Kiss the Cook

With the exception of the occasional recipe (by popular demand), I have strayed away from cooking topics in this blog.  I wanted to avoid any semblance of aspiring to be a Julie Powell-wannabe.  So far I have succeeded in this goal, as evidenced by the publishers and movie producers who have kept a safe distance.  To be sure, my efforts this year are about writing and not cooking. 

That being said, cooking is an important part of my life.  It is one of my favorite past times, one that I enjoy sharing liberally with friends on a regular basis.    It occurs to me that cooking has been, for generations, one of the most powerful of oral traditions.  Young girls, for the most part, learn family and cultural traditions from their mothers and grandmothers.  And while standing as an observer at the elbows of my maternal forbears certainly piqued my interest, I realize that my cooking sensibilities are dramatically different.

My grandmother was a good cook, but not an inspired one.  A young newlywed during the depression, she could roast a chicken or turkey, make a pot of soup, and transform leftovers into casseroles and sandwiches to squeeze out extra meals.  I think of her as the war horse who dutifully produced ethnic favorites for the Jewish holidays.  No one begged to take away her chopped liver duty.  I used to love when she pulled out the ancient meat grinder, pulverizing cooked livers and hard-boiled eggs into a moldable spread.  Today it could pass for “pate” in a fancy restaurant, but to us it was just Nanny’s chopped liver.

Nanny was also a great source of cheese blintzes and potato latkes—foods that required such major productions that she would close down all other cooking activities for days in advance.  Blintzes required dozens of thin pancakes (crepes, really) to be thrown down individually on her threadbare white baking towels.  Once enough were fabricated, she would turn to fillings.  Cheese blintzes require ‘farmer cheese.’  The product is sold in a wax-wrapped brick, filling the evolutionary gap between cottage cheese and cream cheese.   It is curds drained of the whey, imparting the dry creaminess that makes a perfect filling without creating a soggy crepe. 

My own mother enjoyed cooking as well as my father’s appreciation for her efforts.  Her style was a mixture of traditional Jewish techniques from her mother (‘always shake the pot; don’t stir’) as well as French cooking techniques gleaned from public television and the occasional cooking class.  My father was raised on bland foods, so my mother enjoyed introducing him to the joys of garlic and melted cheese.  My mother also enjoyed the time-saving benefits of culinary science and industrialized food products; she loved frozen foods and microwave ovens.

Today, I have distilled my ‘joy of cooking’ down to three main aspects:  the process, the ingredients, and the love.  Process has been a recurrent theme in my life.  I love problem solving and program planning—whether it is corporate strategy or implementing a surprise party for my husband.  I enjoy taking a large task down to its basic elements, making lists, and crossing things off one by one.  Nothing excites me more than a Thanksgiving dinner or a Passover Seder, meals that can take weeks of shopping, research, and yes--cooking.

Over the years I have also adopted a high standard for ingredients.  Living in a semi-rural suburb with access to farm-fresh fruits and vegetables has changed my tastes.  I love being able to ‘see’ everything that goes into the dishes that I make.  It is exciting to unpack a harvest of vegetables from the local farm, laying them out and arranging them on the kitchen counter like a vibrant still-life.  For me, the purity of ingredients elevates cooking to an art form.

But the best thing about cooking is the way it translates into love.  My kids know that when they arrive home from college the house will be filled with the tastes and aromas of their favorite home-cooked meals.  It is a signature act that I do for my kids--something that cannot be replaced or reproduced by anyone else.  There is no app for that.  I will put hours into shopping and peeling and chopping and simmering, just to convey how glad I am to see them and how much they mean to me.  And when my labors all disappear in an instant, leaving behind nothing but a few crumbs and a pampered glow, I know in that moment that they love me back.