![]() ![]() ![]() hunk of meat and which then needs an 8- to 12-hour rest in the fridge, and that seems backwards. Roast Beef Po’ Boy was appealing until I saw that it requires you first spend 4 hours roasting a 5 lb. I like a cooking challenge very much but there was too much of this going on in this book to tempt me to make very many of the recipes. In all fairness, there is also an easy looking Spaghetti with Garlic, Anchovies, and Parsley, a Lasagna Bolognese (long but not extraordinarily so for a lasagna), Sunday Gravy (we’ll allow it) and a Macaroni and Cheese that seems straightforward. I will save you a google: it’s a salted, cured fish roe, and you may need to smuggle it into the US, so…plan ahead), Ravioli of Salt Cod with Lobster Sauce (and yes, you’re going to make the ravioli from scratch). Is Eric Ripert going to help me clean up after TWO Thanksgiving dinners? (because if he is I will totally do this).Įven the Pasta chapter, usually a reliable source for quick meals as well as projects, leans too heavily on the latter in addition to the Wild Boar fantasy, there is Spaghetti alla Bottarga (which I had to look up because AB assumes we are familiar with it. And if you want to go stark raving mad, try his Thanksgiving protocol which, I kid you not, proposes that you cook two turkeys: a “business turkey” and a “stunt turkey.” Cute, but I don’t know anyone who is actually going to do this and I know a lot of people who will do insane things in the name of cooking. Even an empty-nesting woman like me, for whom cooking is my golf in that I’m happy to spend most of a day or a weekend doing it, is going to think twice before embarking on a wild boar hunt (the close up, two-page spread of a dead boar’s head somehow did not whet my appetite). So recipes like Malloreddus with Wild Boar Sugo, that calls for two pounds of boneless wild boar with no substitute suggested, might be overly ambitious for most home cooks. ![]() They think they are like us, but what I think is that a guy like AB is able to source bottarga (see below) with a tiny bit more ease than I am. Or maybe it’s because they live in whatever the opposite of a food desert is, awash in exotic ingredients, twee farmer’s markets and specialty shops, all buoyed by a reliable current of disposable cash. It must be their time in the restaurant world, with the walk-in fridges, easy access to obscure and high-quality ingredients, other people doing the dishes, and years of high-volume cooking that make cranking out several quarts of octopus stock a casual endeavor. And in my experience, they are always at least a little deluded in that regard. It’s an appealing and idiosyncratic collection of the food they like, either because of tradition or Proustian triggers or comfort, but also with many nods to local street food (Bodega Sandwich, Sausage and Pepper Hero), New York classics (Chopped Liver on Rye) and global influences (Macau-Style Pork Chop Sandwich, Do Chua Salad with Herbs, Scallions, Sprouts, and Egg).Īs you may have guessed, this is also another volume in a now well-established cookbook genre: professional chef strikes the I’m-a-busy-working-parent-just-like-you pose. The book is a celebration of AB’s precious time with his family (wife and 8-year-old daughter) and is meant to chronicle the food he cooks for them and with them (as well as daughter’s best friend Jax and, apparently, Eric Ripert who seems to be under-employed and hanging out at Chez Bourdain a fair amount). Why would you do that? If it’s not broken, as they say, why the fuck would you fix it?” Indeed. And don’t make ‘house-made ketchup’ either. Like this: “Do not put ‘house-made chutney’ on my hamburger. But he’s also a very good writer and has a bracingly unsentimental point of view on all things edible. Yes, he swears and he smokes and he is irreverent about many things, including restaurants, celebrity chefs, club sandwiches, trendy ingredients, brunch, etc. ![]() I’ve been a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s since Kitchen Confidential and I’ve always felt a little bad for him in that he’s gotten one of those super-sticky labels that famous people acquire (sometimes unfairly), in his case: “bad boy,” or “the bad boy of cooking.” It must be maddeningly difficult to get people to see beyond that and I’d probably be driven to homicide by the inane and repetitive questions he must get asked because of it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |