The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

Copyright © Kathleen Flinn, 2011

All rights reserved

 

 

Page 5: Maggie Savarino; 125: Kathleen Flinn; 183: Jeff Maness

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Flinn, Kathleen.

The kitchen counter cooking school : how a few simple lessons transformed nine culinary novices into fearless home cooks/Kathleen Flinn.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN : 978-1-101-54451-8

1. Cooking—Study and teaching—Anecdotes. 2. Flinn, Kathleen—Anecdotes. 3. Cook books. I. Title.

TX661.F57 2011

641.507—dc23 2011016222

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

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In theory, the story presented herein represents a year of my life teaching one round of lessons to nine volunteer students. In reality, it's the result of numerous additional kitchen visits, scores of interviews with cooks, researchers, and cooking teachers, plus my own teaching experiences in the year since the project ended.

I recorded every home interview and most of the original classes, resulting in about fifty hours of video and two hundred pages of handwritten notes. I've done my best to portray events accurately, but consolidated or shifted events and comments in some situations. In a few scenes, the dialogue in classes was built from memory. The names of some of the volunteers and their children have been changed to protect their privacy.

When it comes to the techniques taught here, ardent foodies or culinary professionals may debate the “right” method to roast a chicken or some other technique. I might even look back on these lessons to find that I have changed the way I teach the same recipes. That's one of the great things about cooking; there's more than one way to skin a fish. As long as an approach yields good, nourishing food, it isn't “wrong.”

PROLOGUE

—Richard Bach,
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

 

 

 

 

Normally, I do not stalk people in grocery stores.

I confess to the occasional practice of supermarket voyeurism. But who doesn't sometimes notice the curious collections of fellow shoppers, then contemplate what they may reveal about them?

What goes on in the home of a hunched, graying woman with nineteen cans of cat food, iceberg lettuce, a family pack of steaks, and a copy of
In Style
magazine? Or a young woman in full stage makeup oblivious to the world outside her headphones, a pack of tofu hot dogs among the contents of a hand basket nestled in the crook of her tattoo-littered arm? Or an elegant man with a perfect manicure who lingers over the imported cheese counter, his cart filled with organic greens, expensive olives, and four bottles of champagne? Every grocery cart tells a story.

Late on an otherwise average Tuesday afternoon, a sight near the canned tuna stopped me dead in my tracks. The cart sat as if abandoned in the middle of the aisle. It contained two dozen haphazardly piled boxes of dehydrated mixes for pasta, casseroles, rice, and stuffing and dubious jars of gravy. Despite being half full, the cart contained no
real
food. As I stood contemplating its contents, a heavyset woman in her late thirties, casually attired in an eggplant-colored fleece, claimed the cart. Her preteen daughter twirled impatiently around her, quietly singing a Lady Gaga song under her breath.

Would it be wrong if I followed her to find out what else she might buy?

Small basket in hand, I trailed behind her to stealthily observe. I feigned interest in various items along the aisles as she stocked up on packaged waffles and pizza pretzel bites, a collection of frozen dinners, chicken potpies, and a family-style package of pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy.

By the time we hit the meat department, I suspected she was onto me. Hugging my shoulders against the damp chill and trying to avoid inhaling the vague smell of chlorine, I clumsily relied upon my peripheral vision to spy her selecting a heavy family-sized pack of ground hamburger at the other end of the case. She pushed her cart in my direction. I pretended to peruse the plastic-wrapped turkey options. “Can you believe how expensive chicken breasts are these days? Crazy,” she said out loud, to no one in particular. She reluctantly tossed a package into her cart.

I seized the opportunity to say something. “Whole chickens are on sale,” I said. “Ninety-nine cents a pound, I think.”

She chuckled. “Thanks, but I would have
no
idea what to do with a whole chicken.”

It hit me. After a year deboning chickens and stuffing meat with other meats at a famous Paris cooking school, I had information this woman needed. For some reason, at that moment, I felt compelled to give it to her. “Come with me. I'll get someone to show you how to cut up a chicken.”

“Ah, no, thanks,” she said. A reasonable response given that I was a complete stranger who had followed her for twenty minutes through the maze of grocery store aisles.

Somehow I assured her that I was not trying to sell a time-share in front of the turkey kielbasa. She shrugged and said, “Okay, why not?” We headed over to the butcher.

“Sure, I'm happy to show you how to cut it up, no problem,” the butcher said as I handed him the chicken. The woman peered over the glass case to his thick white cutting board as he sectioned the bird deliberately. He stopped to show her how each cut was done. As he finished, he crackled fresh butcher paper around the pieces.

“So just how much is that whole chicken?” she asked.

He looked at the tag. “Let's see, it's on sale, so $5.20.”

“How much would that go for if you sold me the pieces all cut up and packaged, like those breasts over there?” She waved toward the meat case.

He looked up, mumbled abstractly under his breath, counting on his fingers. “Well, breasts are out at $5.99 a pound, the thighs at $2.29, so I'd say about $10 or so.”

“Get out!” she exclaimed. “So I pay twice the price to buy it as separate pieces? Well, who knew that!” She smiled broadly.