Carrot Top

I've been thinking on and off about your question all day today. And I kept hearing this funny noise coming from my closet. A sort of small squeak...but more shrill with a crackling effect to it. Being busy, I chose to ignore it till just a moment ago, as it was getting louder and my heart was beating as if I were going to have a conniption if I had to think about all this any longer. I went to the closet and opened it, ready to smack the mouse with the broom, but there was no mouse. It was my Curmudgeon Hat, and it jumped smartly out and directly onto my head. It is a terribly ugly brown color with chartreuse green spots on it, and it always remains stuck on my head till my mouth opens to let out the Curmudgeonly Thoughts. No right-minded professional kitchen is going to hire someone for free, unless that is exactly what they have been set up to do....to train any variety of free help. Liability, liability, yes. Liability in the very real sense of insurance issues. Liability in the sense of potential lawsuits of all sorts. Liability in the fact that a professional kitchen that is actually pumping out work of a good quality at a good pace does not have the time to babysit (sorry) an untrained person. Liability in the fact that the other professionals in this hard-ass business will not likely take well to the fact that they are now expected to teach some...person that is coming in to do part of their job...for free. Bad idea in terms of developing team spirit or management/staff communication and respect. Liability to the customer. I don't want to eat at a restaurant where someone is in the back making my food who has possibly not even been trained in the many facets of sanitation that have to do with producing food in quantity and quality at the same time. Good restaurants recruit, interview, and train based on what their needs are. There are lots of people looking and applying for each job that exists, even in the low-end places. The professionalism of the metier must be respected. Finally...to put a more positive note on your original question...don't sell yourself cheap. If you are a fairly technically adept home cook, then you have some real skills that you should be paid for if you enter the professional world with them. Assess your skills, be honest, then think about the sort of place you would like to work. Try speaking to someone there, in person preferably. Based on production needs, sometimes there is a need for an extra person now and then. (This will be more common as holiday time comes around, with catered parties and all...) The best idea I can think of, though, is to call the catering companies in your area. They are more accustomed to hiring all sorts of people at all sorts of skill levels, and sort of have 'training' built into their system...just as a survival tool. Great way to learn a lot and be serious and make some money, too. Phew...the Curmudgeon Hat is loosening....must go try and pry it off.....

Sometimes the taste of the chicken can be affected by the wine. Not that you've cooked it in, mind you, but the one you are drinking with it. A fine bottle of fat soul warming Burgundy does wonders.

Generally any livestock that are raised (unless they decide to keep it as a pet) are sold. Pigs, lambs, goats, rabbits...I think that some of the profit goes to the 4-H participant and part goes to the 4-H Club. On the larger livestock, there is a bidding process that usually happens at the end of the 'shows'...and if you win, you get your picture taken with the prize piggy or whatever...and posted in the local newspapers. Good for business in small rural towns, and good for local gossip...who bought what! If you do buy a larger animal, remember to count in the cost of having it transported (unless you can haul it yourself!) to the local processing plant, and factor in their costs, too. Not a simple enterprise, but a very real and connected one.

And a good way, too...isn't it. What is your secondary way of showing off? ( )

Even more thrilling offerings...wow. Maggie, I agree...keep the cat and she can help with sorting out the compost heap...which undoubtedly is lovely, for I read an earlier post of yours which spoke of distilling all the budding flowers of trees. You will add the touch of unexpected elegance as usual. Sparrowgrass...what you have outside your door sounds like all things bright and beautiful. But you are from Missouri...that is the 'show me' state isn't it? Hmmm. We might need a care package for proof here.... Andiesenji...it is just too much to bear to think that outside your door is as rampantly wonderful as the inside of your kitchen is. To think of a desert! Offering all that you spoke of.... And then MORE desert offerings of chayote and masses of colors bright and flavorful from Kapuliperson and Chowguy. The colors are what stand out as I read, such stark enticing colors shimmering in the bright sun... What fun! Thank you...

Mmm hmm. 'Your face on a baseball card!' would be a very very difficult thing to turn down for almost any guy I've ever known.

What does the world of food and cooking mean personally, to you? Is it... A way to express an artistic or creative urge? Something that has to be done so might as well be done well? A profession? A desired profession? An entertainment in following celebrity chefs and restaurants? A neccesary requirement in educating oneself for health reasons? Something spiritual? Something that is about feeling cared for or expressing that care to others? A natural follow-up to an interest in farming or ecology? Something else?

Promised to post the 'roadkill' poems but when I found them, I realized that they were...truly...uh, quite serious...and I did not want to put anyone into a certainly possibly morose but definitely serious mood after reading them. If a front-face not humorous look at the notion of roadkill still appeals to anyone who appreciates poetry, search for Gerald Stern on the net and seek his roadkill poems.

This is something that poultry farmers who have a mind to, can and do address. There are a vast amount of 'feed systems' that can be used to develop the taste of the birds. Different combinations of grains are used to supplement the 'free-range' diet. Of course, the better the feed, the more expensive the final product becomes. And often the price of organic feed, specifically, is so prohibitive for the small poultry farmer that they do not use it. Chicken farming is not at all a glamorous business. Lots of hard and dirty work is involved...culminating in the final dressing and cleaning of the birds, which is onerous. Personally I've known two small 'free-range' chicken farmers who went out of business because of this part in particular. Even with equipment to make it easier (a de-feathering machine and a supersonic boiling vat to remove pinfeathers) there is still a lot of messy stinky butchering to do...and small time rural farmers (usually younger folk looking for a better way of life with purer food) can not even get the old-timers who know how to do it to come to work for them at butchering time (when lots of chickens come to the right size)...for factory work is much easier and pays better! Chicken, free-range, is a lovely (and it can be a tasty idea...till you have to kill it and clean it yourself OR pay the price it demands....)

One of the other forms of 'free-range' chicken that is being touted is neither exactly free-ranging nor enclosed....they are confined in medium-large wood and chicken wire pyramid-shaped structures that are hauled around to different parts of the pasture during their growth. Seems to me a lot of your thoughts apply to the question, phaelon. I've also read of a recent testing (I think it was Cooks Illustrated) where the kosher chickens came out as the preferred chicken among all the other choices, including 'free range' varieties.

Those NPR specials are generally more fun to listen to than one would think! The website is good also, and has some odd bits and pieces on food and things to do with food... Thanks for the 'heads up', GG.

A recipe can be many things. It can be a stepping-stone to learning, when you are first learning to cook. It can be a way to convey a certain personal vision...when it is written by someone with a different 'take' on things or perhaps a person with a deeper 'take' on things. It can be an entertainment...and it can also be a way to hold on to a special memory or history, either personal or cultural. I've read and used recipes in all these ways, and am grateful that all these ways exist. Oh, yeah. Recipes can also be a way, within a business, to maintain consistency.Hah! Almost forgot that one.... At this moment in time, I don't use recipes...really at all. In some ways that could infer capability...in other ways it could infer lack of intensive growth in the area of continuing development...that grasping seeking that is done when one just 'doesn't know' how this thing will turn out, and needs to follow someone else along the path to learn. I am quite sure that in the world of cooking, there is something new to learn each day one wants to! On and on ad infinitum! Some things are simple and take not a lot of time or effort...but others (as in learning a new language) there is preparation and focused intent involved to truly capture the thing. New vocabulary....that is what recipes can offer....when one is ready to seek it. (With the added note that one can learn just by doing, too...but recipes are like secret code books, I think! Take them, use them, then write your own code in your own way to keep the interest going....)

Wow. I am impressed. By all of you! Wild grapes in a tree is so poetic and sweetly romantic... I once knew a guy who ate roast groundhog (even started a thread on it here) Herbs! They make everything good...(and we know what a 'dinner with herbs' is better than...) Lemons, almonds, pecans, peaches, fig, plums...an Arabian Nights fantasy under a full moon.... Whippets...now you know they are to hug not to cook. Snowangel...that cabin place is a dream come true. Sorrels for soups from the woods.... Ducks and chickweed and samphire and clams! Who needs anything else! And avocados...the perfect food...and such gorgeous eggs! I took my walk outside my home today. As I left the door I wished we still had the stray dog we'd taken in when we lived out in the countryside. We named him Tramp and he was true to his name...he just disappeared one day never to return again. Tramp used to flush out wild turkey from the hayfield in season and bring it to the door, brown mixed beagle-tail a'wagging with pride. (No, I never did get up the nerve to eat those turkeys though they were beauts!) As I walked out the door today, I almost trampled on some dandelion leaves...they'll do for a salad. Looking across at my neighbor's yard I weighed my conscience and decided against raiding her garden for tomatoes and peppers, and walked on....there is a pond down the road a bit behind this suburban grouping of houses, and there are small, very small fish in there...so if worms could be found there would be fried fish for supper...to place upon the dandelion salad. Here is some common chicory, blue flowers announcing its weediness to all...along the road, and with a bit of a stretch some wormy crabapples can be grabbed from a gnarled old tree sitting alone in an overgrown patch of pasture. Hmmm. Now I'm thinking Tourte Blette? There are some cattails absurdly planted in someones front yard as decor...and it would be a kindness if I yanked them out of the ground for it looks ridiculous...but no... this is supposed to be a wilderness walk not meanderings into the neighbor's yards walk, so I pass them up. But I do make a note of where they are...(just in case hunger really strikes one day, you know). Almost back home from this walk, and here is this messy mulberry tree. Too many, too soft, but better than nothing, so mulberries with sugar and cream will be dessert. As I enter the back door, I glance over across the street towards one of the few remaining working farms in the area. The beautiful black cows nod and nuzzle the earth. Steak Florentine? No...they are better just to watch, from across the road...and even better than that, to see every morning as you drive by with the music from the radio blasting to wake up. They do a little dance in time to the music...and the laugh they give is probably better than the meat they might! Amazing what one can find, right outside the door....

Waverly Root on samphire: 'an English plant known also as sea fennel, descr. long ago as "of a spicie taste with a certaine salntness,": not to mention the samphire which is the seaside purslane, the prickly samphire which is the sea parsnip, the Jamaica samphire which is saltwort, or the marsh samphire which is saltwort too, but a different kind, known also as chicken claws or glasswort, since it was once used to make glass, a safer use perhaps than eating it, for John Gerard wrote that "a great quantitie taken is mischievous and deadly," but it did have the advantage that "the smel and smoke...of this herbe being burnt drives away serpents." Euell Gibbons gives the name of his chapter on Purslane as "India's Gift to the World" and has written four pages on the subject...included in his description is the note that "Purslane is neither pungent nor bitter; it has a mild acid taste and a fatty or mucilaginous quality which most people like, but a few find it objectionable.....It is this mucilaginous characteristic, which makes purslane a valuable addition to soups and stews, serving, like okra...to give these dishes a desirable consistency."

Some of the persimmons that are bred to come to market are bland and tasteless...just as all other produce, particularly soft fruits, can be. But I must tell you, I had to stop myself a bit earlier from adding an extra post to this thread that said only "There is no such thing as too many persimmons." My favorite fruit. Glorious, they are, when 'right'! (I am searching on the left for the 'clickable smilie' that has a drooling happy face but can not find it....)

Okay...you are all going to think I'm crazy (so what else is new ) but a memory just came to mind of hearing or reading of samphire being used instead of angelica, in a candied form to decorate desserts, sometime in past history (and obviously in a geographic place where angelica did not grow but samphire did). Anyone else ever hear of this?

Mmm hmm. Samphire. Grows along the shore in New England and Maine...it is one of those things I think of as being the wild summer foods of childhood...a nibble of samphire, a handful of blackberries, some small sweet wild strawberries, a bitter mouthful of sorrel...sour popping little Concord grapes from the vine, enough green apples to make you sick.... It is so precious to me in this category of thought that I like to keep it there and not move it into the 'general foods to cook' category!

'Etrog' and 'oiBoi'...my life is expanding in both ways of intellect and plain falling down laughing after reading this thread. Have heard of citron...but never heard the word 'etrog' which sounds to the untrained ear like something from Star Wars. And 'oiBoy'...now I can spend the rest of the day happily imagining what else besides used etrogs would be listed for sale there....

No, Chris, you're not being moralistic....food is not only a pleasant part of our lives but part of our emotional interiors. So if you watch someone slap-hazardly (yes, I meant to write that for it says what I mean ) make a mess of something that has been beautiful to you .... This is the second part of this recipe-giving thing...is that words, even in the same language, are not the same thing to one person as they are to another. Even in simple talk of food. And it is not just the home cook that can be susceptible to this sort of mistake...it can happen in professional kitchens too. When I first became responsible as a chef for more than one kitchen with me in it able to keep my eye on everything that went out...talking my way through directing what needed to be done by anyone else to them...able to be there in what is sort of a...partially choreograped and partially free-style dance that ends in lots of plates of food going out as perfect and glowing as they could be to the diners sitting in their anticipatory chairs...I made the discovery that even chef-to-chef, simple words can mean different things. I used to write little vague descriptions on index cards too, with ingredients and very very general method...and would give these to the cooks or chefs that were responsible for making them...as I would have to leave to go to client meetings, or to the other kitchen...or out into the office to discuss menus, budgets, staffing, bills, goals. Ouch. Phone calls. Complaints. Questions...from the guests. What was that that they had been served? It wasn't like 'you' made it. It wasn't the way it's 'supposed' to be. It wasn't the way we expect it. Sigh. Trust me, every thing I have ever really learned was learned by screwing up badly then jumping around in mad crazy circles to fix it. So...that is why (in a non-professional setting) I will tell other people to physically write down the recipe themselves as I talk through it...so that there is already a participatory sense...and so when or if things go wrong...well...it was not just a one-way communication. They were involved in the process and had the opportunity to ask questions if they needed... And that is why (in a professional setting) I learned how to write the easist-to-follow (i.e. short and to-the point) while at the same time most painstakingly specific 'Standardized Recipes' that could be written. There is a lot to learn even in this simple category of communicating by words. I love the idea of a 'verbal tradition'...the idea of dishes of delicious food wrapped inside a few warm words transferred from person to person in a happy sharing way...and having everything turn out right. But as with so many other things...all I can say is...(ironic tone here) 'How often does that happen?' But we keep trying, we keep trying. What else can ya do?

Look out the window, into your back yard. (New Yorkers, walk to the closest park...forget about staring wonderingly at the dustbins in the concrete alleyway...) If you had to find something to forage, something to gather, something that you could eat...what would it be? How would you prepare it? (I'll write my own response a bit later...the lights of a fairly decent restaurant are twinkling from a bit down the road...need to get over there and have a good meal first...)

Thanks, all! Hmmm...I am sensing the flavors and colors just by reading this small bit....will post with more questions as I delve a bit into my own research...

A simple persimmon upside-down cake is always nice....

To be serious for just one moment, I'll weigh in that tasting menus can be done in small spaces (but also add that probably not if there are children around...they would have to be shipped off to China for a while if that were an option). For three years in a row, in a one-bedroom smallish apartment in Brooklyn Heights, I had an April Fool's Day tasting menu party. It was planned to show tastes that would surprise and delight, with the added interest of the foods not being what you would expect them to be...i.e. a pizza that looked real but that was really 'sweet' rather than savory, etc etc... The thing that was called a kitchen in this apartment was attached and open to the main room of the apartment, which luckily had large french doors overlooking a garden so that people would want to wander out there and away from me stressing slightly in this thing called a kitchen. Buffet-style with changes in-between courses was the only way it worked...and the only way it could ever have been done (for 20 or so people) was to plan like a general waging a war. The place looked like a war had occured when it was all over...including my small black Pomeranian dog...he looked like a wobbling and battered soldier, for he kept escaping from the bedroom into the crowd and drinking their alcoholic drinks when they were not looking (you know how these German/Scandanavian type dogs can be....total lushes if they have a chance). Great fun though...will do it again when there are no 'little ones' about underfoot!

It is true that sometimes the lobster on the kitchen counter can be a better and more entertaining companion, particularly after you've imbibed a few or more tastings of the fruit of the vine (all in the interest of research, of course). It makes for a really satisfyingly fun time if you hypnotise him to stand on his head in seeming worship to listen, mesmerised, while you tell him your confidences, stories and philosophies. A occasional slight wave of an extended skinny little red lobster leg is all that is needed for happy encouragement. And besides, he'd likely rather listen than be boiled. Just an idea, mind you.

Hate to mention the dreaded words 'Food TV' but there is an excellent listing of green tomato recipes on their website, including some unusual ones like a Turkish Green Tomato Soup....