Cooking and Me

I love to cook. I am not and never will be a gourmet chef, nor an afficiando of upscale dining; I like simpler food. But I am a talented amateur of said simpler food, an opinion not held only by me but by the friends I've cooked for. Heck, I even have a couple signature dishes.

First: my interpretation of beef stroganoff. It's influenced by the Russian dish, though I've fiddled with it over the years and a Russian might think it was odd (mostly in that I've come up with my own seasoning for it). It's very high-calorie, not friendly to people avoiding dairy (or those who can't mix dairy with meat), and it's never failed to produce compliments. I serve it with noodles rather than potatoes, but then, so do most restaurants in this country. (I iz an citizen of teh Untied States.)

Secondly: a dish without a real name, originally taught to me by my mother, though I've again fiddled with it over the years. It involves chicken breast, tomatoes (fresh or canned stewed, depending on the season), onions, and mushrooms cooked with copious amounts of basil plus a little salt and pepper (occasionally paprika, too), served with rice, sometimes with a side veggie or fresh biscuits (that's the American usage there). It's simple. It's extremely easy to make. It's yummy.

Lastly: I make a really good chunky spaghetti sauce (which I learned from my father; there are very few people in my family who can't cook at least reasonably well). I think of this as more of an American thing than an Italian, though I think an Italian could appreciate it: plenty of fresh veggies—mushrooms, green peppers, onions, tomatoes—cooked in a tomato sauce, seasoned with lots of garlic and a mix of oregano and basil. I usually make it meat-free but sometimes I put in browned ground beef or baked Italian sausage. (I also sometimes make something more akin to a marinara sauce, do a decent bolognese, and do a good tomato creme sauce... pasta sauce is so nicely flexible.)

You'll notice that this is all family or comfort food. Okay, you can make the argument that Beef Stroganoff, variant or not, is a bit more upscale, but really at its heart its a nice, filling basic meat-and-carbs dish.

Now, none of this is about TV, which is part of the purported purpose of this blog (say that ten times fast), but never fear, I shall relate it there: Pay special attention to that last paragraph. When I make judgement calls about how food looks or sounds on Top Chef, it's through the filter of those dishes being the type of thing I like to cook and eat.

Incidentally, I am fairly good at imagining how herbs and spices (as well as other ingredients) will combine, being a "learn through experimenting" type. This also will affect my judgement calls, naturally.

If I were a Top Chef contestant, I would tell you my main influences are (Midwest to Southern) American, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian, with a bit of Asian and Mediterranean. My favorite herbs are basil and rosemary, my favorite spice paprika. My go-to ingredient, as they like to call it, is chicken breast, as it's reasonably low-fat when skinless, very versatile, and can be cooked quickly. (I usually buy them deboned and skinless, though I can actually do it myself fairly quickly.) I love broccoli. I can't stand foie gras. (There's many other things I dislike* but since that one's used a lot on the show I felt it was worth mentioning.) Stylistically, 'rustic' and 'comfort food' probably are both reasonable approximations. 'Hearty' might be another; I hate that "3 beans on a plate with a smear of sauce" thing with a passion.

And if you put me on Top Chef, I'd be out the first week. Not because I'm not any good, but I'm definitely too slow for that sort of environment, and therefore for that of a professional restaurant, too. You'd probably like my food, if you ever got it, but 20 minutes is barely enough time for me to figure out where all the ingredients are, so, uh. No, I have no pretentions of being on the cheftestants' level. But I do understand what goes into cooking, and I'm looking forward to imagining how the dishes taste this year.

[*For the curious: I don't like most seafood, excepting crab and shrimp, and I don't like mollusks. There's other things I dislike, too, but I mention these in particular because a lot of upscale dining dishes use these ingredients, particularly lobster, clams, and oysters. And don't serve me large quantities of (most, I tolerate some) legumes unless you want me to feel queasy, nor bleu cheese or other highly-molded cheeses unless you want to send me to the hospital.]