(Mark Bittman)
Q: How did you learn to cook?
A: It's acquired, first and foremost. Even if I had worked in professional kitchens in NYC and had studied with a few great chefs, local and international, training doesn't necessarily demonstrate the fitness and quality of cooking, it's more personal than that. I see cooking as you want to be in the kitchen to work hard, as did your mother or your grandfather had been to raise you with unforgettable foods.
Q: Can you give an example of a formative dish that shaped your enduring sensibilities?
A: Sure. But it's the archetypal memories of the entire process I remember more than just eating, your family molded in that responsibility and enjoyment you saw from a young age routinely tagging along to the marketplace and observing what they buy, how they pick it and engage with the producers, and how those ingredients come together beautifully and tasty on the table at the end of the day. Is that what passion is? I think so. And that's what I acquired "in my blood." Mom's curry stew fortunately had been replicated by my only elder sibling and I'm glad it wasn't me but her, because it could never be the same without a maternal touch that elevates its alchemy on the spoon to love. However, once on my birthday I tried making mom's blend of rice and egg noodles dish with snow peas, carrots and cabbage, and sis almost cried.
Q: What are indispensable tools for you in your home kitchen?
A: Other than a chef's knife and a wooden cutting board, I have an extra large, deep silver salad bowl to wash my vegetables in and dual purpose as the bowl where I mix my vinaigrette dressing on the bottom and toss those greens to soak, then serve. Rachel Khoo is a favorite chef and author I had followed years back, and she had lived in such a tiny apartment in Paris and had used her salad bowl for everything - baking, marinating, you name it, and can't live without it.
Q: What did you cook for lunch today?
A: A simple split mung bean soup with tomatoes and radish as binding elements. I will tell you a secret. The tomatoes and radish were my salad yesterday, and I had leftovers. I used them as flavoring ingredients (the salad was dressed overnight and fully soaked) and therefore as the mung was tendering in the pan and the salad was macerating evenly, I only needed salt, pepper and a little olive to achieve the desired taste. It was that easy, but full of intention to make grace.
Thank you for mentioning mom's cooking. I was thinking about my mom's meals, too, and when she passed acquired a few of her kitchen tools. They bring love to my cooking now. How I'd like to try your family's curry stew! Having lived in a few tiny apartments myself, I can relate with the Parisian woman's bowl.
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