|
by Chef Boy Ari
Just because I write these food articles every week,
people make the assumption that I can cook. Meanwhile,
I’m often amazed at my ignorance of major aspects
of cooking, like baking, or dessert-making. And there
are many common ingredients that I know absolutely
nothing about. For example: corn starch. I know it’s
for thickening things, but I rarely find myself thinking, “Hey,
maybe I’ll use corn starch.”
Perhaps my cooking would improve if I followed more
recipes. And maybe I wouldn’t sweat so often
in the kitchen, the guest of honor about to arrive,
as I struggle to salvage something useful from a failing,
seat-of-my-pants dish – punting, perhaps, by
adding some ingredient, like corn starch, that I don’t
know how to use, and helplessly watching the lumps
form. Thus, I live in fear that the secret will get
out: Chef Boy Ari is a fraud.
Some weeks ago, I got a call from the Drum Brothers,
a home-grown band of itinerant rhythmists. They asked
if I would cook for 35 people at their upcoming five-day
Rhythm Retreat.
Hmm. That’s a lot of people. I’ve never
really done anything like that. On the other hand,
I needed the money, and I could find no excuses on
my calendar.
Plus, I liked the sound of “camp cook.” It
reminds me of that Nancy Griffith song about the Great
Divide and the yodeling camp cook. It reminds me of
that Norman Maclean short story about the logging camp,
and how the camp cook had so much prestige he was treated
as if he had “Testicles of Gold.” I found
this concept highly appealing. So I said yes, even
though part of the deal was to make dessert after both
lunch and dinner. I suck at dessert.
The Drum Brothers put me in touch with Dorian, a chef
in New Orleans whom they’ve hired before. I asked
her what to expect.
“They eat a lot of food,” she said, in her
sweet southern voice. “They’re drumming
all day, always going. They are always starving.”
Dorian also told me some of her tricks, like: Arrive
a day early and mix the dough for cookies, brownies
and oatmeal bars for the whole week. And she reminisced
about a sauce that she once whipped together, seat-of-her-pants,
with pineapple and corn starch. My god, she even knows
how to use corn starch. Clearly I had some big, err,
shoes to fill. In search of dessert recipes, I perused
Joy of Cooking. What an amazing book. You want to skin
and cook a beaver? Joy of Cooking. You want to preserve
fruits, vegetables, meat `85 it’s got instructions
on canning, freezing, smoking, salting and drying.
Lost in the joys of “savory sauces,” I noticed
a Chinese stir-fry sauce made from corn starch, water,
salt, soy sauce and ginger. The secret to corn starch,
it turns out, is to mix it in a small amount of water
first, for lump-free thickening.
Back on task, I flipped to “cookies and bars,” picked
out some recipes that looked easy, quintupled the quantities,
and put those ingredients on my list.
The camp was by the Boulder River, in the Beartooth-Absaroka
Mountains. It was classic Western camp-cook country,
with high peaks and wildflower meadows, and haunted
by the new age sounds of drums and didgeridoos floating
through the air, sometimes from here, sometimes from
there, mingling with the song of the river.
I had designed a menu that maximized the use of local
produce. While the campers loved the food, and my testicles
grew more golden by the meal, the downside of all of
these vegetables was the washing and cutting. Every
meal was a race to get the food out to the always starving
drummers, and there was no time for measuring and mixing
all of those powders and liquids into something to
bake for dessert. Dessert simply would not have happened
were it not for Adelle, the camp yoga instructor, and
her sweet tooth. Before every meal, Adelle charged
into the kitchen, found my ingredients and my Joy of
Cooking, and started baking.
When Adelle whipped out a sherry and egg sauce for the
brownies, her testicles, as it were, surpassed even
my own in their golden hue. The salty, full-bodied
flavor of the sherry combined surprisingly perfectly
with the eggs and brown sugar, and the sauce would
work on many things – including our pancakes
the next morning.
To make the sherry sauce: Cook 1 cup brown sugar and?`BD
cup water for five minutes. Pour this over a beaten
egg, beating constantly until it thickens. Add 3 tablespoons
dry sherry and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. Serve at once,
or keep warm in a double boiler.
I never did use any corn starch, but I did thicken a
coconut curry with the starchy water left over from
boiling some local Yukon Gold potatoes, and that curry
was the biggest hit of the event. Moral of the story?
If you’re a fraud, don’t forget those golden
potatoes.
|
