Don't Just Cook...Create

How does one learn to cook? In the past, such skills were handed down from grandmother, to mother, to daughter. And the skills were based on cooking limited, traditional, and highly local ingredients. 

Of course, there weren’t a lot of us dudes cooking back then and the highfaluting probably didn’t even know where the kitchen was. 

Fast forward about two or three hundred years, and we arrive in the post-war baby boom. In America, at least, this means frozen foods, fast food, cake mixes, Jell-O, and microwave ovens. By this time, no one knows how to cook real food. Fast forward another twenty or thirty years and the Food Network arrives on the scene, with gastronomic gladiatorial contests like Iron Chef America, Chopped, and Cutthroat Kitchen. And so it seems that everyone in America is cooking again. But are they really? Everyone seems more interested in food, and folks seem to be reading more foodie magazines, going out to eat, and buying cookbooks (I own about 72 myself), but are people cooking more? I’m not so sure.

Cooking is more than following a recipe, though there’s nothing wrong with that. I try new recipes from cookbooks all the time. After all, I don’t walk around with the recipe to Lobster Thermidor in my head. Same with baking, which is more like science and requires precise adherence to the dictates of a recipe. But for every day, run-of-the-mill fair, you really don’t need a recipe. In fact, it simply gets in the way. All you need are some basic skills and common sense. And besides, just because you’re cooking “everyday faire” doesn’t mean it can’t be good, so long as you follow a few basic “rules.”

Rule #1: Salt (especially) and pepper are your friends. Ask any chef and he or she will tell you that if they had only one “spice” to take with them to a deserted island, it would be salt. 

Rule #2: More mistakes are made by trying to cook things too quickly than anything else. Take your time. Cranking the oven up to 450 degrees so you can shave a few minutes off the pot roast may shave a few minutes off the cooking time, but it’s not going to make a better pot roast.

Rule #3: Know how to make a salad dressing and throw away any bottled salad dressings you have in your fridge. Vinaigrette is so simple and easy to make, and goes so well over a bowl of simple greens, why would you waste $3.59 on something made in a factory in Toledo, Ohio?

Rule #4: Make soup. It freezes well, and is a great way to clean out the fridge.

Rule #5: Learn how to scramble eggs or make an omelet—there’s a reason Julia Child did a whole episode on this: Julia's Scrambled Eggs

Rule #6: Learn how to roast a chicken. It’s inexpensive; it’s good; and you can use what's left for stock (see rule #4). Here’s how Julia does it:Julia Roasts a Chicken

Rule #6: Learn how to make pan sauces, but keep in mind that everyone makes ‘em different. Nevertheless, here’s a video that covers the various ways to make one: Aussie Makes a Pan Sauce 

Rule #7: Don’t be afraid to use butter. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that butter is bad.

Rule #8: Have one good, simple desert recipe that you can make in a pinch.

Rule #9: Everyone likes good bread. Everyone.

Rule #10: Never apologize.

That’s it folks. All you need to know in order to be a cook, rather than a heater-of-frozen-stuff.

California Dreamin'

“California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.”

--The Mamas and the Papas

Ok, it’s obviously not winter as I write this (mid-August in Alabama); just the opposite—temperatures in the low 90s; humidity averaging 90+ percent; daily afternoon downpours. Alabama could be mistaken for Singapore, but for the pick-up trucks and barbecue. And if you’ve ever been in the Deep South in August, you’d take a winter’s day in New York City in a. . . you know the rest. But’s there’s a more pleasant alternative than a New York City winter to beat the, heat: Napa, California. And when it comes to Napa, there’s nothing like your first time.

My friends were envious and then downright perturbed when I told them that this would be my first trip to Napa. “You? Really?” “You’ve never been to Napa?!” I know, it’s like a Frenchman telling you he’s never had a baguette or smoked a Gauloises. I guess it’s part lack of opportunity, part distance, and part psychological. I had always thought of Napa as a Disney-esque playground full of Millennial yuppies. But the opportunity arrived and I didn’t turn it down, and off I went one day in a first-class seat to SFO. 

They should have served me crow on that flight.

When people talk of “Napa,” they typically refer to the entire Napa Valley. And when they do get specific, they only reference the towns of St. Helena, Yountville, or Calistoga, forgetting that there’s an actual town called Napa. 

For years Napa was a blue-collar town quickly passed over by busloads of wine-geek wannabes on the way to the big-name wineries. Passing by a local bar where you could find a sturdy local chardonnay next to a tap of PBR. These were places where the guys who worked the fields made the Napa Valley grow.

* * *

This Side of Paradise

©2017 Chris Terrell

It’s around 11:30 a.m. on the Silverado Trail, forty-five minutes since we crossed the Golden Gate bridge cosseted in damp, morning fog. Now we follow blue skies and crisp breezes. We’re looking for the Soda Canyon Store to meet Kent Fortner, the man behind Road 31 Wine Co. Kent is a fellow grad from our alma mater, the College of William & Mary. The name Road 31 pays homage to Kent’s Midwest upbringing in Kansas—Road 31 runs through his maternal and paternal family homesteads. His logo is a ’66 green Ford pickup. But it’s also a real truck, one that belonged to his grandfather. He still drives it today. 

The Soda Canyon Store is not for tourists and thankfully so. It could also only exist in northern California. It’s like a high-brow handy mart, the kind of place where you could get a quart of oil for your truck, a gourmet sandwich, and a half-bottle of Kistler. 

At first, we weren’t sure Kent was there (Laura had not seen him in a few years), and then we heard “hey guys.”  (When Kent talks to you, it is with a combination of Midwestern friendliness and California casualness.) 

After a few minutes of catching up and a quick review of the menu, we order some sandwiches and head up Soda Canyon Road to Road 31 Wine Co. Kent’s green ’66 green Ford pick-up leading the way. Our rickety rental car struggles to play catch-up on the rutty, two-lane road. After a mile or so, we make a sharp right onto a steep hill shaded with oaks. Ahead are the caves where Kent ages his wine. 

Kent gives us a tour. We taste wine from his favorite barrel. We talk about French Oak. We talk about how Napa has changed with tech money; with tourists. Everything that kept me from here in the first place.

Lunch is under a large oak tree in the middle of a vineyard of young grapes. The unofficial Road 31 mascot, a lab mix, keeps watch, occasionally begging for scraps. Laura and Kent talk about mutual friends they have kept up with, and others they have not. I casually interject when I hear a familiar name. Mostly, I'm more interested in the view. 

I’m mellow. Really mellow. I’m relaxed in a way I forgot existed. The kind of mellow that existed when I was in my twenties. Before serious work. Before serious life.  Maybe it is the cool breeze that has made it’s way from the Pacific or the second glass of pinot. Either way, I don’t care. I want to live here. This is the kind of place where people like Kent can make a living from their passion. This is the Napa I thought no longer exists. This is the Napa I want to survive.