Think Like a Chef, 25th Anniversary Edition

Introduction

Every so often I’m asked to teach cooking classes. As I lay out my ingredients and start to talk I notice the same thing happening over and over again. Out come the notebooks and pens, and down go the heads. I begin speaking and the students start scribbling. They jot down everything that comes out of my mouth word for word, ingredient for ingredient, step for step. Soon, the questions start:

“What brand do you use?”—I tell them.
“Can you repeat that?”—I usually do.
“How long do you cook that?”—My standard reply: “Till it’s done.”

This last one usually meets with a few weak smiles and a slightly hostile silence. Till it’s done? How am I going to know when it’s done, if he doesn’t tell me? Usually at around this point I ask that everyone put the notebooks down. Just watch and listen, I urge, and you will learn much more about how I cook than you will if you try to write down every word I say. Then I pass out copies of the recipes (so they will have them) and explain that cooking is a craft best learned through observation and practice. Leave the class with an understanding of how to cook and I will be much happier than if you leave with a copy of my lecture. In fact, I say, if I do my job right, they’ll be able to take that knowledge home with them and alter the recipe to their own personal tastes.

This is also usually met with silence. Alter your recipe? Why in the world would we want to do that? Simple. As the seasons change, so will the variety and quality of ingredients available. And maybe you hate peas but love asparagus. The technique remains the same, so of course you’re going to want to alter the recipe! After a few nervous titters, my audience can usually be persuaded to leave off the pen and paper and start watching as I work with the food, play with it, create a few basic building blocks based on simple ingredients, and take off from there. At the end of the class, students usually approach me, the proverbial lightbulbs glowing over their heads, and say something like, “Now I get it!” This always brings to mind the time I finally convinced my seven-year-old, Dante, to jump off a diving board: He inched his way to the end of the board, mistrust written all over his face, and then finally—against his better judgment—jumped. In moments he surfaced, sputtering and shouting, “Again!” I’d like all my students to want to rush home and do it again.

So which comes first—the chef or the recipe?

Probably the number one question I’m asked on any given day is “How do you come up with your recipes?” The truth is, I don’t. I don’t sit down and “create” food combinations. In fact, the majority of food combinations “create” themselves. And I sure don’t start sitting down. I start in the marketplace, walking. On any given day, I’ll walk through the Union Square Greenmarket (although any well-stocked supermarket will do) and see what looks good. What’s abundant? What’s growing together naturally? Which herbs are peaking? Above all, what are the seasons saying? For me, and I would guess most chefs, creating begins in the marketplace. What I see starts me thinking about flavors and textures, combinations and balance. Then I bring my purchases home and set to work applying the techniques I’ve learned over the years. Voilà! A recipe. Which leads me to:

The Best Meal Ever

Another question I’m frequently asked is “Where do you like to eat?” The implication is that as a chef I have the inside track on where to go, or at least can distinguish truly good food from everything else out there. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t get out much. Without exception, the greatest meals of my life have taken place at home.

And not necessarily my home. Okay, you’re thinking. That’s not fair. You’re a chef. Of course your home meals are great (not necessarily, but that’s another story). And your friends are probably chefs, too (most aren’t, but that’s also beside the point). The Best Meal Ever happened at a friend’s farmhouse in Maryland one early fall afternoon, the kind of day that still looks and feels like summer but with an unmistakable hint of the crisp green-apple autumn that lies ahead. With the Redskins season opener in the background and a batch of icy mint juleps urging us along, a group of friends—an MBA and a musician, a couple of doctors, a salesperson (in other words non-chefs), and I—waltzed out to the backyard garden and plucked everything and anything that looked ripe and ready to go. No one, save myself, had any professional cooking experience, and we sure didn’t set out with a specific meal plan or recipe in mind. Like the conductor of an amateur orchestra, I set different people to different tasks without inquiring first, “Do you know how to sauté an onion?” If they didn’t, they just asked and I showed them, and on we went. No one had any idea where we were headed (myself included), but we were hungry and liked good food, so we just let the ingredients dictate which path to take. And to this day the meal of baked polenta layered with fresh vegetables and the sirloin with roasted peppers and sweet onions figures as one of the best of my life. Impromptu. Delicious.

So what’s my point?

The point is that I intend to teach you to think a little like I do, so that you can make The Best Meal Ever whenever you want to. This is what I do in my classes and this is what I hope to do here. How? By sharing my techniques and knowledge of ingredients, but more important, by sharing my passion and approach to food. My ultimate goal is to free you from the feeling that you must follow a recipe—to help you trust your instincts and let fresh, seasonal ingredients dictate the way to go. I hope that you’ll leave this book with the confidence to walk through the greenmarket, or grocery, or neighborhood bodega without a recipe, open to what you find there, but with the ability—using basic, time-honored techniques—to put those ingredients together skillfully and intelligently.