Elementary Chef

Yes, I am the Queen of Tinkering With Food. When he was a kid, my son, Sean, found this a source of great irritation.

“Can’t you just leave it alone?� he’d ask, when he saw me adding something new to an old favorite dish. Today that would be called, “kickin’ it up a notch,� but back then Sean was a purist. He even issued an edict one time, when he was about 11, and we were planning a family barbecue.

“No foreign potato salad!� he insisted, as his dad and I pondered the merits of German vs. Cajun vs. Mom’s Old Standby. That time he won. He was right, too, as at that time my own mother was still with us, and looked forward to her comfortable old recipes served at my table.

And Miracle Whip was still what it claims to be. But I digress…

I got into the tinkering thing because of Connie. She’s my brother’s ex-wife, who taught me everything she knew about Maltese cooking when I was just out of high school. Her way was to buy jars of Ragu and add stuff to it, and make it right. We created some knock-your-socks-off Rigatoni in those days, and had a lot of fun both cooking and eating.

Eventually I did figure out ways of making my own Maltese (and eventually Neapolitan and many other) sauces from scratch, but I am forever in dear Connie’s debt for setting me on the path.
I think that’s how a lot of cooks get started these days. We don’t have moms and grandmas in the kitchen baking pies and making their own noodles. So you get what’s available and see if you can make it better.

If you want to learn to cook, you can start out by trying some convenience foods you like, and figuring out how to make them yourself. For example, there used to be an excellent frozen crepes product that we loved, but were disappointed by the size of the portions. One package wasn’t quite enough for the two of us, but two packages was too much.

So we looked at the elements of the product, and figured out how we could make it ourselves. As things turned out, it was simply a crêpe, with some asparagus and ham with a white sauce. We had a crêpe recipe from Paul’s mother, and as we found, asparagus is almost a no-brainer. When it is in season. (It takes only three minutes to cook in boiling water, so you can boil it while the crêpes are cooking. Or just nuke it for a minute.)

Sliced ham? Duh. Everywhere. You can get sliced ham at a gas station these days. I knew about white sauce from my basic macaroni-and cheese recipe. So there we had it!

If you’re trying to duplicate a food you like, either restaurant or store-bought, you can find a recipe for almost anything you want to make online. This can serve as a jumping-off point for your own unique creation.

You can always ask me about methods and ingredients, and all kinds of things related to cooking.

Just don’t hesitate to tinker with food. And yes, Sean has gotten over his dislike of “foreign potato salad.� ;>)

You know what you like, so go with it!