Food and love. When I began my journey to becoming a chef, I never even considered how the two were intertwined. Yes, I loved to cook. Sure, I had been in love. But it wasn’t until I fell in love with cooking that I realized the connection between the two.
“Food is memories.” The Hundred Foot Journey - Richard Morais.
How many times have you recreated a family recipe only to be whisked away to a childhood memory of the first time you had the dish? Or walked into a restaurant to find yourself reminiscing about your first date with your loved one? Our memories are triggered by aromas and flavors. Learning this connection between food and our memories led me to understand there truly is an artistry to cooking.
“The kitchen becomes a veritable reservoir of creative and magical events, in which the cook who possesses this talent becomes artist, healer, and lover. Culinary activity involves not just the combination of prescribed ingredients, but something personal and creative emanating from the cook, a magical quality which transforms the food and grants its powerful properties that go beyond physical satisfaction to provide spiritual nourishment as well.” Romancing the Cook - Susan Dobrian.
When you step into someone’s kitchen, it’s as though you are walking into a hidden vault. Intentions have been put into dishes to create not just food, but an experience. As a chef, I want to entice all senses throughout a dining experience. I want you to see the colors, feel the textures, smell the aromas and taste the flavors. Setting foot into a kitchen means you are where the magic happens. It’s where the relationship begins.
“I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair.” Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth M. Gilbert.
When setting intentions, in cooking or in life, if you put love into what you are doing, your end result will always be good. This is when I truly made the connection between food and love. If you don’t love what you do trust me, it shows. When it comes to cooking, it tastes.
“In this restaurant we don’t serve an old, tired marriage but a passionate love affair.” The Hundred Foot Journey - Richard Morais.
From writing recipes, choosing ingredients, testing flavors, trial and error.... food truly is a labor of love.
When I began my own relationship with food, not only could I not get my hands on enough cookbooks, I couldn’t stop reading books/memoirs about food. Others’ experiences and love for food shaped my own passion for cooking. I would find myself dreaming about creating my own recipes and making them my own. My food becoming a part of others’ memories, of their spiritual nourishment, and a part of their love affair with good food.
Menu of Love
When I think of love and food these simple menu items embody the relationship I have with food.
Assiette de Charcuterie
Ingredients:
3 or 4 different meats and cheeses
pickled vegetables
grilled bread
Directions: A nice appetizer to enjoy while waiting on the rest of the meal. Buy at your local market three or four different meats and cheeses, serve with pickled vegetables and grilled bread.
French Onion Soup
Ingredients:
7 ea. yellow or sweet onions, julienned
6 Tbs. butter
1 1/4 tsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 gal. beef stock, the all-natural store-bought will work fine for this recipe.
Salt, pepper and cream sherry to taste
1 ea. French baguette, sliced and toasted
2 cups Gruyere cheese, shredded
Sachet:
2 ea. bay leaves
10 ea. black peppercorns
6 sprigs fresh thyme
7 in. piece cheesecloth
Butcher twine
Directions: Melt butter in a heavy bottom pot, add onions and 1 Tbs. kosher salt; cook on medium low heat for about 45 minutes stirring frequently. You want to pull out all the sugars from the onions and let them caramelize. Transfer onions to a 5-quart stock pot and sift in flour. Stir well to combine and let flour cook for a couple of minutes. Slowly add stock, sachet, bring to simmer for about an hour. Season with salt and pepper and cream sherry. Remove sachet. Ladle soup in serving bowl top with toasted French and shredded Gruyere cheese. Place under broiler until cheese has melted and bubbly. Garnish with a little slice chive and enjoy. (If you want to make stock contact through email and I will send you a recipe for a good one)
Perfect Roasted Chicken with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Haricot Verts
Brine for Chicken
Ingredients
1-gallon water
1 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup garlic cloves, smashed
10 ea. bay leaves
2 Tbs. black peppercorns
Few sprigs each of fresh thyme, rosemary, oregano and parsley
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a pot, cover and heat just to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Add chicken or chickens and brine for 24 hours. Rinse well before roasting.
Trussing A Chicken
Directions: First remove wishbone by cutting two small slits on either side and using your thumb and index finger carefully remove. With the legs facing you, first tuck the wing tips under the flat joint of the wing. Cut a piece of butcher’s twine about 3 feet or so long. Place the twine under the bird about midway up the legs. Cross the twine over the breast and down around the legs making a figure eight. Pull tight and pull twine around both sides of the breast to the back of the bird and under the neck. Using a slip knot tie twine and pull tight. (There is a video https://youtu.be/VxlcSzMOG9o at which might help better.)
Place chicken in a roasting pan season with salt, pepper and fresh thyme. Roast at 425 degrees for 25-40 minutes depending on size of the bird until internal temperature of 165 degrees.
Haricot Verts
Ingredients:
1-pound haricots verts (thin green beans), stem removed
Shallot or red onion, finely diced
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
Salt and pepper
White or red wine
1-2 Tbs. of butter
Directions: If beans are raw blanch in salted water until just cooked 2 or 3 min at most. Sauté onions. Add beans, salt, pepper and cook one minute. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Deglaze with white or red wine (depending on flavor you want), cook out alcohol add a tablespoon or 2 of butter to finish (add butter off the heat).
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. fingerling potatoes
2 Tbs. olive oil
5 cloves whole peeled garlic, smashed
3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a mixing bowl toss the potatoes with salt, pepper, thyme and garlic. Place on roasting pan and roast for 20 to 25 minutes
Chocolate Pots de Crème
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup plus 1 Tbs. sugar
1 ea. vanilla bean, split (can
substitute 1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract)
6 ea. large egg yolks
6 oz. good semisweet chocolate, chopped very fine
Directions: Combine cream, milk, 5 Tbs. sugar in a large sauce pot. Scrape vanilla bean seeds into pot and add pod. Simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat cover and let steep for about an hour. Whisk eggs, remaining sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Slowly add the warm cream and milk. Do this by slowly adding just a little bit at time to temper the heat and not cook the eggs. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a medium sauce pot. Place over medium heat stirring constantly. Heat just enough to melt the chocolate. Pour over chocolate and let sit to melt, whisk until thoroughly combined and pour into a pitcher, let cool completely. Place a rack in the center of oven preheated to 300 degrees. Place 8, 6 oz ramekins in a deep baking dish and then place the baking dish on a baking pan. Gently stir custard and fill each ramekin with about 1/2 cup of the custard. Add enough water to baking dish to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish. Bake for 45-55 minutes. The custard is finished when it is still a little jiggly, remove from oven and let cool on a rack or table. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours but longer if possible before serving. Garnish with a mint leaf and powdered sugar.
