetables. My favorite meal there, believe it or not, was little beef medallions with glazed carrots and gorgonzola mashed potatoes. I wouldn't even say I Like steak or carrots, but perhaps that's because I am hypocritical when it comes to what I say I like vs. what I actually like. I like steak and bacon and chicken and butter and all that, but I don't want to like it or eat it. Castle Hill somehow convinced me that this was the right choice, though, and it was delicious. And finished off with a delicious pear and apple cobbler. So good.
One other memorable meal was in San Diego at some fish place - Charthouse maybe - right on the ocean. I had some sort of sweet soy-glazed firm white fish, some spinach or carrot accompaniment, with sesame perhaps, and the most delicious coconut rice I've ever eaten. Wow.
Another really great place - West Lynn Cafe in Austin, now defunct. The most delectable vegetarian place around, spinach lasagna that was creamy and soft and moist, and the best dessert ever, this vegan chocolate mocha torte from some local bakery that convinced me that while vegan food is not all that compelling for me, they sure can bake some delicious stuff. Like, to make up for the harsh strictures on every other food, including HONEY, they make the best indulgences. Hell, that cake might not even have had WHEAT in it, it might have been that kind of vegan, but it sure was good.
4. A cookbook or other written work
Cooking Light magazine, and Cooks Illustrated magazine.
Cooking Light suffers from some flaws - overemphasis on the lifestyle section, and sometimes really terrible recipes due to the "lightness" aspect. However, they have some really good ones, and good ideas on how to lighten up a dish. Good vegetables, good quick meals, good ideas, but not good enough to remember when I'm actually trying to figure out what's for dinner.
Cooks' Illustrated is a great magazine that scientifically tests products, tools, and recipes to create the ideal version of a given dish. They have some really good recipes, especially for desserts, but they emphasize some fairly meaty stuff, and I just don't do meaty that much. I appreciate that they tell you how to make great pot roast or roast chicken or pork tenderloin or whatever, but really I want a semi-vegetarian dish, with lots of fresh vegetables, and they just don't do that too much. However, their scientific approach really thrills me and makes me enjoy their magazine a great deal.
5. A food “personality” (chef, writer, etc.)
I think the Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, was an influence, because he cooked so effortlessly and seemed so smart and fancy. Yan Can Cook, another PBS cooking show that we watched at lunch at my grandmother's house, was inspiring mainly because he was an entertaining cook, chopping vegetables so quickly I was sure he would cut his hands off.
Justin Wilson was amazing in that he didn't use measuring tools very often at all. And when he did, he would ignore the recipe anyway. Mainly when it came to wine, though - if the dish called for 4 cups of wine (and honestly, what the hell dish calls for 4 c of wine???), he'd add 5 or so, whatever he felt like. He didn't seem to measure spices or salt, either, though I seem to remember a time when he showed off that actually he WAS measuring, just didn't use the same tools as everyone else. He poured salt in his hand and said "this is 2 tablespoons" and poured it into real measuring spoons and he was exactly right. I think this may have been more influential on my cooking than I realized, because I don't have a recipe for half the normal stuff I make, and I don't measure the spices, just know the right relative amounts for how much food there is, how much of the other ingredients, etc. I don't think Justin Wilson deserves all the credit there, though, because my mom and grandma cook the same way, I think.
6. Another person in your life
My grandmother inspired confidence in the kitchen, showed us how stuff was done, supported our modest cooking efforts as children. They had a farm out in the country, an hour or more south of Ft. Worth, and grew tomatoes, potatoes, blackberries, peaches, green beans, blackeyed peas, hard little pears, okra, pecans, and corn sometimes. Their neighbors grew melons (watermelons, canteloupe/muskmelon, cranshaw melons) and occasionally other things too. My grandmother canned tons of this stuff, and still has canned pears and tomatoes from 10 years ago (don't worry, they don't eat it, they know it's bad, they just don't like to get rid of stuff, like, Ever).
My sister and I spent many summer weeks there as kids.
One more influential person - my sister B who reminded me while I lived in a little blue house in Austin that I really did like bacon, and that we should eat some.
1. An ingredient
I hate peas. I have always hated them. Even the fresh ones that seem so appealing and green and cute, they taste like peas. You can't avoid the essential pea-ness of them, and I hate that. My mom and stepdad insisted on cooking canned peas with dinner every week or so, even though I despised them. I think this is because they wanted to include something green and vegetable in the meal, and misguidedly reached into the CANNED GOODS and not the crisper. Blech.
One day the peas were different. They tasted interesting, and almost OK. I was so excited! I thought there was now a magical ingredient that made peas OK, it was such exciting news. HOWEVER. The ingredient did not work next time, though I then found out that this ingredient could be found elsewhere, and was delicious. Garlic!
2. A dish, a recipe
I recall the first time I had really good cheese. We visited my stepfather's brother's house, and they had this swirl of creamy goat cheese with sundried tomatoes in the swirl. I had never tasted anything so good, ever. I thanked my aunt profusely for this, so much that it was embarassing to one or both of us how much I liked this cheese. I wouldn't say that this incident was the start of my interest in good food, but it was probably the first time I realized there was even better stuff out there, that I had never had.
This, however, did not convince me to eat the other novel dishes they served those days, including what they called "Tiger Meat" but was really just steak tartare. It looked like a gigantic raw hamburger, waiting to go on the grill, but the bun would've been the size of a pizza. And they just ate it and ate it. On crackers. So Gross. And my mom speculates that the indigestion they all felt after a big holiday meal might not be simple indigestion from eating a lot, but from eating a lot of RAW MEAT.
3. A meal (in a restaurant, a home, or elsewhere)
If you ask what my favorite restaurant is, I might say Castle Hill in Austin, though I have been there but twice or three times, and I don't even live in Austin anymore. They have a changing menu, every few months, I think, but their overall notion of what goes together appeals to me. Nice salads, salty and fruity and cheesy, but not too heavy. Entrees that are put together with great vegetables. My favorite meal there, believe it or not, was little beef medallions with glazed carrots and gorgonzola mashed potatoes. I wouldn't even say I Like steak or carrots, but perhaps that's because I am hypocritical when it comes to what I say I like vs. what I actually like. I like steak and bacon and chicken and butter and all that, but I don't want to like it or eat it. Castle Hill somehow convinced me that this was the right choice, though, and it was delicious. And finished off with a delicious pear and apple cobbler. So good.
One other memorable meal was in San Diego at some fish place - Charthouse maybe - right on the ocean. I had some sort of sweet soy-glazed firm white fish, some spinach or carrot accompaniment, with sesame perhaps, and the most delicious coconut rice I've ever eaten. Wow.
Another really great place - West Lynn Cafe in Austin, now defunct. The most delectable vegetarian place around, spinach lasagna that was creamy and soft and moist, and the best dessert ever, this vegan chocolate mocha torte from some local bakery that convinced me that while vegan food is not all that compelling for me, they sure can bake some delicious stuff. Like, to make up for the harsh strictures on every other food, including HONEY, they make the best indulgences. Hell, that cake might not even have had WHEAT in it, it might have been that kind of vegan, but it sure was good.
4. A cookbook or other written work
Cooking Light magazine, and Cooks Illustrated magazine.
Cooking Light suffers from some flaws - overemphasis on the lifestyle section, and sometimes really terrible recipes due to the "lightness" aspect. However, they have some really good ones, and good ideas on how to lighten up a dish. Good vegetables, good quick meals, good ideas, but not good enough to remember when I'm actually trying to figure out what's for dinner.
Cooks' Illustrated is a great magazine that scientifically tests products, tools, and recipes to create the ideal version of a given dish. They have some really good recipes, especially for desserts, but they emphasize some fairly meaty stuff, and I just don't do meaty that much. I appreciate that they tell you how to make great pot roast or roast chicken or pork tenderloin or whatever, but really I want a semi-vegetarian dish, with lots of fresh vegetables, and they just don't do that too much. However, their scientific approach really thrills me and makes me enjoy their magazine a great deal.
5. A food “personality” (chef, writer, etc.)
I think the Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, was an influence, because he cooked so effortlessly and seemed so smart and fancy. Yan Can Cook, another PBS cooking show that we watched at lunch at my grandmother's house, was inspiring mainly because he was an entertaining cook, chopping vegetables so quickly I was sure he would cut his hands off.
Justin Wilson was amazing in that he didn't use measuring tools very often at all. And when he did, he would ignore the recipe anyway. Mainly when it came to wine, though - if the dish called for 4 cups of wine (and honestly, what the hell dish calls for 4 c of wine???), he'd add 5 or so, whatever he felt like. He didn't seem to measure spices or salt, either, though I seem to remember a time when he showed off that actually he WAS measuring, just didn't use the same tools as everyone else. He poured salt in his hand and said "this is 2 tablespoons" and poured it into real measuring spoons and he was exactly right. I think this may have been more influential on my cooking than I realized, because I don't have a recipe for half the normal stuff I make, and I don't measure the spices, just know the right relative amounts for how much food there is, how much of the other ingredients, etc. I don't think Justin Wilson deserves all the credit there, though, because my mom and grandma cook the same way, I think.
6. Another person in your life
My grandmother inspired confidence in the kitchen, showed us how stuff was done, supported our modest cooking efforts as children. They had a farm out in the country, an hour or more south of Ft. Worth, and grew tomatoes, potatoes, blackberries, peaches, green beans, blackeyed peas, hard little pears, okra, pecans, and corn sometimes. Their neighbors grew melons (watermelons, canteloupe/muskmelon, cranshaw melons) and occasionally other things too. My grandmother canned tons of this stuff, and still has canned pears and tomatoes from 10 years ago (don't worry, they don't eat it, they know it's bad, they just don't like to get rid of stuff, like, Ever).
My sister and I spent many summer weeks there as kids.
- We picked the vegetables. I was terrified of picking the blackberries because the were pokey but also because supposedly they were a snake hangout, so I was always afraid to get too close or stay too long in one place, because I feared a snake would come out and get me. Combine this with the thorny obstacle course of vines that kept each berry safe from me, and it was not a good deal. I also disliked picking okra, because it too is prickly. Picking beans was fun, and peaches, and tomatoes. They had little "lightbulb tomatoes" in yellow and orange. Also bigger red ones.
- We "helped" plant vegetables. Once, they say, we were planting potatoes. The trenches had been dug, and either B or my grandmother were placing the eyes in the furrows, and my job was to cover them with dirt after they had been placed. Somehow I got ahead of the sowers, and covered the nothing with dirt. Grows less potatoes like that. I wonder how this could've happened, though, and begin to question the authenticity of this story. However, I remember thinking it was very funny.
- Once the produce was in the house, we helped process it: I shelled beans, and snapped beans, and sliced okra (which I hated, because it stung). I washed the lightbulb tomatoes and put them on my fingers. I tried to figure out a way to put fireflies inside the lightbulb tomatoes, so I could have a lightbulb tomato that actually lit up. I couldn't figure out a way to do this that didn't involve 1) touching bugs and 2) suffocating said bugs once they were IN the tomato, so it never happened. I also drew labels for the plum jelly.
- The most exciting processing, though, was one time we had tons of tomatoes and were grinding them up into sauce using the food mill. The tomato juice shot everywhere, and grandma, B and I laughed and laughed. I think we wore old white t-shirts that were grandpa's undershirts, so that we didn't get filthy. I can still sort of remember B and I perched precariously on the stools by the end of the counter, rearing back from tomato squirts.
One more influential person - my sister B who reminded me while I lived in a little blue house in Austin that I really did like bacon, and that we should eat some.
posted by Amie at 2:41 PM
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