Marcella Hazan hates chefs

I cooked an extremely successful dinner party for 8 people out of Marcella Hazan in September. The piece de resistance was the Osso Bucco. One of the best features in her book of Italian cookery is the line drawings. They show you how to do it without being terrifying, like photos in cook books often are.

I am a stay-at-home dad who reads your Blog here on Beliefnet on a daily basis, I find your insights refreshing and timely. As I attempt to make my family's home a "Crunchy" one, I often look to your words for re-assurance. I am lucky enough to be not only at home with my daughter, but also to be the member of the family who has a knack for cooking. And yes, it often does take time that could be spent doing something else, but it means a healthier family and better food in the long run. Though, with these economic times, its often beans, rice and vegetables with a little bit of meat here and there (which does, however, work out quite well, since my favorite cuisine to cook is East and Southeast Asian, and my wife particularly likes Mexican and Southwest dishes.) We do eat out once a month, but only because we budget it into our expenses.

Keep posting Mr. Rod, you are a gem!

That's a pretty interesting thought by Marcella Hazen. One of the things I have noticed about so many cooking shows is that they push short times in cooking. The competition shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef are forcing meals to be made in a very short time, and many of the big cooking shows are focused around quick meals. But all of the best dishes that my mom and my grandmothers made always cooked for hours. My mom's red beans would literally simmer all day long. When we want to eat them I have to get them started by 10 a.m. for dinner that night. My wife can turn a cheap frozen chicken into a roasted wonder, but it takes about 3 hours to cook. Great homemade meals and instant gratification are incompatible concepts.

I've never watched a cookery program for much the same reason I never read girls' magazines when I was that age. I don't want to be set impossible standards.

I have recently made friends with my crockpot again mainly due to another blog I check every day, not for brain-stimulation, like this one, but for food ideas. It's "A Year of Crockpotting" at http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

Stephanie set herself a challenge to use her crockpot everyday for a year and post the recipes online. She has done a fabulous job and I am sorry to see the year drawing to an end, and hope the blog will stay up so I can check back, as she has a great index.

For busy people who are gone all day, a crockpot is a lifesaver, and a money-saver. It only costs about 2 cents an hour to run and you can use food straight from the freezer, cheaper cuts, real whole food.

One other thing, apropos cooking with love.

The novel Like Water for Chocolate is also a cookbook. It's not step-by-step, but it does tell you what to watch out for as you make the dishes. I highly recommend the quail in rose petal sauce, though we usually substitute with cornish game hens.

I have cut way back on my cooking in the last year. I hate figuring out what to eat everyday. My husband may or may not get back in time to share the meal with us. My kids may or may not appreciate it. I probably didn't enjoy making. Plus, my little girls who are 2 and 3 want to "help" with every little part of making the meal - including handling boiling water, cutting things with knives and cracking eggs. And they wound up crying several times in the process which did nothing to make me enjoy the cooking more.

I'm still cooking several times a week, but it's certainly not everyday. And it's the easiest crap I can get away with. And unless I have time to pre-measure and prep everything before starting, the little girls are in front of the TV when I must cook. I always idealized cooking for my family, but after 10 years, I've had it. I can find other ways to show my family love.

Why is it that in Dallas so many people have huge gourmet kitchens that they never use? I on the other hand have a small modest kitchen that is about to fall apart from use. Life in not fair. I do believe that lack sharing the home table with people outside your family is the number one reason for lack of social ties. Want to contribute to eliminating loneliness? Make some soup and share it. So simple yet so difficult.

Amazona at 5:47:
Want to contribute to eliminating loneliness? Make some soup and share it. So simple yet so difficult.

Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

In a stock pot:

--8 Tb. butter, get it just sizzling [or use 1/3 pound minced bacon or pancetta], then...
--Saute 1 finely diced onion, and add 3 pressed or minced cloves of garlic as onions get soft [prevents burning the garlic].
--Add two cubed chicken breasts [half inch cubes] and saute until browned.
-- toss in a peeled & diced potato, 2 ribs of finely chopped celery, 2 tsp. each dried marjoram, oregano, and chives, salt and white pepper to taste, and 1/3 to 1/2 cup wild rice.
-- cover with 2 quarts of chicken stock [or make bullion], bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until wild rice is done to taste [about 30 to 40 minutes].
--about 10 minutes before the end, add 3/4 to 1 cup of shredded carrot.
--When wild rice is done, mix 1 cup cold milk [I use 2% organic] with 1/4 cup corn starch and whisk to bloom. Add this to the pot, along with another 2 cups cold milk.
--Return pot to a simmer, stirring often. Turn off heat and serve.

We do this with biscuits from scratch or a toasted baguette.

This is a variation on my mom's basic rice soup [a sauteed half an onion in butter, salt, one carrot shredded, a rib of celery diced, a potato diced, and a quart and a half of water. Boil, then simmer until rice is done]. Once you have that down, you can pretty much come up with variations on the theme. I highly recommend doing this with bacon if you have it.

Most kitchens I visit don't even have good knives and proper cooking utensils.

All that is really needed knifewise is one good knife [mine's a commercial santoku], a proper stone and steel for sharpening and honing, a paring knife and a few steak knives. Three wooden spoons, a slotted spoon, a carving fork, a peeler, a can opener, a turner, a garlic press, a set of tongs, a silicone scraper, a whisk, and a box grater. A small saucepan, a large saucepan, a stock pot and a colander. One saute pan, and maybe a cast iron skillet. You can do a lot with these.

A rolling pin [can also serve as a meat hammer]. A pyrex baking dish and a loaf pan. A wok. A cookie sheet. A basic set of measuring cups. Am I missing anything?

We have a tradition every year where family members send around the best recipes for the year to everyone else. They all go into a family cookbook. It's the cookbook I use more than any other because I know the recipes are favorites of fine cooks and using one another's recipes keeps us a part of each other's lives. As I try recipes throughout the year I think about which ones I want to include and I try to make sure the old favorites make it into the book as well. Marcella Hazan is absolutely right that home cooked meals are the place where families come together. If there is anything good about the economic downturn, perhaps it is that families will have to stay home and cook together to save the expense of eating out.

Amazona--I used to work for a kitchen design company. The rule of thumb is that the more people can spend on a kitchen remodel, the less likely they are to actually use their kitchen.

Having just been laid off from said company--do you all here think I could support myself teaching people to cook in their homes?

I second the dutch oven -- the single most used pan in my kitchen, for everything from soups, to bread, to braised meats, to roasts....

I love Marcella Hazan -- her Essentials was the fist cookbook we bought after we were married and the lovely recipe for braised chicken has become a staple. Likewise the spinach gnocchi, the methods for risotto and frittata and the marvelous recipes for baked fish. Can barely imagine cooking without it. I especially like the emphasis on a few great quality ingredients, rather than long complicated lists.