Giving Thanks to the Chefs in My Life

    

Thanksgiving, the ultimate food holiday, takes a lot of effort to pull it off. For years my husband and I were lucky to celebrate it with two chefs: Tom Valeo, a childhood friend of mine, and Karen Pryslopski, a Florida friend whom I introduced to Tom. They weren't professional chefs, mind you, but the meals they made were better than any restaurant meal I ever had. 

This year will be our first Thanksgiving without them both. In February Karen died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage after an apparent fall (Tom died of cancer in 2015).  Tom used to say, "Don't be a slave to the calendar."  This year we are following his advice. 

This year we are skipping Thanksgiving. Well, opting out of preparing the traditional Thanksgiving feast, that is. Thursday we are taking it easy. No heavy cooking. 

To be clear, cooking has never been my forte. My grandmother, my mother and all three of my sisters were/are great cooks. I never inherited the gene. For as long as I can remember I have relied on the kindness of cooking friends and family to make my Thanksgiving dinners memorable. For the Thanksgivings with Tom and Karen, my husband would contribute mashed sweet potatoes, Tom would make what he called pumpkin pie shooters (served in miniature foil pans) and Karen, who was the best cook of us all, would whip up a slew of sides dishes. Me? I "cooked" a pre-cooked Publix turkey.  

"You will never love to cook," my friend Nancy Paradis, another friend of mine who was a fantastic cook, once told me with her characteristic frankness, "but I'll teach you how to do a few meals and that's all you'll need." We started with a shrimp dish. Just cook the shrimp until you hear them sizzle, she instructed. When she saw the panicked look on my face, she laughed: "You don't know what sizzle means, do you?" I didn't. After that shaky first lesson, Nancy compiled a folder of easy recipes for me that she entitled "Margo's Kitchen Adventures." Nancy died in 2008. Every time I make Greek Pasta and Shrimp Salad, I think of her. 

Last August when Sheila Cowley, my editor at Arts Coast Journal, asked if I would be interested in doing a story on a cooking class at a museum in Dunedin, the irony wasn't lost on me, but I immediately said yes. Who better to write about a cooking class than someone with a history of cooking phobia?  I called up my friend Anthea and invited her to come with me. I owed her. She recently had given me the recipe for the meal she had cooked for my birthday party: Chicken Poppyseed (affectionately referred to as Chicken Shit in her family), a dish made with sour cream, cream of chicken soup, Ritz crackers, butter and, of course, chicken and poppyseeds. So easy to make even I could do it.

The museum cooking class was a smashing success (see the account below which originally appeared in Arts Coast Journal in September) -- even though I will never be able to duplicate the complicated meal we created that night. On the other hand, I have made Anthea's Chicken Shit several times with great success. 

Thanksgiving may be a cooking holiday but, it's not only about food. Even though I'm passing on the turkey this year, I will be offering up a special thanks to all those, living and dead, who have cooked for me in my life and/or shared easy recipes. 

Art for Eating's Sake: Cooking Class in Dunedin

At the Dunedin Fine Art Center, some masterpieces are not on the walls. They are on the table. The kitchen table, that is. 

For the past three years, DFAC has been offering dozens of cooking classes with such mouth-watering titles as Paris Summer Bistro, Taste of Thailand and Flavors of Sicily in its state-of-the-art kitchen classroom. Students create chef d’oeuvres — and then get to devour them. 

As Marcella Hazan, the Italian-born cookbook writer who died in Longboat Key at age 89 in 2013 once said, “Cooking is an art, but you eat it too.”

Chef Craig Tinling poses in the Dunedin Fine Arts Center teaching kitchen while Arts Coast writer Margo Hammond in DFAC’s blue apron takes her place at one of the five cooking stations. (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 

Anthea Penrose brought her own apron for the DFLAC cooking class. Given to her by her grandchildren, it’s labeled Guggy (their nickname for her). (Photo by sous chef Alina Berja)

In August, I attended a class called New Orleans French Quarter and although I will never be mistaken for a culinary artiste, I made a meal fit for a king (or queen) —  with the help of cooking instructor Chef Craig Tinling who earned his culinary degree in his hometown of Winnipeg in Canada. In registering for the course (cost $65 per person), I was required to sign up with at least one other person with whom I would feel comfortable working in close quarters. My friend Anthea Penrose (who has been in my COVID bubble since the beginning of the pandemic) agreed to become my cooking accomplice.

She and I arrived at DFAC 10 minutes before the 6:30 p.m. class, as instructed. After we had our temperatures checked at the front door, we were directed to the second floor. There, in a 1,400-square-foot teaching kitchen, Tinling and his assistant Alina Berje greeted us with aprons and two glasses for the BYO wine we had been encouraged to bring along (Anthea chose a Pinot Noir, I contributed a light Cab). Tinling then led us to a stainless-steel cooking station. The class was full – 10 students were paired two by two at the kitchen’s five stations. While Anthea and I were first timers, Linda Shutt Atkins and David Atkins of Dunedin, occupying the station next to us, admitted they were confirmed recidivists.

Each station was equipped with a cooktop with two burners  and a large countertop workspace laden with the ingredients, already cut and measured out, that we would be using for our cooking lesson – cups of oil, flour and spices. Bowls of crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, slices of Andouille sausage and bite-size chicken pieces. Onions, celery and green peppers (dubbed the “Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking”) along with garlic and fresh okra.

Some of the ingredients — already chopped and measured — set out for the New Orleans French Quarter cooking class at DFAC (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 As we broke open our wine, Chef Craig, who also gives cooking classes at Casa di Mazzaro’s in St. Petersburg, outlined the meal we were about to create – Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo over Red Beans and Rice. A butter lettuce salad tossed with crusty lardons and a home-made vinaigrette and topped with a poached egg. And, for dessert, beignets, those puffed pastries smothered in confectioner’s sugar that I have been dreaming about ever since I first encountered them at the Cafe du Monde in downtown New Orleans.

But first, Alina brought us hot French bread and seasoned butter to enjoy with our wine. “I make it different every time,” says Tinling when someone asked him for the butter recipe. This time he mixed a pound of “salted, pricey” butter with lemon juice, zest, cayenne, Dijon mustard, honey and black pepper.

Stirring the Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 We started by making the roux for the gumbo, mixing flour and oil in a heated pan. Tinling urged us to keep the heat up, stirring the sauce until it was the color of milk chocolate. “Like this color,” he explains, pointing to the room’s brown-paneled walls. When we eventually added the prepared gumbo ingredients, he told us to keep on stirring the gumbo as we tackled the rest of the meal.

For the rice and beans dish, Chef Craig taught us how to chop celery without cutting our fingers off – hold down the stalk by curling your hand into a bear claw, making sure you tuck in your fingernails. With the other hand, grip the chef’s knife with your middle, ring and pinkie fingers, pinching the blade near the handle with your thumb and index finger. Then cut the celery with a gentle rocking motion. He also suggested first sautéing the trinity of vegetables and then adding the garlic to prevent the cloves from burning.

Red Beans and Rice ready to serve (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 As we grilled the lardons (which I learned are cubes of salt-cured pork) until they were crisp and mixed the ingredients for the vinaigrette, the chef taught us the best way to poach an egg – break an egg into a small dish. Slide the egg into a saucepan of simmering water and distilled vinegar, pushing the egg white around the yolk with a slotted spoon forming an oval shape. Let the egg cook for 2-4 minutes depending on desired firmness and then transfer the poached egg to a bowl of warm water. When ready to serve, lift the egg from the water with a slotted spoon, draining off any excess water.

Butter Lettuce Salad tossed with home-made vinaigrette and crusty lardons and topped with a poached egg (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 For the beignets, Alina brought us a ball of prepared dough which we rolled out to a quarter of an inch thick and cut into squares. Then we were invited to drop our squares into a vat of oil heated to 350 degrees F on a stove in the back of the room. When the batter puffed up and was golden brown, we transferred the pastries with a slotted spoon to one of the paper bags filled with powdered sugar lined up on an adjoining table.

Confession – in the spirit of the infamous bumper sticker “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first,” I convinced Anthea to join me in immediately gobbling up more than one of the piping hot beignets, now covered in powdered sugar, before they cooled off. I knew they would never taste as good as at that moment.

Cutting the rolled dough for the beignets (Photo by Anthea Penrose)

 Before the pandemic, the DFAC class would have ended with a group dinner around a common table. Instead, we stuck to CDC guidelines for indoor dining and returned to our stations to savor the results of our labors with our cooking partners. We poured the gumbo over the rice and beans, plated the tossed salad and finished off a few more beignets.    

As we left, Alina handed out printed recipes so we could try all these dishes at home. Would we? Alas, a team of assistants to do the shopping, chopping and measuring beforehand and cleaning up afterwards was not included.

Students at the five cooking stations listen attentively to Chef Craig in the DFAC teaching kitchen (Photo by Anthea Penrose)