[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP From today's NY Times Food section...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Feb 14, 2007, at 10:45 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

>> That situation sounds dreamy, but many beta cooks say that the
>> alphas in their lives are not the most patient tutors. Amy Sedaris,
>> author of ?I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence,? says that
>> whenever alphas and betas cook together, the alpha?s internal
>> monologue goes something like this: ?Stop bothering me with your
>> questions. I don?t have time to show you how to chop an onion. If
>> you can?t chop an onion, get out of my kitchen.?
>
> Oh my. That's how I've felt in some SCA feast kitchens and especially
> at local Cook's Guild meetings. I guess I am a "beta" cook.

In honesty, I'm probably inclined toward alpha-cook-dom, but I do  
make a conscious effort to teach people how to chop that onion, and  
many people have told me they like to work in my kitchens because  
they come away having learned some cool trick or other (not always  
from me). They do keep coming back...

As for my home situation, it's not quite as bad as the situation  
described in the article -- it could be, perhaps, but it never has  
been. Usually what happens is one or the other of us cooks, but not  
both, and part of it is probably some sort of territoriality, but  
also an acknowledgment of the fact that when we were first married,  
we had a _really_ tiny kitchen. Two restaurant workers, used to  
setting everything up within reach and planting their feet in place  
for a couple of hours without moving, could work side by side. It  
looked a little like the workers turning those huge dials/clock hands  
in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". Our current apartment is larger, and  
the kitchen is, too, but it's still something of a dance for two people.

In general, if Chinese food is being prepared, my wife frequently  
handles it, while I either do something unrelated or remain within  
call to deal with jars with tight lids, cutting up hard vegetables  
like winter melon, etc. For New Year's cookery, we plan the menu and  
shopping list together, parcel out jobs, and work both together and  
in sequence until it's close to meal time, especially if there are  
several guests, at which time she definitely has the edge for setting  
up platters and table settings, which job I'm pretty terrible at.

The one alpha-ish statement I'll make about my wife's cooking, which  
is excellent, is that she and I can prepare an identical meal, but it  
takes me a third of the time, and there's a smaller mound of dirty  
dishes and utensils. Sue me. ;-)

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have to say, let them eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04