Silly little kitchen

“But I do think that the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s ass…”: Anthony Bourdain in Medium Raw (Page 60). 

I have always thought of myself as something like a “home cook”. Growing up in an ingredient-only household I learned, through trial and error, which random combinations tasted edible, how to roughly chop produce and make a few specialty dishes (many, many egg sandwiches at all hours of the day & night). I have cooked my entire life but only in the past few months have I come to the realization that I truly do not know anything about cooking. I don’t know proper techniques for crispy & juicy chicken or how to get a pan sauce to coat the back of a spoon. Frankly, swimming through an internet sea of cooking content, I didn’t even know where to start learning.

Last winter I read Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain: the legendary American chef, writer, traveler & inspiration to many. In the book (chapter 6 “Virtue”) Bourdain lays out his argument for why everyone should be able to cook, and outlines all the skills needed to be self-sufficient in a kitchen. I have decided to take his advice & create a homeschool curriculum for becoming a self-sufficient cook. In a world that is increasingly reliant on food prepared by people we have never met, in places we have never seen (using ingredients we’ll never know), I want to take full advantage of having my own silly little kitchen.

Bourdain argues that home cooking is cheaper, healthier and “provably better for society.” He believes that being able to feed yourself, loved ones, friends & strangers with proficiency is a virtue. In America the skill of cooking was lost by the 1960s. Having two working parents left a void on the dinner table much more easily filled by take-out or frozen lasagna than a home cooked meal. During the time when women were, correctly, rejecting the idea that they should only be taught tasks fit for a housewife, the men of the world did not contribute by learning to cook. Households failed to create a 50/50 food prep partnership, & instead outsourced the need for food to industrial kitchens & factories– a mistake that created an environment where people stopped cooking, & rapidly forgot how. 

Luckily Bourdain spells out the skills that society should work on to remember the lost art. I took those excerpts and formulated them into a basic outline for learning the essentials in my tiny NYC area kitchen. My kitchen is one wall, with minimal counter space & I am lucky to have 4 stove burners and a microwave. My hope is that learning in this small setting will teach me a deep understanding of simple and minimalistic (in regards to equipment not taste) home cooking. I want to prove that you can create delicious meals and increase your control on what you consume, no matter what space you’re working in. I’m going to document my learnings and share what I uncover along the way, & I would love for you to follow along with me here on the blog – you can stay connected by dropping your email below. 

Here is the curriculum & some good quotes from Medium Raw 

• Basic Knife Skills:
  • Basic knife handling, sharpening, and maintenance.
  • Dicing, mincing and slicing 
  • “Just enough facility with a knife to be on a par with any Sicilian grandmother” 
• Omelets 
  • “…because the process of learning to make an omelet is, I believe, not just a technique but a builder of character.” 
• Roast Chicken 
• Cooking a Proper Steak
• Preparing Vegetables 
  • “Cooking vegetables to a desired doneness is easy enough and reasonable to expect of any citizen of voting age” 
• Vinaigrettes 
• Shopping for Produce 
  • “The ability to shop for fresh produce and have at least some sense of what’s in season, to tell whether or not something is ripe or rotten might be acquired at the same time as one’s driving license.” 
• Buying & Cooking Fish 
  • “How to recognize a fish that’s fresh and how to clean and filet it would seem a no-brainer as a basic survival skill in an ever more uncertain world” 
• Steaming Seafood 
  • “Steaming a lobster or a crab – or a pot of mussels or clams – is a something a fairly bright chimp could do without difficult, so there’s no reason we all can’t” 
• Roasting meat 
• Potatoes and Rice 
  • Roast and Mash Potatoes 
  • Steamed and Pilaf Rice 
• Braising 
  • “As simply learning how to make a beef bourguignon opens the door to countless other preparations” 
• Stocks and Soups 
  • What to do with bones & scraps to create stocks – then make soups from them.
  • “A lesson in frugality many will very possibly have to learn at some point in their lives. It would seem wise to learn earlier rather than later”. 
• Develop your own modest yet unique repertoire. 
  • “Find a few dishes they love and practice at preparing them until they are proud of the result”

It’s not mentioned in the book but I’m also going to do some learning on pastas, pan sauces, meal prep, and quick bites. 

*Source: Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. All quotes credited to Chapter 6: Virtue.