Welcome To SLAKED!

Hot damn! The very first post! I've got to pull out all the stops--the kitchen wisdom, the writing chops-- if I'm to have any hope of sucking you in and convincing you to stop by periodically. Well, no pressure. I'm writing this for me, first and foremost, and it's not like anyone's paying me to do it. 

I grabbed this picture on the left (which I hope to hell is not copyrighted. If it is and you contact me, I'll take it down and shoot my own goddamn pic of a banana leaf with a beef skewer) because it pretty well illustrates my phundamental phood philosophy: while highly refined techniques, sophisticated apparatus,  and elaborate preparations all have their place, as a rule, great food is generally simple ingredients prepared simply. This is true even in fine dining restaurants-- especially in fine dining restaurants. Why? Because all competent chefs know that the ingredients themselves are the stars of the show, not the sauces or the garnishes or the knife skills, or even the chefs. 

As far as I'm concerned, the most important skill any aspiring cook needs to develop before anything else is shopping. I know you're busy, Doreen, with the long work days and the parent-teacher conferences and dropping kids off to soccer practice and so on. But if you're a "foodie"* (shudder!) then quality is not only worth your time and effort, it is your birthright... as I channel Mario Batali for a second. Get your produce from your local farmers market, if you have one. The selection is almost certainly more varied than you'll find in the local supermarket, and the quality is definitely better.  Taste peaches and pears that were not picked prematurely and shipped in hot tractor trailers from two states over, but picked fresh from a local farm when they were good 'n ready to be picked. Buy tomatoes that were actually ripened on the vine and picked that very morning. Compare that to the tasteless, woody things they try to pass off as tomatoes in the supermarkets. There is no comparison.

Which reminds me of one sublime starter I had at an upscale restaurant. It was a tomato and blue cheese salad, and it was amazing. There was nothing particularly unique about it: slices of tomatoes stacked vertically, sandwiching slices of blue cheese, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Maybe a sprig of basil. So, basically, there were five ingredients... no, not basically; there were five ingredients: tomatoes, salt, blue cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar. Okay, six with the basil. The presentation was nice, but how fancy can you get with a simple salad? The tomatoes were sliced perfectly at about 3/8'' and all were about the same in diameter (they probably use the off-cuts for tomato gazpacho and ragu and such). Between each tomato slice was a little bit of cheese, and it was stacked up like a pretty little cylinder. A drizzle of syrupy balsamic framed the tomatoes on the plate and extra virgin olive oil glistened off the ripe fruit and pooled at the base. A fresh sprig of verdant basil adorned the top. 

I don't recall exactly, but it was probably about a $15 to $20 starter at this place (now defunct, sadly).  This dish may have been, as they say, greater than the sum of its parts, but only because those parts were amazing in their own right. These were locally grown, sun-caressed, vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes (grown from seeds directly descended from a lineage dating back decades, sometimes centuries, with no grafting or hybridizing or genetic modifications so prevalent in today's produce that must have a long shelf life). They were sliced, as mentioned, then perfectly seasoned with fleur de sel (French grey sea salt). They sandwiched generous slices of Stilton, a much prized blue-veined cheese from England, so creamy, with an unctuous mouth feel. The balsamic was imported Italian aged vinegar, probably 8-12 years old, that becomes thicker and syrupy as it slowly evaporates in oak barrels and concentrates in flavor. And the oil was top-shelf, first-press Italian virgin olive oil. 

The purpose of this anecdote is not to share a simple recipe, or to suggest that you too can make this at home for a mere... let's see... carry the 2... $98.74. No. The point is that this simple dish was so outstanding because the tomatoes were specimens of quintessential tomato deliciousness. The cheese was world renown as one of the finest of its kind. The vinegar is often copied but never equaled, and there is a distinct difference which is why it fetches such a high price. The olive oil is not your mom's $9 bottle of Bertoli (no offense to Bertoli, a fine product that I do use), it's the very best oil pressed from specially selected olives with carefully monitored acidity, with complex flavor notes and incredible balance. It's the sort of thing you use sparingly, in raw applications, mostly, when the oil is going to stand out. You fry eggplant in the other stuff. The dish was special because the quality was special. 

Good food doesn't mean big bucks. But it does mean high quality. The chef's job is to accentuate the quality of the ingredient and celebrate its flavors. My little anecdote was of a celebration of the tomato. What could you possibly be accentuating and celebrating with tasteless, woody, tomato-like things drizzled with caramel-added cooked vinegar and $9 olive oil? Mediocrity? Bad cooking? Summer is upon us and high quality tomatoes are soon to be had, if you want them. Get thee to thy local farmers market. You really owe it to yourself. Too hard to drag the kids there? You drag the kids to the Safeway or Kroger's or Food Lion, where they grab coloring books and candles and cookies and cakes and say, "Mommy, I need this! Please, Mommy! Buy it!" Why not take them to the farmers market where the only things to beg for are fresh fruits and vegetables? Plus, they can begin to learn about quality, healthy foods and savvy shopping from you. Look at you, setting such a fine example.

To sum up, you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Garbage in, garbage out. A team is only as strong as its weakest member. "I" before "E" except after "C." If you start with good quality ingredients that taste good already, and you don't mess them up too much by overworking them and over-thinking the process, you'll probably end up with a dish you can serve proudly. Egesegedre!

*overused, over-hyped, media-created buzz word that made me throw up a little in my mouth as I typed it.