Jaki Jean on Cooking

Sunday, June 2, 2013

While I realize it is self-absorbed to admit it, I love the way the house smells when I cook.

Today I am making Estofado Verde con Pollo – a green stew with chicken.  Chicken tenders browned in peanut oil, cut up small for Jean.  Pureed tomatillos, a head of roasted garlic, mild green chilies, carrots, green onions, calabicita.  Ginger, lime.  Herbs from my garden –cilantro, oregano, basil. 

 

With her Parkinson’s, Jean cannot navigate tortillas.  So I will make corn muffins to go with her stew.  And for dessert (because Jean loves dessert), we will have melon.

I love soft, warm corn tortillas, with a splash of lime & salt, dipped into the broth of this stew.

Savoring the scent of the stew, I wonder where I can plant tomatillos without them taking over the entire garden.  

I also wonder how I developed this intense connection to cooking.  Jean did not take me into her kitchen & show me how to cook.  I watched from time to time, observing. 

But I never expressed an intense desire to learn how to cook.

During the short duration of my marriage, I perused recipe books received as wedding gifts & cooked because cooking was part of my perception of what a wife brought to the table.

After I left my marriage, my friend Louise, who was a fabulous cook, encouraged me to cook for myself.  Advice given to her by her mother when Louise’s marriage ended.  

At least once a week, cook an entire meal.  Take out the cloth napkins & china & fine glasses & prepare a feast for yourself.

I think that is where it began, my passion for creating in the kitchen.

That & Julia Child on PBS.

When I moved out of singlesville to inside the Loop & Montrose, my friends Marguerite & Richard Pulley introduced me to a plethora of fine cooks.  And what I learned from them was better than attending a culinary school.

From Marguerite, I learned to appreciate the cooks among us.

From Susan Chambless, I learned where to find a wealth of recipes – in the Houston Junior League Cookbook.  Susan also introduced me to a truly finely prepared corned beef & cabbage dinner; the wonder of tamales & champagne; chicken fried dove breasts, surrounding a jalapeno, drenched in gravy. 

From John Chambless, I learned that basil & black olives go well with good tuna salad.  Not to mention how to make nutritious food for geriatric dogs.

From Linda Garren, I learned that it is possible to make an omelet in cast iron, that it is insane to buy canned cranberry sauce when it is so easy to make fresh, that it is ridiculous to buy grated parmesan when you can buy a chunk & grate it yourself & save money.  And that the beauty of a big kitchen is you can assign tasks to the guests, sip wine & share stories.

From my Alpha Son Nick’s father I learned to appreciate green olives in a venison stew, the value of a country pate & how to fry eggs with a bit of vinegar & herbs.  And how to boil & serve lobster.

Of course there are others.  

Rie Davidson who coated a platter of brie with green salsa & served it with chunks of a baguette.  Connie Tuthill who carved out a purple cabbage & filled it with blue cheese dip, accompanied by fresh vegetables resting in carved out bell peppers.

I still use both presentations.

Cooking is a gender neutral passion.  I can recall every meal prepared for me by a man – not just the menu, but the presentation.  Who used cloth napkins, who prepared a vinaigrette for the salad, who served the best wine & the most tempting desserts.

I remember those meals with more clarity than the meals served me in restaurants.  Although the men in & out of my life & my bed fed me very well. 

I learned to eat escargot at a restaurant in Houston, to appreciate Thai & Vietnamese cuinsine in Paris (where I also learned I did not like tripe).  I first experienced Indian food in London.  I tasted vintage port at La Colombe d'Or & Eggs Sardou at Brennan's.

One evening, I learned that you can send the wine back & challenge the wine steward to a test:

Open every bottle in the case.  If every bottle is not bad, I will buy the case.

The entire case of wine was flawed.  The wine steward paid for dinner.

But I only remember snippets of those meals.  Snippets of the conversations that took place. 

Not like the detail I remember of the meals a man prepared for me.  I can visualize how each of them moved in the kitchen, creating.  The dishes each used, the pots & pans & utensils & wine glasses.  And the conversations that took place on those evenings.

Perhaps I paid more attention, recognizing in those chefs something of myself.  I am comfortable in the studio of a kitchen, confident of the creation that will emerge from my efforts.  

All of which is rather dramatic, isn’t it?  After all, it is only food.

Food that nourishes, food that satisfies, food that touches & stimulates & heals.

Hell, yes, it is dramatic.  And fierce.

In my youth, I cooked to impress or seduce.  To provide the most spectacular stuffed mushrooms, the perfect soufflé, Coquilles Saint-Jacques à la Parisienne, Spinach Fettucine with Artichoke Mushroom Sauce, amazing quiche.  The perfect filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. 

Anything Julia Child cooked.

Raising my sons, I still cooked spectacular stuffed mushrooms, many a soufflé, scallops & mushrooms in white wine sauce, amazing quiche & that famous artichoke & mushroom sauce over fettucine.  I also served macaroni & cheese.

My Alpha Son Nick told his kindergarten teacher that lobster was his favorite food.  He also refused to eat sandwiches until he was five.  Omega Son Sam refused almost anything without ketchup.  Eventually he grew out of the ketchup obsession.

Today both of them cook.  For themselves, for & with others.

I wonder if it feels for them the way it feels for me.  If they sense its meaning, the providing others with something important to our survival as civilized beings.

Now I cook for Jean, focusing on protein & Vitamin C & antioxidants & iron & calcium. 

The focus has changed, the passion moving from creating something impressive to creating something healthy, nourishing, satisfying.  Something that stimulates & heals.

El Estofado Verde con pollo estaba delicioso.