OCR Text |
Show How to Teach Yourself to Cook By KEVIN V. BROWN : had already tried some easythings, like scrambled eggs or broiled chops, from necessity—that’s spelled “hunger.” But this Sunday morning I was going to branch out and try something exotic straight fresh food, use part of it and let the rest rot. You'll buy exotic ingredients, use them in one recipe and let the rest waste away on the shelf. You'll buy special equipment, use it for one special meal, then never again. Learn the art of kitchen logistics. Equipment can be your most expensive investment. out of a fancy cookbook, Eggs Benedict. I lined everything up. Muffins in the toaster, Canadian baconsizzling in a buttered pan, eggs poaching in a water-filled skillet, and egg yolks being whisked briskly in the top of a double boiler, while I gradually added, drop by drop, the melted butter and lemonjuice. WhenI finished, the kitchen was a disaster area. No less than five pots and pans and an assortment of cutlery, kitchen utensils, and I recently saw one of the television cooks take a chilled marble slab from the refrigerator, pour some hot chocolate sauce onit, let it set, then scrape it off to form chocolate curls. A marble slab! He saved himself, though, by turning it over. It had his name and birth date engraved on the other side. “When I’m through with it,” he said, leering ‘into the camera, “Til the stove ar its environs, all of them with the residue from my experiment hardening on them right before my eyes. Andall I had to show forit were two scrawny-looking eggs and shriv- use it for my tombstone.” Get a basic cookbook that will tell you as much about foods— how long to cook the vegetables, which cuts .of meat need tive minutes in a skillet or two hours in the oven—as it does how to use them in recipes. I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire about who arebetter cooks, eled-up bacon on burned muffins, men or women. To me, cooking is measuring spoonswere strewn about with a sickly sauce lying uncertainly over all. I thought, what have I created? Tl tell you what I created. I created an attitude: Why cook some- neither an art nor a science, but an attitude, and it has no sex. My mother was a great cook. My sister hates it. Both my brother and I cook, and we love it. I have two one else’s way? G. back to your own childhood. Weren't the greatest sandwiches you ever ate the “Dagwood creations” you made yourself out of what was available in the refrigerator? Who WILTON ENTERPRISES,INC., Dept. FW-100 833 West 115th St., Chicago,Ill. 60643 Sounds wondert'I! Rush my copyof the great new 1971 Wilton “Cake and Food Decorating Book.” | enclose: (1 $1 for one copy DD $2 for two copies This is your shipping label. PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY. Name. mistakes. Go ahead and make them, Street. City. needed advice then? You just slapped things together, using what your stomach liked best. Recipesin the cookbooksarelike music. The ingredients and the notes are written down by an cxpert, the samefor all, but you can interpret them in any way yc: like. Once you keep your eye on that rule—cookto please yourself, your appetite as well as your hunger— then you are on your wayto learning how to cook, and enjoying it. Even so, you're going to make : State. Zip code. but learn from them. You'll buy 18 Family Weekly, October 18, 19 70 ar Ler “Che?” Brown tries something simple. = |