Don't Try This at Home (21 page)

A Chef in the Family

SARA MOULTON

A lifetime food enthusiast, Sara Moulton graduated from the
University of Michigan in 1974, and from the Culinary Institute
of America in 1977. She worked in restaurants for several years,
including a postgraduate
stage
with a master chef in Chartres,
France. In the early 1980s, Moulton worked at La Tulipe in New
York and cofounded the New York Women's Culinary Alliance.
In 1983, she worked as an instructor at Peter Rump's New York
Cooking School, then took a job in the test kitchen at
Gourmet
magazine, which led to her becoming the magazine's executive
chef, a position she holds to this day. In 1997, she became an on-air
food correspondent for
Good Morning America.
Moulton
has hosted two Food Network shows,
Cooking Live
and
Sara's Secrets.
Her first cookbook,
Sara Moulton Cooks at Home,
was
published in 2002.

P
UT SOMEONE IN a uniform and you confer upon her a sense of authority. Put her in a uniform
and
throw a little knowledge her way, and that person becomes downright un bearable. For proof of this axiom, you need look no
further than your average, first-or second-year culinary student.

Chef-instructors warn kitchen aspirants against getting a big head. "Just because you have a degree, doesn't make you a chef,"
they tell you on the last day of school, their stern message lent an air of finality by their French and German accents. Culinary
school instructors are fond of reminding their beaming graduates that "commencement" means "beginning" and that when they
leave the hallowed halls of Academy X, their education is only just starting. Translation: "Get over yourselves, because you
don't know nothin' yet."

None of that makes the slightest dent in the humongous egos of most culinary students. As far as they're concerned, they know
it all. If you don't believe me, just ask one: she'll tell you herself.

I know this because I worked in restaurants for seven years and I had a chance to interview young cooks for jobs, many of
the applicants right out of cooking school. To a person, they had an attitude, ready to tell their co-workers and bosses what
they didn't know, and to share their own dish ideas with executive chefs who had been cooking professionally since before
the young cooks were born.

Truth be told, I also know this because I myself was once guilty of this behavior, back in the mid-1970s, when I was a student
at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, the finest cooking school in the country by my, and most industry
folks', estimation.

In the fall of 1976, I was in my second year at the Culinary Institute, which in their two-year program was my senior year.
I was feeling very confident. I had attended an excellent private high school in New York City, graduated from the University
of Michigan, and at twenty-three was older than many of the other students, who were right out of high school. Consequently,
I was a better studier than most attendees, who were primarily interested in guzzling beer, and—let's be honest—getting laid
as often as possible.

As my head swelled with knowledge, I became more and more insufferable, driving all who loved me screaming out of the kitchen.
For instance, my then-boyfriend (and now-hus-band), Bill, was an accomplished home cook. When I was in college, I'd go over
to his apartment and he'd be cooking calf's liver, or braising a brisket, or making a textbook-perfect omelet.

Bill hadn't been to cooking school—he had learned a lot from his mother, also a very good cook, and through his own self-discipline—and
I was the beneficiary of his gifts, a very well-fed girlfriend, indeed.

After I started cooking school, though, I became such a backseat chef that Bill eventually stopped cooking. And who can blame
him? Does anybody enjoy cooking a meal while the person for whom you're preparing it is standing there telling you: "You haven't
heated the pan enough," or "You didn't pound that chicken breast thinly enough," or "You should have added more acid to that
vinaigrette"?

By my second year, I was a force to be reckoned with, a culinary goddess of the highest order, capable of spreading knowledge
and good taste wherever I went.

None moved more quickly out of my path than my own family. That fall, when Thanksgiving weekend rolled around, I climbed into
my trusty yellow Volkswagen and made the three-plus- hour drive to my sister Anne's home in Providence, Rhode Island, where
she lived in a brownstone with her husband, John.

Anne and I always had a healthy sibling rivalry. In many ways, I was the Snow White to her Rose Red. Two and a half years
older than I was, dark haired and pretty, Anne always had some piece of good news when we were growing up, or a handsome new
boyfriend to show off. And there I was, little sis, trying to steal attention and affection with smart-alecky comments, or
flirting with her new beau. I have to admit, I was a pretty obnoxious younger sister.

Though we loved the heck out of each other, in those days the echoes of our childhood squabbles still reverberated when we
got together, even in her grown-up home. Not surprisingly, that Thanksgiving I showed up ready to demonstrate to my family
how skillfully we did things at the CIA—that's insider speak, I smugly informed them, for Culinary Institute of America. No
sooner had I arrived than I had donned my chef's coat and white apron and gracelessly taken over the kitchen.

Anne's home was airy and open; the kitchen flowed right into the living room, where my family was drinking wine and catching
up, some seated on the couch, some on the floor lounging on big throw pillows. I was situated only a few yards away, but they
paid me no mind, uninterested in my fanatical, self-satisfied plans.

I really went to town that day. Even though my mother made a wonderful gravy, I decided to set them straight with mine, starting
of course with a homemade stock that I prepared right there.

I made stuffing as well, and of course a turkey. I had never cooked a turkey before—most chefs probably don't "do turkey"—but
I faked it, acting as though it, too, were something about which I had been professionally schooled.

With the stock made and the turkey roasting, it was time to turn my attention to mashed potatoes. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say
"mashed potatoes?" I meant to say "potato puree," the real name by which any serious gourmet would refer to them. How much
I had grown at the CIA!

I took out my russet potatoes, and felt them in the palm of my hand, one at a time. Ah, I had chosen well. They each weighed
almost exactly the same and were of similar length and circumference. Why is this important? you ask. Why, so they'll cook
at the same rate, of course. If you'd been to cooking school, you'd know that, too.

After boiling the potatoes in their skins, I peeled them and transferred them to a dry pan and heated them over low heat,
stirring to help evaporate any lingering moisture.

I had my milk warmed—
just
enough—on a low burner, and the butter set out at room temperature, cut into little cubes to facilitate its melting into the
puree.

Then it was time to run the potatoes though a food mill. I rummaged through the cupboards, searching for one. But I couldn't
find a mill, or even a ricer.

Out of options, I plugged in the food processor, dropped in the potatoes, and started the motor. Within seconds, the potatoes
turned to glue as the starch rapidly overdeveloped. It was so thick and pasty that the machine actually stopped running.

"Oh, darn," I muttered.

Upon hearing this, Anne sprang up off of the couch with a wicked look in her eye.

Everything is fixable. That's my philosophy. Unless it's burnt, in which case you either lie and say it's smoked, or order
out for pizza. But I learned that day that overprocessed potatoes cannot be saved.

I tried, though. As Anne approached, dancing into the kitchen with an excited step, I furiously attempted to cover the mistake,
adding hot milk and butter to the jammed processor. But it had no effect. The potatoes, and the machine itself, were ruined.

Anne didn't mind. A broken food processor was a small price to pay for sweet revenge on her know-it-all little sister, the
girl who used to flirt with her dates, and cackle at her every misfortune.

"Well, lookie, lookie here," she said with a big grin as she peered over my shoulder into the processor's bowl. "The master
chef who can't even make mashed potatoes. Wonder what they'd say about that at the ol' C.I.A."

Christmas had come early for Anne that year. I had inadvertently given her a gift that she enjoys to this day, a choice moment
to call on whenever she feels the need to exact her revenge for all those moments of her youth that were spoiled by her little
sister.

Thirty years later, Anne and I are closer than we ever have been. I love her to death, and vice versa. But she'll never love
me too much to remind me, with a twinkle in her eye, of the day my culinary vanity came crashing down to earth in her airy
Rhode Island brownstone.

For the Birds

TAMARA MURPHY

Tamara Murphy worked in a number of New York City
restaurants
before moving to Seattle in 1988. She worked at
Dominique's,
then became executive chef at Campagne, near the Pike
Place Market, where she was nominated for the James Beard
Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year Award. While at
Campagne, Murphy was named one of the Best New Chefs in
the United States by
Food and Wine Magazine.
In 1993, she
became executive chef of Cafe Campagne, a sister restaurant to
Campagne, and in 199 S, she was named Best Chef/Pacific
Northwest and Hawaii by the James Beard Foundation. In
1999, she partnered with Bryan Hill, the former general
manager
and wine director of Campagne, to open Brasa, which has
been honored by both
Food and Wine
and
Gourmet
magazines
as one of Seattle's top tables.

I
T HAPPENED AT my very first job in Seattle.

I had lived in New York City and had worked for some very fine establishments, the dream of most young cooks. But wouldn't
you know it, I was on my way to fame and fortune in the Big Apple when I was struck by the travel itch, a condition that's
been known to inflict many of us in this transient profession.

I was young enough to act on such whimsical notions, so I packed my bags and off I went with a friend. Taking to the southern
region, we ate and drank our way through the states of Bliss and Oblivion, and in time, landed here in Seattle, as far away
from New York as you can get without crossing an ocean. It was September, and despite the picture painted by popular opinion,
it
never
rained in Seattle that month. I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen: it was sunny all day, stayed light
out until almost ten o'clock at night, and then turned perfectly cool and breezy. Life was sophisticated but laid back—people
actually hung out on their stoops and drank locally brewed microbeers with their neighbors, just like in the movies.

And the food! The Pike Place Market alone was a revelation, where farmers set out their fantastically enormous fruits and
vegetables for sale, and the fish guys tossed monkfish around like baseballs. It wasn't long before my inner chef was reawakened:
I envisioned salmon jumping right into my saute pan. I had to stay.

You'd think—at least
I
thought—that a young cook with New York chops would have no problem landing a job in Seattle. But you'd be wrong. It proved
enormously difficult to find employment of the culinary sort in my adopted home. Turns out that a New York resume was not
in my favor—not at all. My least favorite quip was, "Honey, get some experience here in Seattle and then we'll chat."

Chat? I was from New York, where cooks don't chat. They growl, sweat, and curse their way through the evening service, and
often through life in general. But I'm adaptable. I have to be: adaptability is the key to being a great cook—which is kind
of the moral of this story, but we'll get to that in a minute . . .

Eventually, mercifully, I was hired by a Frenchman who was an incredible chef and a terrible businessman. This combination
is pretty common, owing, I guess, to right-brain/left-brain dynamics. He was also a brilliant teacher. My cooks have heard
this story a hundred times, so if they pick this up, they'll skip right over this part. But they should read it, because it
keeps me from screaming my head off trying to drill this kind of performance into them, and I don't think they can hear it
enough.

When I started that job, I was at the bottom. It was a small restaurant with about forty-five seats, and there were only three
cooks plus my chef. As the new kid, I was low person on the totem pole and, trust me, the lowest of three is
way
low. I had to sweep and mop the kitchen at the end of the night, which was extremely humbling. I was from New York, after
all, where cooks didn't clean; the guys who didn't speak English—those of "don't ask, don't tell" immigration status—did that.

Despite my lackey role, the chef liked me. Empowered by the sense of belonging, I asked him one day to teach me how to make
his pate. "When you clean my floors properly, I will teach you," he said.

"Please explain," I softly asked him, carefully probing so as not to set him off; French chefs tend to explode like a cheese
souffle baked at too high a temperature if you push them.

"Every day the crumbs and grease continue to build in the corners of my kitchen floor," he said, pointing to the crusty corners
of the room. "If you make my pate every day with the same diligence that you clean my floors, my pate will look the same!"
He curled up his face in distaste at the thought. "So, when you learn that a perfectly clean floor, which requires
no
skill at all,
is your most important job, only then will I begin to show you the art of charcuterie!"

How much lower than
that
can you get?

Okay, big surprise: I took his words to heart, gave him the immaculate floors he needed to function, performed the rest of
my tasks with renewed vigor, and three months later I was his sous-chef.

I was well into my tenure in this position when a party of ten reserved two weeks in advance for dinner at the restaurant.
(This is tremendously early by Seattle standards, the equivalent of calling a year ahead in New York or San Francisco.) The
guest of honor adored pheasant, so the party requested a pheasant dish. Since we didn't have one on the menu, I ordered the
birds special, just for them.

My chef had a previous engagement on the evening in question, and would not be on the line. But this was no problem. I had
proven myself by then, and he was completely comfortable with me handling the birds, the special table, and the rest of the
night's affairs. We had been through a lot in a short time, and in addition to getting my work done, I had learned to inspire
my successors on the bottom rung to sweep and mop the floors as though their lives depended on it: the floors were spotless.

The day of the pheasant dinner, I spent a good part of the afternoon carefully prepping the birds and the accompaniments I
had selected. I was going to roast the pheasants, then debone them, marinate them in a mixture of balsamic, grapefruit, cloves,
and garlic, and finish them on the grill.

The reservation was for seven o'clock. At five o'clock, I rubbed the two-pound pheasants with olive oil, tossed them with
herbs, and placed them in the oven, planning to roast them for twenty minutes. But soon the evening's dinner service began,
and it was busier than usual. We were quickly slammed and I forgot about the pheasants. When I opened the door of the pheasant's
oven at six forty-five, dark smoke billowed out. As I hurriedly fanned it away, I saw that these were not just overcooked
birds; they were as black and shriveled as carbon paper!

The moment that I was taking this in, a waiter entered the kitchen and announced the arrival of the party of ten, including
the pheasant-loving guest of honor. I believe I have never felt my stomach drop and churn as it did just then. I know that
all the color ran from my face, and I was sure I was about to faint. There was no other restaurant nearby that was going to
have pheasant. No pun intended, but my goose was cooked.

The only bird I had remotely close to a pheasant was a chicken. I grabbed four of them, removed the breasts, leaving the wings
partially intact so they resembled pheasants, and threw those babies in the deep fryer. My two cooks looked at me like I was
nuts, but this was a trick I had picked up from an old-school line cook in New York City. Once, when I had forgotten to fire
a lamb rack that was supposed to be cooked well done, he took one and threw it in the fryer where it cooked in less than eight
minutes, saving me the wrath of the very cranky chef.

After a few minutes, I took the breasts out of the fryer, slapped the marinade on them, tossed them on the grill, then plated
them with apricots and foie gras. I sent the mock pheasant out to the table, where it was promptly declared the plumpest and
most delicious pheasant they had ever tasted. Personally, I think the foie gras acted as a decoy. I mean, who would serve
foie gras with chicken?

Please don't misunderstand my intentions. I wasn't trying to pull a fast one, or get away with something. It was all for the
happiness of my guests. They enjoyed their pheasant, even if it was really chicken, and I know my chef would have been proud—if
only he knew.