During the recent holidays I was exposed to a set of words that brings to mind one of the many reasons that I view television as a land of bread and circuses. A relative said “I saw this recipe on a cooking show and I just had to try it”. My disdain for reality show is followed a close second by cooking shows…very close. It all started with a knife.
I accidentally landed on a cook show years ago and this chef was talking about his knives as he was cooking. He commented on how the knife he was holding cost over $800 and was made of German Steel. That was worth more than the car I drove to work, and my discount purchased knives all had “made in China” on their slightly bent blades. Most humans live in a Wal-Mart supplied kitchen…so should they.
He then put his concoction into his handy food forms for this special dish. Forms that in my entire life I have never had a need for. I went and saw that they cost about $10 each due to a clasp on the side to open after the food “chilled to room temperature”. I figure if my “made in China” stainless steel bowls from Asia are not enough to cook an item, then it doesn’t need to be cooked that bad.
Then there are the items themselves, esoteric spice that you purchase whole bottles for and then use once a year…or never again. My bottle of Orange Zest has been in the cupboard so long it has morphed into “Orange Slow”. Why buy a pound of parsnips to get one ounce for the dish. Most of my spices could be carbon dated they’re so old.
I simply have a dislike for cooking shows because they have separated themselves from the reality of the modern American kitchen. I have a one spice rule in my house. If a new recipe calls for more than one new item…it doesn’t get cooked. Boycott the fairy land cooking shows of America until they learn about the regular American kitchen.
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13 comments:
Huh. Strange.
My kitchen is ALWAYS stocked with tamarind, caviar, that really expensive yellow spice, ostrich eggs and live baby turtles.
Only the best!
Am I not part of "regular America?"
(seriously... your post is hilarious)
You're so funny! I really love those cooking shows (Top Chef is my fav) and no one in my family understands it. Especially since I don't cook.
This really was a refreshing breath of comedy...thank you. I, personally, like the cooking shows, and often try the recipes....don't have the traditional American pallate.
Parsnips? Yum. They should never go to waste! You can prepare and eat them just like mashed potatoes. You wouldn't waste potatoes would you? I'm going to put some in my garden this year. There is no other veggie that is as easy to store and keep. You just leave them in the ground in the fall and the frost actually improves their flavor. Before potatoes came to the U.S., parsnips fulfilled the role of the potato in modern American cuisine. I don't know why it fell out of fashion, but some of us are trying to bring it back!
Personally, I would never buy orange zest. I would buy an orange and zest it myself. Then, I could eat the orange. It's what I call a chef's tax. No waste. See? It's true what you say about spices, though. I have a whole cabinet full of them in addition to having an herb garden. Of course, many of them I use on a regular basis. The ones I use most, I buy in bulk. Still, there are < strike >some< / strike > one spices in there that I found I didn't care for much. Perhaps the cabinet needs a good purging. (Done. The curry powder is gone...I may be an addict.)
I admit to being a knife snob. Sorry. I don't own any $800 knives, but I don't like Walmart knives either. Life is too short. I've never paid more than $150 for a knife, though. Perhaps I cook more than you do? Or use fewer convenience foods?
One should only ever need one springform pan. I'm assuming that's the "form" you described. It's primary purpose is for New York-style cheesecake, but I would be open to using mine for other dishes. If one can't see the need to have at least one springform pan for cheesecake, I can only say...Heathen!
Who needs cooking shows? I like to get recipes from Youtube. It would be kind of cool to make a daytime drama centered around the kitchen though. They've done it for fashion and cosmetics already. Someone call Hollywood! They could call it, "The Sweet and the Savory."
These were small spring form pans about 3 inches across...and I chose parsnips as an example of something my luddite brothers would never eat.
Right now I have four good knives I purchased from Pampered chef and they work nice, and their sharpening holders are good, but really. the shows are far removed from the reality of modern cooking in our bust society.
Point out your luddite brothers and I will disabuse them of their erring parsnip philosophy. LOL Glad to hear you are not biased against cheesecake. It is, after all, one of the greater contributions New York has made to society.
Seriously, who has room to dedicate to every newfangled kitchen gadget or ware they can come up with these days? I agree that many of the cooking shows become more esoteric with each passing season. That's why I like Iron Chef. They don't try to teach you how to make these outrageous dishes. They just inspire you to be a little bit adventurous with flavor combinations.
I am currently working out an original recipe of my own. It's a riff on potato skins, but made with roasted sweet potatoes in a cane syrup glaze. I'm thinking of topping with pecans and bleu cheese, but nothing is written in stone yet. I've waffled back and forth between that combination and lingonberry jam glaze with chopped hazelnuts and shredded gruyere or jarlsburg.
I make up potato skins to keep in the freezer and pull them out for after school snacks and parties. I'm hoping to come up with something similar to use up some of the sweet potatoes I grew in the garden this year. The trick is to know that you can use the rest of the ingredients for some other dish, which is why I lean toward the jarlsburg. Deep fried jarlsburg cheese sticks, dipped in lingonberry jam makes a nice snack itself. I'm sure my kids will eat that, even if they won't eat the sweet potato skins. The only thing that works against the bleu cheese and pecans is that I know the kids won't eat that combo. I can always use the cane syrup to make homemade cracker jack, though. Cracker jack is probably healthier than deep fried jarlsburg. It's a dilemma. Which would you choose?
Parsnips, eh? I don't think I've ever tried them!
I love the idea of storable roots, though. My garden this year will have hundreds of Jerusalem Artichokes (already in the ground!) and lots of potatoes.
Do you need to do anything special to grow parsnips? And how do they taste? Sweet, like a carrot?
And as for orange zest... heck yeah, eat the orange! Them compost the peels and use 'em to grow something else!
David,
I haven't grown them before, but going by what I have read, they're pretty straighforward. The only thing we need to really consider is growing half-long jersey variety rather than a standard. The same is generally true of carrots in this area. It's hard to grow standard sizes in our local soil. That's why I usually just grow little fingers carrots.
Parsnips have a hint of carrot flavor, but they are quite distinct from a carrot. They are mild, slightly sweet, nearer to a potato imho. They have more texture when mashed, but the flavor is a pleasant change. I don't care for turnips. I've eaten mashed turnips by mistake, thinking I was about to eat mashed potatoes. I was really astonished to find that I liked parsnips so well. Makes me wonder what else I'm missing.
What kind of potatoes are you going to grow? I'm planning to go with Viking Purple. I know Red Pontiac is kind of standard in this area. It's a tried and true winner for our growing environment. I'm just kind of fascinated by the Viking Purple, and I haven't found any reason it wouldn't do well here. It seems, by all descriptions to be fairly comparable to Yukon Gold, except that it stores better and has snow white flesh.
Cool... I'll put parsnips on my "to try" list. Down in Florida I grew cassava... that's a REALLY neat root plant that needs almost no tending... but it's only grow-able in the tropics. Growing half-size parsnips sounds like a good idea.
As for potatoes... I haven't decided yet. I would like to grow some blue and some white. I was figuring on going over to Publix and grabbing some organic potatoes and letting them develop eyes over the next couple of months. Last year I did that with some non-organic russets and they did fine. Except for the awful bermuda grass that choked up everything.
I've heard that potatoes are often treated with eye-retarding chemicals. If that's the case, it certainly didn't hurt last year's crop.
If you want, we could trade some spuds and seed. Are you my neighbor-down-the-street who so graciously shared seed with me a few months ago? Hard to know with the many "anonymous" postings we have here.
Thanks for the info - and happy gardening!
David,
Heh, you recognized me. I've had cassava chips before, and of course, tapioca. Bermuda grass sucks. Good luck finding some organic potatoes. I looked the last few times I was at Publix. No organic potatoes. You can probably get some at Wholefoods though.
I know a man who has been using the same stock to grow potatoes for years. It's my understanding that using potatoes from the store every year can make your crop more susceptible to disease, though usually there is no problem. It's kind of the luck of the draw. However, this older fellow has never had any problem with his kennebecs, which were originally started from seed potatoes. He just puts some of the smaller potatoes from his crop on a screen and hangs it in his dark basement about a foot from the floor. They don't turn green, and they already have quite a root system by the time he plants. He plants the whole potato and gets more potatoes, quicker than anyone else in his community. My feeling is that his system works well because he doesn't risk introducing disease every year with new stock. Most people don't have much luck trying to preserve last year's crop that long. His system is pretty creative if you ask me.
I was sent this link a couple of weeks ago. This document was created by someone who is concerned with maintaining biodiversity. It is sort of a primer on seed saving, and gives instructions for maintaining pure seed stock of heirloom varieties, as well as a rough guide for which seeds store the best. Thought you might enjoy it. There are some instructions in there for growing potatoes from grocery store stock and ensuring that your plants are disease free.
Ignore the zoning stuff. (It was co-produced with an emergency manager looking at ways to ensure food security for his community in a long emergency. His plan would never fly here. We are too rebellious. LOL)
http://mindspinner.net/docs/SeedSaving1-0.pdf.
Ignore the zoning stuff. (It was co-produced with an emergency manager looking at ways to ensure food security for his community in a long emergency. His plan would never fly here. We are too rebellious. LOL)
sounds like he might be a member of the peak oil crowd. I can understand his worry on that issue as society is very dependent on the flow of cheap oil and gas.
Well, it is a consideration, but since we are not emergency managers or anyting like that, it just didn't seem particularly useful...to me. It would take something like a protracted oil emergency to get gardeners to cooperate that way. Some gardeners prefer to use hybrids, and I get it. It's what they know, and it meets their expectations fairly consistently.
I prefer heirlooms when I can get them. The taste is usually better. Taste is too often sacrificed for shipping qualities, yield, uniformity, or pest/disease resistance in hybrids. I prefer the old-fashioned flavor, reproducibility, variety, and preservation of our agricultural heritage that heirlooms offer. I'm quite sure my children don't even know what a tomato is supposed to taste like. They have turned their noses up at tomatoes since they were introduced to tasteless grocery store/school cafeteria varieties as small children. Can't even get them to try the tasty heirlooms.
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