My Love Affair with Cooking
from Matzo Balls to Boeuf Bourguignon
I got married in August of 1961. My wife and I had both grown up in Jewish households in Brooklyn. Most of the dishes our families cooked reflected our grandparents’ Eastern European background. We routinely ate stuffed cabbage, kreplach, kasha varnishkes, matzo balls, brisket, chopped liver, chicken soup and noodle pudding.
Neither of us knew much about cooking, so I was surprised when one Friday evening my wife came home, gave me a kiss and said, “We’re going to have a great dinner tomorrow. Go buy a chicken.” She told me that she planned to cook Chicken Cordon Bleu, a dish that I had never eaten nor heard of. I knew that bleu meant “blue” in French. She explained that the English translation of cordon bleu is “blue ribbon.” It referred to a wide blue ribbon worn by members of the highest order of knighthood instituted by King Henri III of France in 1578. She added, “So don’t expect the chicken to turn blue.”
While she was out of the kitchen, I added a spoonful of red wine to the chicken. A half hour later she took the dish out of the oven. It was bright blue. I exploded with laughter at the look on her face. “You did this,” she shouted angrily. Then she began to smile. She said, “I’ve married an idiot!” Laughing, we fell into each other’s arms and, as newly married people do, kissed. Then we ate the blue chicken, which was pretty good. But she made me promise not to mess with her cooking. And I didn’t.
During the 1970s …
… we were part of a 12-family fruit and vegetable co-op. Fifty years ago, $100 could buy a station wagon full of high-quality produce. The fruits and vegetables we received twice a month for $12 per family lasted two weeks. Twice a month we would shop in the early morning at Hunt’s Point wholesale market in the Bronx. The market provided fruits and vegetables to the New York restaurant community, and their produce was fresh. I loved going to the market when my turn came around twice a year. I would arrive around 5:00 AM on a snowy morning, and we would warm our hands at the fires burning in metal barrels.
During that time, we got to know some of the merchants such as P. Loy, who sold bananas and the occasional tarantula from a refrigerated stall. We became used to excellent quality produce, even though some of it was a mystery to us at that time. Papaya, durian, purple sweet potatoes, kumquats and watermelon radish occasionally made their ways into our kitchens. We didn’t know how to cook this exotic produce and made a co-op rule that the shoppers buy only familiar foods.
Learning to Cook
I learned to cook when my wife decided to go to graduate school at Columbia University in the late 1970s. She would leave for school in the late afternoon, with me in charge of our three children, all under 12 years old. I helped them with their homework, cooked dinners for them, listened to their problems and put them to bed. I had everything under control; everything but the cooking.
I put some energy into learning how to cook healthy and delicious dinners. In the process, I discovered the pleasures that cooking provided after a stressful day’s work, especially when a glass of wine and some Jazz were on hand. One evening I prepared “Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic,” an Ina Gartin recipe. I gave my kids the job of peeling the 40 cloves of garlic, which took them an hour. The dish was a success, and we ignored the garlicky fragrance that came off our skins all evening.
Slowly, our children grew up, went to college and started their adult lives. Alone in the evenings, I took up cooking as a hobby. By then my wife had taught me how to make a few dishes. I read a few popular cookbooks. I decided to learn a few recipes in Julia Childs’ The French Chef Cookbook.
I learned to prepare her famous Boeuf bourguignon recipe. I was thrilled at how good it tasted. I was encouraged to try some of her other recipes, including Paella a l’Americaine and Steak au Four, both of which were easier to prepare than I’d expected. I bought an expensive men’s cooking apron to wear while experimenting with recipes. I began to host Saturday evening dinner parties at our home. My wife would arrive home at five o’clock after a long day’s rehearsal. She would taste the dishes I’d prepared and occasionally adjust the spices.
Over the years, I came to understand that cooking was not just a matter of reading a recipe and throwing the ingredients together. It also involved enjoying the routine processes such as chopping carrots and measuring the ingredients. And you have to trouble-shoot in real time when something goes awry. You have to be flexible and creative and find a fix on the spot. This could be stressful. Eventually I learned how to enjoy the process despite the occasional crisis.
Cooking involves all of our senses. I recalled a radio interview with a famous pastry chef decades ago. The interviewer asked him what he liked to bake, and why. He said that he most enjoyed making the pastry called a scone: “At a certain point in the process, I hold the scone dough in my hand for a moment and it feels just like a woman’s breast. That’s why I love to make scones.”
Although I’ve never experienced that specific feeling, when I make meatballs, it comes close to the scone effect. I mix the ground turkey, eggs, milk and breadcrumbs by hand and then form them into small balls. I feel their texture and can tell whether to use more breadcrumbs or more liquid. It’s messy but feels good. Then I love the crackling and popping sounds while the meatballs are frying. Whenever I cook nowadays, I try to notice how many of my senses come into play. It’s a tantalizing, sensual, almost romantic experience and just one of the many reasons I continue to have a love affair with cooking.
