The Kitchen Counter Cooking School Read Online Free
Author: Kathleen Flinn
lâOnglet Villette, a wickedly tender hanger steak topped with a buttery heap of caramelized onions splashed with red wine and a side of knife-cut crisp fries. We both closed our eyes to chew, and opened them to find our waitress automatically refilling our pichet of red wine with a knowing smile.
âI wish that my dad had come to Paris, at least once. He would have loved this,â Mike said. Neither of us wanted to talk about the empty place in our hearts that would greet us when we left the distractions of Paris.
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On our last night in the city, in lieu of a standard author reading at a bookstore, I presented a knife skills demonstration at WHSmith, a splendid English-language bookstore at Place de la Concorde, the intersection of the grand boulevards and the former site of the ghastly guillotines of the French Revolution. Being in a city most famous for its food, I worried that my demonstration on basic cuts would be too remedial, but the crowd stood transfixed.
âIâve always thought that if I could hold a knife properly, it would change my whole life,â a South African woman in the crowd commented. âI feel like I just never really learned. I always assumed that Iâm doing it wrong.â
I had four chefâs knives with me. I gathered everyone into groups and taught the fundamentals of holding a knife and drilled them on the basics of dicing, slicing, and julienne. Simple stuff, but then I realized that Iâd learned the same fundamentals only a couple of years earlier. As the crowd disbanded, the South African woman pumped my hand in thanks. âI know this sounds totally stupid, but I donât cook at all and youâve just inspired me to learn. I thought this whole knife thing was so much more complicated. I feel like Iâve had a complete epiphany! Have you ever thought of teaching?â
CHAPTER 2
What Would Julia Do?
âYou have to give yourself that dream assignment. No one is going to give it to you.â
âPenny de los Santos, photographer
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How quickly we shifted back into our regular lives in Seattle. Still, after that moment on the stage, what was my regular life? The notion weighed heavily on me. So did my weight. In France, we ate as if training for an Olympic eating event. Yet I returned weighing a few pounds less. So did Mike. Less than a month back in the United States I gained nearly ten pounds. How? Sure, we walked more in Paris. But what was it about being back in the States that led us to gain weight?
The French eat less in general and lean toward more fresh food and few snacks. As in other European cities, Parisians shop more often for groceries. Some of it is cultural, but most of it is practical. When I first moved to London in 1999, I had to completely shift my thinking about grocery shopping thanks to the dorm-room-sized fridge in my minuscule kitchen. I couldnât âstock upâ; I had no physical space. My freezer was only slightly larger than the size of a paperback novel. Plus, I knew that I had to carry home with me whatever I bought. Since I shopped frequently, I chose mostly fresh food and prepared it that night. In Paris, we did the same thanks to the easily accessible street markets. Even so, I saw a lot of shoppers buying frozen quiche Lorraine in Parisian supermarkets, not to mention the customers who flocked to American-style fast-food outlets. While it might once have been true that French women donât get fat, more recent surveys show that as the French adopt more American-inspired habits of eating, notably consuming long-shelf-life products, their national weight steadily increases.
Contemplating all this not long after we returned from Paris, I wandered over to my local supermarket, a vast sixty-thousandsquare-foot store thatâs open twenty-four hours a day in the urban Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. When it comes to diversity and cart voyeurism, itâs hard to beat
âI wish that my dad had come to Paris, at least once. He would have loved this,â Mike said. Neither of us wanted to talk about the empty place in our hearts that would greet us when we left the distractions of Paris.
Â
On our last night in the city, in lieu of a standard author reading at a bookstore, I presented a knife skills demonstration at WHSmith, a splendid English-language bookstore at Place de la Concorde, the intersection of the grand boulevards and the former site of the ghastly guillotines of the French Revolution. Being in a city most famous for its food, I worried that my demonstration on basic cuts would be too remedial, but the crowd stood transfixed.
âIâve always thought that if I could hold a knife properly, it would change my whole life,â a South African woman in the crowd commented. âI feel like I just never really learned. I always assumed that Iâm doing it wrong.â
I had four chefâs knives with me. I gathered everyone into groups and taught the fundamentals of holding a knife and drilled them on the basics of dicing, slicing, and julienne. Simple stuff, but then I realized that Iâd learned the same fundamentals only a couple of years earlier. As the crowd disbanded, the South African woman pumped my hand in thanks. âI know this sounds totally stupid, but I donât cook at all and youâve just inspired me to learn. I thought this whole knife thing was so much more complicated. I feel like Iâve had a complete epiphany! Have you ever thought of teaching?â
CHAPTER 2
What Would Julia Do?
âYou have to give yourself that dream assignment. No one is going to give it to you.â
âPenny de los Santos, photographer
Â
Â
Â
Â
How quickly we shifted back into our regular lives in Seattle. Still, after that moment on the stage, what was my regular life? The notion weighed heavily on me. So did my weight. In France, we ate as if training for an Olympic eating event. Yet I returned weighing a few pounds less. So did Mike. Less than a month back in the United States I gained nearly ten pounds. How? Sure, we walked more in Paris. But what was it about being back in the States that led us to gain weight?
The French eat less in general and lean toward more fresh food and few snacks. As in other European cities, Parisians shop more often for groceries. Some of it is cultural, but most of it is practical. When I first moved to London in 1999, I had to completely shift my thinking about grocery shopping thanks to the dorm-room-sized fridge in my minuscule kitchen. I couldnât âstock upâ; I had no physical space. My freezer was only slightly larger than the size of a paperback novel. Plus, I knew that I had to carry home with me whatever I bought. Since I shopped frequently, I chose mostly fresh food and prepared it that night. In Paris, we did the same thanks to the easily accessible street markets. Even so, I saw a lot of shoppers buying frozen quiche Lorraine in Parisian supermarkets, not to mention the customers who flocked to American-style fast-food outlets. While it might once have been true that French women donât get fat, more recent surveys show that as the French adopt more American-inspired habits of eating, notably consuming long-shelf-life products, their national weight steadily increases.
Contemplating all this not long after we returned from Paris, I wandered over to my local supermarket, a vast sixty-thousandsquare-foot store thatâs open twenty-four hours a day in the urban Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. When it comes to diversity and cart voyeurism, itâs hard to beat
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