Modest Tips from our Soul Food Kitchen
So anyone who has a swift sense of literature will know that the word “modest” is often the trigger word for over-the-top irony. So reader beware. Every year, the New York Times does a feature on the key take-aways its contributors want to share with readers. This is my own, modest if you will, attempt to do something similar:
Visualize the whole meal in all its steps before you begin. Included in my visualization are always scenarios of my knocking over large vats of tchina and the like and how to avoid such catastrophes. You have to be careful, though, not to let these images of disaster become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Keep a baking stone on the bottom of your oven. Things cook a whole lot better, with the heat more evenly distributed, using this stone. ON the downside, it takes a fucking long time to get the oven up to temp. So a corollary tip: Wake up at an ungodly hour to crank up the oven for the day.
Always have a ton of ice on hand. I do more ice baths in a day than the typical Scandinavian. Seriously, sometimes the critical key to cooking is knowing how to stop the carryover process in its tracks.
New kitchen gadget in, some old kitchen gadget has to go. Enough said.
Label everything. My capacity to remember what I put in a container runs to about 17 minutes post prep.
You know all those cookbooks that tell you how to equip a kitchen with a minimum of equipment? Then, when you go through their various recipes, you find they’re using a ton more shit than they first told you about? Be your own boos. Equip minimally. Purchase prudently. Learn how to use what you’ve got thoroughly.
Sear mushrooms. Always. I’m serious.
Cook as much as you can using a vegan base. You can always add the non-vegan stuff as a further iteration. Virtually all of my soups these days are done that way.
Make your own stock. Seriously.
Build menus from what you know best. Cooking stuff from your roots brings up all kinds of powerful shit.
