You’ve Got the Money, Honey . . .

I’ve got the thyme.

For the longest time, the spice rack in my various kitchens was on the thin side. If you had to ask me to identify the various herbs in Scarborough Fair, either by smell or sight, maybe I could eke out the parsley. Maybe. Even in recent years, it takes me a moment or two to differentiate parsley from cilantro. I know. Don’t judge me. Growing up in the South, I didn’t have as much of an herbal education as I would have wished. My mom, god bless her, did try.

Nowadays, of course, in our soul food kitchen, there’s a literal explosion of shit. At which point the development and growth as a chef is to first learn which herbs traditionally go with which dishes (potatoes and rosemary, for example) and then to begin playing with interesting contrasts (like fresh tarragon in a green garlic bisque).

The funny thing is this: I think virtually my entire clientele doesn’t even notice the effort to shape subtle shadings of taste profiles. That’s okay. One of the dirty secrets in the food industry, one no one ever talks about, is that most most most of the time, a chef is more or less cooking for him/her self and maybe a handful of others. To be even more outlandish for a moment, I think there are very few people out there who really taste their food.

So to riff on a musical quotation above: Cooking, like love, imposes impossible tasks. But none more than any heart would ask. It would at least be nice to know that you’re a true love of mine.