The Toque

I love the egg,  so compact, so fragile, so versatile:  an egg can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, even dessert!  What other food can boast such versatility?  Take that hard-boiled egg, the ultimate snack:  protein, fat, portable and just the right size.  Mush that egg with your whisk and some mustard and mayo and you've got lunch.  Add some lettuce and tomato slices and you've got a salad.

A chef's toque, or hat, has 101 pleats, symbolic folds that represent the egg and the 101 ways a French chef can transform it.  I know, your mind is racing through your repetoire:  scrambled, hard-boiled, sunny-side up, omelette...got 10?... maybe 15?  The toque evokes images (Chef Boyardee?) and inspires a certain kind of awe.  In this recent era of cooking shows and celebrity chefs, may I take a moment to celebrate the struggle behind the hard-earned toque?

When I was trying to earn my toque, the devotion to the egg and its nuances was never clearer than when I was in pastry spending an entire day on the egg's most mysterious, most awe-some disguise:  the souffle.  Eggs, milk, sugar:  the simplest ingredients transformed into a dessert that waits for no one.  We gathered around our Genius Chef as he mumbled ingredients and measurements.  He weighed (important!), he cooked slowly (important!) he beat those egg whites and folded gently (SO important!).  We waited for those rising clouds, perfectly formed, to come up and out.  Ooh!  We applauded with our eyes, applauded with clicking spoons scraping the ramekins, and then our Chef looked at us over his glasses and mumbled, "Your turn!"

We measured.  We stirred.  We added our own signatures:  star anise, orange peel, cardamom.  We beamed at our egg whites, poufy and glossy.  We folded with our rubber spatulas (please don't use anything else!), and gently slid our ramekins into the ovens.

Cassandra's fell over the edge, lumpy and drooping.  She cried.  Dahlia's didn't rise at all.  "Why me?"  she wailed.  Mine rose!  I beamed.  Chef pulled mine out of the oven and lifted the top of the souffle off like a muffin top.  "Cake," he grimaced and threw it in the trash. 

We did it again.  Chocolate.  Mmmm.  And again.  Nougat.  Oh my god!  And again.   Lemon.  Oh!  I call this day "The Day I Ate Ten Souffles."

If you can conquer the souffle, your dinner, no matter what you served, becomes Dinner.  They'll talk about The Evening.  They'll eye your potluck contributions with new respect.  A small salad and a cheese souffle isn't lunch, it's Luncheon.  It suddenly warrants opening that bottle of rose.( Really, do it!  It works!)  Where's your flowery dress?  Put it on!

A souffle is empowerment.  It suggests mastery.  Like all things egg, a souffle is not just a recipe.  It is technique, respect, patience, and knowing the proper tools.  A souffle starts so simply.  You may have only 4 or 5 ingredients in front of you, but your sink will be full of dirty before it's over.  You may survive this ordeal only to have your guests sit down too late.  It's possible you are missing a pastry brush, a scale, or that rubber spatula we talked about.  Well,... then,...

I earned my toque in so many ways:  I learned another language, lived halfway across the world, let grown men yell at me and throw things, spent more hours than I can count standing with a hot oven behind me and a hot stove in front of me, but the souffle is one of my proudest accomplishments coming out of school.  The recipe for a great souffle is nothing without the how and why behind each step, and that savoir-faire says it all when a perfect souffle slides in front of you.

Meat Candy

I should be a vegetarian.  Logically, it makes sense on so many levels.  I feel morally conflicted supporting a system that pollutes, abuses, and poisons.  The mass production necessary for a carnivorous population requires factories that reduce living beings to a number, sickened and medicated simulataneously without offering any quality of life.  At the same time, this corporate feeding system pollutes without consequences, poisoning land, water, air-- ourselves!--what?!--and the food we ingest.  What?!

I shake my head.  I need to be a vegetarian.  I shake my head again.  And sigh.  I'd also really like to be a vegetarian.  It feels better to eat "better."  Try your next hamburger as a veggie burger, or just condiments, seriously!, and you'll notice that it tastes about the same.  It's the condiments you crave, not the tasteless beef patty.  Go veggie and getting your 5-a-day will happen before lunchtime.  If you do it right, you'll actually get to eat more!!  (now there's an incentive!)

I'd really like to be a vegetarian.  Vegetariansim gives you automatic access to adventure.  Have an artichoke for dinner! Make that quinoa salad!  Try those sunchokes...A diligent vegetarian, a cooking vegetarian, can be the more creative cook:  (s)he can't just throw a piece of meat in the oven, there's more thinking involved.  Maybe that's why Einstein was a vegetarian!  Hmmm...

I want to be a vegetarian, but I have this Achilles' heel.  I can make an awesome salad with my own dressing, but I catch myself crumbling bacon on top.  I can hover, stirring, over a risotto brimming with fresh sage, butternut squash, toasted hazelnuts, but there I am suddenly frying some pancetta for garnish.  (It belongs there, I swear!)  I'll throw together a quirky three-pea pasta, lemon zest, chives falling in from my scissors, a little cream, and then I feel compelled --yes! compelled!--to add proscuitto.  Yum....!

Everything tastes better with bacon.

And so I waver on that fence because of a pig.  Take away the steak, the chicken for sure (it's kind of tasteless anyway, right?), I don't even need the ribs, just that belly, striped with fat.  Start cooking some bacon and people pour into the kitchen like zombies.  (It even gets my teenager out of bed!)

Even the World Health Organization recommends vegetarianism for the sake of the population and the planet.  I hang my head and pop another slice of bacon in my mouth.  Crunchy, salty-sweet.  I think back to my hippie days in Seattle (let's see, what can I actually remember?).  I had the opportunity to see the Dalai Lama speak.  I sat in reverence and watched this cute little man clean his glasses periodically on his robes and discuss everything, anything, with humor and wisdom.  I sat rapt when he got a question about his diet:  "You're vegetarian, right?"  ....well, yes and no, he said.  He meandered, discussing his health, his doctor, and finally reasoned, "I'm a vegetarian every other day."  Ah!  A lifestyle of moderation that even I could follow.

I follow the Dalai Lama in this way:  I eat vegetarian.  Twice a week, I even try to do vegan.  I've even pushed myself to do Raw.  I know, that seems so Out There, doesn't it?  Eat a salad.  (Raw)  Have a smoothie with almond or coconut milk.  (Raw)   Bag of trail mix mid-morning?   (Raw)  I sprinkle my bacon, have a turkey, bacon, avocado sandwich, make mouthwatering braised lamb or boeuf bourguignon, but mostly, I'm vegetarian.  It works out to about 75% vegetarian.  I can live with that.  We all can...

Got Milk?

I realized my dilema a few years ago, although my body had been sending me not so subtle messages for as long as I can remember.  Pregnant with my first child, I would drink a mug of warm milk and honey before going to bed.  It seemed so storybook.  It should've been calming;  I ignored the tummyache, dismissed the flatulence as part of pregnancy, and stubbornly kept pouring myself my mug of milk. 

I grew up around cows.  They were an integral part of my cultural landscape.  Half of my classmates were famer's kids.  My small college town was also the largest stockyard for cow sales in southern Iowa.  You were reminded every Thursday.  Besides, everyone knows that milk is good for you, right?  My body was telling me otherwise.

I started to hear "lactose intolerant."  This was after I quit coffee (bad idea!), sugar (sad idea!), and wheat (nope, not that...)  My checklist of 'maybe it's this' was getting thin, so I looked at milk in my life and pondered what it would mean to eliminate it from my diet:  no more cookies dunked in a mug of milk.  Okay, that was never a good idea anyway.  I could eat a whole package of cookies just trying to finish off that milk...No more cereal for breakfast.  I could live with that.  No more strawberries and cream.  (moan...) No more ice cream...wait a minute...hell has no ice cream.  I wailed!

I rebelled.  Of course I did!  Nobody tells me what I can and cannot eat--not even myself.  It was a tribute to my stubborness.   There were consequences:  I ate my chocolate-peanut butter ice cream and watched my family slowly, subtely peel away from me during Movie Night.  "Was that the dog, or Mommy?" my little one would ask.  I had seconds on the potato gratin.  Of course I did;  I had worked years to perfect my recipe--the perfect ratio of cream and milk, just enough salt, a little garlic slowly baked into 10 layers of potato, bubbly, crusty, mmmm.  How could I give that up?  But I sat in my chair and felt my tummy bubble up.  My skin stretched in a painful way.  It lasted for a day and a half.  I couldn't wear my sexy jeans!

I was fighting a losing battle.  I was losing badly.  I switched to soy milk.  I made sorbet.  I made gratin but had a salad.  When  my kids have whipped cream on their strawberries, I splash on some creme de cassis.  It's a trade-off, but a happy life is absolutely a negotiation.

Milk cultures are a worldwide minority:  most of the world is lactose intolerant.  Our bodies are programmed to reject milk around the age of two.  Most Asians don't do milk.  Neither do Africans or Middle Easterns.  Look for cheese in a culture and they are milk-drinkers.  I don't feel so all alone in my world.

In fact, I've learned to listen to myself.  I've cut a lot of foods off my list because my body and I have learned how to communicate. (Okay, I learned to listen.)  I know that soda really doesn't quench my thirst.  It actually makes me thirstier.  I also figured out that I really only want one or two sips of my revered Dr. Pepper--more than that doesn't feel good. Those cute little goldfish crackers--we all love them, but I can eat a whole bag and still feel hungry.  Why is that?   Fast food hamburgers feel like a rock in my stomach--off my list.  Fries, give me 10 and I'm good.  Any more than that and I get sluggish.  I've figured out, after eliminated mostly processed foods from my diet that when I do indulge, the lesson is immediate.  The flip side is that when my body is boss and I give it what it needs, I totally get rewarded.  I can eat more, just differently.  I'm awake and aware.  If I eat well 4 or 5 times during the day, I can run like the wind for 10 miles (and I do!).

It was a hard lesson.  It took me too long to figure it out.  I still bake cookies and brownies, but I give a lot of them away.  I sleep better.  My sexy jeans rest on my hips.  My children cuddle with me on the couch. I've introduced a new question after dinner: "How did that make you feel?"  It's a good question for my little ones, whether it's food or friends or...I'm waiting, but it's coming...boyfriends.  Awareness.  Relationships.  Consequences.  Effects.  Feelings.

Complementary

They say opposites attract.  I've always enjoyed that sentiment:  yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine,
the juxtaposition of two things that seem alien and yet clearly are better together.

I feel that way when I walk into a room and the colors are so right--a contrast that works on a cellular level within your brain, even your soul.  Put red and green together and there you are in your happy place. (They're Christmas colors for a reason!)

A great Haiku will do that for me--the simplicity of three short lines that manages to pair the unlikely in a way that's surprising, even delightful in your heart. 

When I'm cooking or baking, I find that a combination of opposites often creates the most intriguing synthesis, even when working with the most basic elements:  salty, creamy peanut butter with sweet chunky jam is great--we all know this one.  Spread it on toasted bread and it's elevated;  adding that warm crunch just raises the bar exponentially.  Treat yourself to thick, tangy yogurt with a dollop of that same sweet jam.  Stir in some great granola and you've got a love triangle of taste in your mouth.  What a way to start the day!

I recall my pastry chef in cooking school teaching me how to build a plated dessert.  We deconstructed, discussed elements and tastes, opposites and the problematic sliding scoop of ice cream.  "Where's your crunch?"  he'd ask, exasperated.  I was pretty sure he was a genius (I'm still sure!), so I watched, copied, and  learned to ask the right questions;  the most important became 'What Would Chef Do?'

I snuck roasted pears into my chocolate souffle, added a salted caramel garnish and watched the judges clean the plate.  I transferred this to cuisine and landed an A with tuna tartare, roasted tomato sorbet, garlic crouton glistening with my famous tapenade.  "Yes!"  I roared.  My plates looked and tasted like I was a French-trained chef!  My plates looked like I wasn't really that girl from Iowa...

...but I am.  I don't mind that I grew up among cornfields, took bowling lessons, smell 'that cow smell' and fondly think of home.  It keeps me grounded.   I am a French-trained chef, but I'm not a chi-chi kind of girl.  It's not in me, so I ponder quietly, 'What Would Chef Do?' and find the perfect compromise between the Chef in me and the Iowa in me:  creme brulee.

It's the simplest dessert:  eggs, milk, sugar. (Oh, yeah...let's not forget the blowtorch!)  A basic creme anglaise (ice cream, anyone?  bread pudding?), cooked, then baked.  Creme brulee:  burnt cream, but not really;  shake it: it doesn't move.  Cold, creamy, thick pudding with a slender layer of sugar sprinkled on top.  Light that blow torch and enjoy this moment!   At what other time in your life are you going to wrangle a blow torch and look quite so masterful?!  Tap that hard topping.  It breaks into tiny sparkling shards that sink their teeth into that cream.  Bite after bite you get it all:  cold, warm, creamy, crunchy, sweet, bitter. 

My genius chef allows a smile while he's spooning and I find that my two selves are smiling too.

The Shape of My Bread

Bread.  Rice doesn't hold up quite the same way.  Tortillas don't quite cut it for me.  And no, Wonder bread doesn't come to mind, either.  There's bread, and there's Bread.  The bread that birthed my staple peanut butter and jelly is what the French call "pain de mie", "mie" meaning the fleshy part of any bread.  No, we don't have a name for that.  It can be pasty white, whole wheat, whole grain, or seven seed...that's not my Bread.  It's that baguette in all its shapes and sizes that can make me disregard the rest of my plate.  A great bread can be a meal in itself:  a crackling crust with a hint of fire and smoke on the ends, holey, yeasty mie inside.  Don't kid yourself, that supermarket baguette isn't what I'm talking about either!

A baguette isn't so very good for you:  flour, yeast, salt, and water.  Bleached, white flour.  Okay, you can change the flour, make it levain or pugeleise to add taste and texture.  You can throw in nuts, dried fruit, spices--those breads are jewels on my counter, and I try to do them justice with the right stuff inside:  cranberry-walnut with turkey and melted provolone--this sandwich will take you straight to November;  dried fig and anise seed with a chalky chevre.  Throw on some arugula and my eyes roll back...mmmm;  a chewy square of ciabatta with dijon and salami.  Tuck in some French cornichons. Oh, yeah!

I love these breads.  They're the rock stars in my repetoire, but I'm not so very jet set.  I love my simple life, and so I turn again to that simple baguette.  That baguette is chameleon-like, a master of disguise.  Make it fatter, wider, and it's not a baguette anymore, it's a batard.  Turn that baguette into a round and the French, with their unexpected sense of humor, call it a "miche" because it looks like a great butt.  Stretch that baguette like it's on a torture rack, and it turns into a French model.  She's called a "ficelle" or string:  long, tall, skinny.  Lots of crust, not much flesh. 

This one keeps me honest.  When I want a truly great sandwich, I skip the rock stars, I bypass the Oroweat, and reach for a ficelle:  the perfect sandwich bread, it's as long as your arm and as skinny as Mick Jagger.  I slice my ficelle lengthwise:  crunching, crackling, crumbs bouncing.  I spread softened butter on one side, and layer thin slices of ham or proscuitto, one slice barely overlapping another. And....suddenly, I don't have room for anything else.  This is not a subway.  This is no concoction.  This is life at its simplest:  bread, butter, ham.  I feel like Heidi having lunch with Grandfather in the mountains!

If I take my lunch public, if I walk around with my sandwich, people will look, maybe twice.  Someone will ask, "Where did you GET that?"  I will start to walk differently with that  ficelle in my hand:  I slow down.  I saunter.  A whistle might pop out of my mouth.  I look around nonchalantly for grass, a bench, a patch of sun.  My hand may absently go to my head, and I think 'Dang!  I've forgotten my beret!'

I sit.  I bite.  I chew.  I taste.  And that's it.  That's the perfection of this ficelle:  you can't stuff or layer it.  There's no way to squish 10 non-essential condiments and garnishes onto this bread.  You don't lose taste of what you're eating.  There's just one, and I can taste it.  I can't wolf down my ficelle while trying to do something else.  I can't eat this in my car.  It feels wrong to try this one at my desk.  I can't rush my lunch:  my ficelle won't let me, and I don't want to...

The Cheese Course

I'm from Iowa.  1970s and 80s Iowa.  If we had a salad, it was iceberg lettuce.  If we had a vegetable, it was probably potatoes or corn.  Green beans in a can.  Dinner was not an experience.  With two big brothers, it was survival.  Dinner at my house was a rhythmic as the week:  Beef Stroganoff every Monday, Tator Tot Casserole on Tuesday...

Then I grew up, left Iowa and met this French man who took me to meet his family the first chance he got.  I didn't eat in France:  I communed with my plate.  I didn't always know what his family was placing in front of me, and I definitely didn't understand anything except their lovely smiles, but I didn't care.  Every meal I had was joyfully made, given, and shared.  I've never sat at a table for so long.  Eating is an experience for the French like no other culture.  I've watched families discuss their ice cream cones in the park. 

My favorite part of learning "French" was the cheese course.  My French man and his family took me to restaurants, and the hostess would bring out a cheese tray at the end of the meal:  twenty cheeses, all different shapes and colors.  Smelly.  In a good way.  She'd name them off in a sing-song way and I'd point like a child in a candy store:  Montrachet, Liverot, Morbier. 

I spent my first sojourn into France learning that cutting the cheese was not a giggling matter.  There are rules!  Eat this crust, but not that one.  Eat this cheese last.  (Really?  Why?....Oh!)  This one goes with that bread.  Oh! Yes it does!

I didn't get this growing up.  We had Velveeta and American.  Cheddar.  Orange cheeses.  So I'm playing catch up.  Over 450 cheeses in France alone.  Over 400 certified and regulated by the government.  I tiptoe around Europe and sometimes come home for the artisanal cheese explosion from the 90s.  (yes, there was one--did you miss it?)  Montery Jack has nothing on a ripe St. Andre, smooth, creamy, it whispers to you:  "yes, I'm cheese, even though I feel like butter."  Pick up a Reblechon for your next grilled cheese sandwich.  A little stinky,yes, but add some salami or proscuitto and this sandwich becomes like those fuzzy slippers you wear to keep your feet cozy.  (a little stinky, yes...)

The cheese course. It's just civilized.  I recommend it.  It gives your meal closure, finishes off that baguette, and cleans your teeth all at the same time.  "Are we done?" is not a question when you have a plate of cheese waiting.  So simple:  two or three cheeses on a plate.  It's the same every night--cheese--and yet not the same depending on the cheeses you choose.  It's a learning experience.  Add some fruit.  Or nuts.  Or dried fruit.  You just can't indulge in a cheese course without comment.  To me, cheese is magic:  a fungus?  yes.  a bacteria?  yes!  a conversation waiting to happen?  bring it on!

What's For Dinner?

I have a picky eater.  She's 5.  Our family dinners have been taken hostage by obscure rules created a la minute by ruffles and blue eyes:  "I don't eat white food," she sighs, flouncing away from the plate.  Oh!  I didn't know...I feel apologetic;  I feel frustrated;  I feel like a failure.  Why haven't I, her mother, tapped the code to fix her?  What game have I missed?  What phrase has not crossed my June Cleaver lips, understanding and patient, to get her to sit down and take one bite?  She spins away, nightly, in her sing-song way, from the plate of ratatouille with polenta to my revered Mediterranean pasta.  (...sigh...)

She's not starving.  She's not fixated.  She's just matter-of-fact.  Somehow, without tasting--and sometimes without even looking!-- she knows deep down that polenta is not her thing, that roasted potatoes are yucky, that my Mediterranean pasta makes her head hurt.  (...deep sigh...)

We've created a small list.  Some things are acceptable, but these things are awesome:  rotisserie chicken, quesadillas (no fancy stuff, please!) tortellini, ...........corn dogs..... I know!  The shame!  It's the corn dog that really brings my head down.  I must've been truly desperate...

I sigh.  I ponder.  I scheme.  Sometimes I bite my lip and worry.  I'm in a constant whirl, trying to bend and bend my philosophies, my food morality, without breaking.  (Okay, let's be honest, the corn dog broke me!)
But after 5 years, I think I've figured it out:  I give this girl an awesome breakfast, varied, warm, healthy, which she eats with enthusiasm, because she's really hungry.  I pack her a ritualized lunch:  obligatory PB & J, fruit, cheese, cookie (yes, it's homemade).  She has a snack of her choice after school.  I present these good choices all day, and if she won't or can't eat Mommy's dinner, that's okay.  She sits at the table.  We talk, we giggle, we whine.  We feed the dog!  We spill our water --"that's okay, get a towel," I sing.  She has a small plate in front of her.  It's usually untouched.  I clear her plate.  I've stopped sighing and stopped worrying.  Instead of changing my daughter, I rise to the challenge and change myself.  Smoothies for breakfast?  Yes!  Bacon and eggs at 6:00 in the morning?  I'm up for that!  Pancakes?  Absolutely, just let me sneak some wheat germ in the batter...