[Sca-cooks] Cooking Like a 3-Star Chef in Your Own Home (Almost) - OOP, Not e ntirely OT

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Marilyn Traber:
>Feh. I guess this guy doesn't seem to realize that there are a metric
>butt-ton of home cooks who happen to be able to cook like this, and actually
>do wierd things like make and freeze stocks, keep little pots of fresh herbs
>on teh windowsill and can actually make something like this particular meal
>in the required amount of time. Even to prepping the potatoes and soaking
>them in cream before going to work so they can make the dish when they
>actualyl get home.
>
>Feh again. I guess that everybody in america microwaves tv dinners every
>night.
>
>margali the thoroughly disgusted
>
>[Even if all I had was access to a good cookbook, I could probably muddle
>through the menu - hell, I made 'pintade au riz sauvage' using IIRC Joy of
>Cooking when I was 12 [ok, so I used cornish game hens so crucify me ;-)]]

I think, as with most things, somewhere between the two extremes lies
the truth. This is not as easy a menu as what a lot of Americans eat
on a nightly basis, nor is it ridiculously tough, either.

Back in Ye Olde Dayes When Ye Olde Newe Yorke Tymes hadde (I mean
had) real food writers working for a real food editor (there is a
special part of The Inferno reserved for Molly O'Neill, and she can
share it with her brother Paul, the tantrum-throwing ex-Yankee),
Bryan Miller wrote a lovely piece about his estaj position in one of
New York's finer restaurants. He, having realized that it had been a
long time since he had been exposed in any way to back-of-the-house
restaurant operations, talked his way into being the unpaid chef's
apprentice who cleaned the mushrooms, as above, or some such
position. He learned a lot both about restaurant operations, and also
to attach the proper perspective to certain elements in a meal. In
short, before bitching about something on a restaurant menu and
asking, "How hard could it be?", he actually acquired some idea. He
said it changed his life.

I think the author of the article Margali quotes was stressing the
advantage of someone prepared to work on the same meal over a period
of a couple of days, and working in shifts to replace those of us who
don't work 24 hours a day. One thing he doesn't seem to mention, but
which I think is another big factor, is the space required to make
that pan of gratin in advance, cool it, and store it for the amount
of time represented in the article, as opposed to simply soaking the
slices while at work, and making the thing in the evening.

Overall, while I agree with a lot that Margali says, not all of it
invalidates every point the author makes.

Adamantius