Chef: a skilled cook who manages the kitchen.
A home chef: a skilled cook who manages the home kitchen. That is all there is to it. Anyone can be a home chef by developing skills and managing their own kitchen. It is the simple and complex process of managing what goes into the pantry and what goes on the plate. The only requirements is to improve every day and the way to do that is to just do it. Should you choose to begin the awecome adventure of a home chef, you will learn so quickly because a home chef is the sous chef, the line cook and head chef all in one. It takes as much time to learn how to finish everything at one time as it does to improve technique and learn new dishes. You will learn to prepare, cook, plate and enjoy your food so much more than microwaving a pre-made gut bomb or mixing a package of never rotting ingredients. I am still learning how to dice, slice and gain advice and I believe the learning never ends. By the way, the satisfaction level is improved dramatically with a glass of wine nearby. Just a suggestion! What drove my interest in being a home chef? I grew up in the midst of the great revolution in American food. Not a good one, by the way. Over the last few decades, the American food system in restaurants and grocery stores changed from ingredients to convenience and nearly every family fell for it. Our entire system became frozen dinners, microwaves, fast food and processed everything. At the same time, we were bombarded by medical finding after medical finding about what was killing us and what was not. Americans became obsessed with saving time in the kitchen while cooking with the latest healthy ingredient (e.g., margarine) and losing the extra weight we all seemed to be carrying. Eggs were bad for you. Coffee was bad for you. Butter was bad for your and the Mediterranean diet did not work for us. Too much of anything was bad for your. It turns out that eating the processed, factory made foods with zero fat, lite-this, and sugar-free that only made our country fatter and less healthy. Almost everything we were told was inherently wrong and we lost our food culture. Rather, we created a new one that is neither healthy or delicious. My motivation came from wanting to eat and understand real food, enjoy the art of cooking AND eating and having something to do with my wife every night that we would both enjoy. I had no idea how it would change every aspect of our lives (for the better - much better) and our entire perspective on food and health. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever just watched a football game? It is typical that four plays on the field are followed by six commercials. Each and every commercial is either processed foods or pharmaceutical drug ads. I wanted no part of that anymore and I feel even stronger about that now with all that I have learned. I know it all sounds so preachy but it is not snobbery to believe in the experience and healthiness of good and real food. I believe everyone would feel the same if they experienced a real meal everyday. So it was about ten years ago that I made a simple decision to study how to cook. I was tired of eating tasteless, bland, boring food and spending too much money eating it. I felt I could make much better food than I could find in restaurants and I could make it at a fraction of the cost. I asked my wife to buy me a culinary textbook for Christmas and I decided to go from being a good cook at home to being a proper chef. I might only be a home chef but I feel that I am a chef now. I see clearly now what I was missing with the food system in our country. I was missing taste, flavor and the food experience. The motivation came from wanting to eat good food every day and to be healthier for it. After I started really learning to cook. I read every book I could on the subject. I did not read cook books and attempt to make food from recipes. I read books about ingredients, how to use them, where to find them and what good ones and bad ones were and how to tell the difference. With each step, I found new places to find the better ingredients and I learned several techniques with heat, preparation, seasoning, combinations of taste and just about everything I could learn. Soon, all the neighbors and friends were coming over for a meal. Each time I was met with compliments about how my food was better than anything they could find anywhere in the area. I learned to match wines with each meal and my interest and motivation as a home chef became a snowball accelerating down a hill. It became stronger and bigger with every success and frankly, every failure. Every step provided now knowledge and new ideas. I began with savory cooking only but added breads and baking. They are totally different but equally satisfying. We no longer buy pasta, bread or many of the processed, enriched, and modified foods that frankly made me want to burp all the time. Now I take great pleasure in learning more refined concepts with food and everything has changed. Our pantry does not contain nearly the same things it once did. I buy everything from the stores or farmer's markets that have the best ingredients. I have found that real food costs less, tastes better, is more fun to make and impresses everyone that eats with us. So again... What is a home chef? A home chef is someone that loves to cook, knows how and wants to improve everyday. That is me.
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Dennis SmithHome Chef and Wine Snob Archives
October 2021
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