One of the many gifts my parents gave me was good taste. In food, that is. My parents both spent time teaching us (all four of their children) how to cook. The truth is, the girls learned the ways of the stove and the boys learned the ways of the grill (though my sister is a competent cook in both, I am a little intimidated by the grill). My brothers are not exactly chefs, but they can make steak like pros.
The one thing that my mother taught me was how to taste food. She taught me how to decide what spices go well together and what spices go well in dishes that I make. Our spice cabinet has never been an organized one, it was always crammed full of a variety of spices and by crammed I mean this:
As you can see: not organized at all. However, the disorganization has been a useful tool for teaching. I could spend ten minutes searching for the spice I wanted, and all the while learning what other spices were in there, and how they were typically used, because I was a label reader and not afraid of experimenting with something that sounded and smelled like it might fit in the dish I was making.
All that, of course, happened when I was older. When I was a child of about 4, my mother taught me how to make pancakes. It was my first cooking lesson. I still remember the heat off the griddle, and the weight of the spatula in my hand. I remember standing on the chair so I could reach the griddle on the counter. I remember that my sister was on another chair, right next to me. We were learning together. It was family time. I remember watching those pancake bubbles like a hawk and deciding to turn over the pancake as soon as the last bubble popped. I also remember the wave of disappointment when the first pancake I turned was burnt! It was mom's first true lesson in cooking: the first pancake is either burnt or underdone.
Later, my mother taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce. To this day, I can whip that up like a pro, but I've learned a few things of my own and the recipe has evolved since I became it's perpetrator in my house. After I had pancakes and spaghetti down, along with a few other recipes my dad contributed (namely, Gloop-Slorp), I decided to strike out on my own in an adventure in cooking. The first leg of my journey encapsulates the quintessence of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking.
I was 13 and I wanted Fettuccine Alfredo. I didn't know how to make it and I didn't have a recipe for it, but I did have a jar of Alfredo sauce. I read the directions and followed them to the letter. The first part instructed the cook to heat up the sauce in a sauce pan to boiling. I did that. The next part was to boil the fettuccine for a certain amount of minutes until tender. The instructions didn't say anything about a pot of boiling water, so I dumped the fettuccine into the pot of boiling sauce.
It became apparent pretty quickly that I had done something wrong. The fettuccine was not cooking right and the sauce was just getting thicker and thicker, so being a student of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking, I decided to improvise. I dumped a bunch of milk in the sauce pan! But I realized that the spices would be diluted, so I thought about it and decided that Italian blend seasoning would be appropriate and I shook a bunch of that in the sauce pan. I let it boil and cook until it was apparent that it could not get any better, but it definitely could get worse. I turned off the burner and stepped outside, where my father and brothers were working. I had decided I wouldn't even attempt to eat what I had made, but I didn't want to rob anyone else of the opportunity, so I yelled at them, "SUPPER'S RUINED!!!" And they ate it!
During my teens, pasta and I had a love-hate relationship. I loved it, but it hated to be cooked by me. Until one day, it decided to change it's tactics on me and took over the speech center of my brain. It was Christmas morning and the presents were opened and the gift to the family was a waffle maker! By this time, I had become the evening meal cook, so my dad turned to me and the conversation went like this:
"Jen! How do you make waffles?"
Thinking pancakes, I said, "Spaghetti!"
My dad looks baffled and asks again, "Jen? How do you make
wafffles?"
I was still thinking pancakes, but pasta was taking over and I said, "Spaghetti!"
My father didn't give up on me, and I didn't give up on myself and eventually I got the word, "pancakes" out of my mouth. The ensuing disaster is another paradigm of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking: when in doubt, fake it. Pancake batter is too thin for successful waffles, but the basics are similar,so after a few attempts, we finally got a batter that worked for waffles. We made it up, tweaking the recipe for pancake batter until we got what we wanted. That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking is all about: make it up until you get it right.
Since the alfredo debacle, I haven't used recipes except as a tool for ideas. If I want pumpkin bread, I will find a recipe and use it as a guide, but I never follow recipes to the letter any more. A few days ago, I wanted stroganoff, I don't have a recipe, but I do have a basic understanding of what it should taste like, so I made it up. I sauteed the vegetables and meat I wanted, boiled up some farfalle and used sour cream as a sauce base. It was delicious and my kids ate up, but there were no recipes involved.
The most useful skill the Slam Dunk School of Cooking has given me is the ability to improvise in the kitchen. I don't usually have a meal planned when I start cooking. Often I will grab whatever meat I happen to have on hand, and toss it in a skillet. I will go to the freezer for some vegetable inspiration to go with the meat in the skillet, and the meal tends to come together from there. My most recent meal happened this way: I had some thawed boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I diced them and tossed them in a skillet with olive oil. I went the the freezer and put a back of broccoli and a bag of peas in the microwave to steam. There was some leftover green beans from lunch that I tossed in the skillet with a spoonful of garlic. I went to the fridge, saw what was the left of the sour cream from the stroganoff the other day and decided to finish it off. I added the peas and broccoli to the skillet, the sour cream, some salt and a Tastefully Simple mix, Dried Tomato and Garlic Pesto. I served it over fettuccine and my kids loved it, so did I. The meal came together as I started cooking, I improvised, using what I had to create a meal that we would enjoy.That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking as given me: good taste and the ability to improvise in the kitchen.
