The Lost Legacy

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

November 16, 2009

A family recipe is sometimes passed done with as much thought and care as an English estate. “Not just anyone can be the custodian of my recipe” has been proclaimed by countless grandmothers over the years. Other recipes beg to be passed on, but find no willing takers. Some, miss their chance to continue in the family lore and are lost. My father’s potato pancake recipe is one of those.

No one made potato pancakes like my father, at least no one that I have met. They were not the latke type made out of shredded potatoes. His were made from a batter and had a lightness about them that only led to you eating more of them. Everyone loved them. They became a symbol of family and celebration. Nothing would make me happier to whip up a batch when far flung branches of the clan stopped by. Only one problem, my father didn’t teach me how to make them.

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The Risotto Road to Enlightenment

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

November 13, 2009

Last night, a funny thing crossed my mind while I was making a risotto, nothing. I was so enrapt by the process, that I must have went a good 10-15 minutes without the usual mental chatter. It was just add stock, stir, add stock, stir. I was completely living in the moment like a Zen master, until E entered the kitchen and interupted my reverie.

This got me thinking about the meditive properties of cooking. So many of the usual tasks of cooking are repetitive and require your full attention. When you really look at it how different is prepping vegtables from the Zen meditation practice of zazen. Instead of foucing you mind by sitting still and counting breaths, you focusing your mind on slicing and dicing. When you are dicing an onion, you world collapses to job at hand, the only sound you hear is the snick of the knife slicing through the onion and hitting the board. It’s nearly magical that this simple task can hold the chaos of the world beyond the kitchen is at bay, at least for a while.

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Blindsided

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

October 26, 2009

The wine snob raises the glass of wine, swirls it deftly, as his nose probes for all its secret aromas. He takes a sip, swishes it around his mouth and spits it out into the waiting bucket. He proceeds to describe the wine in prose even more purple than the permanent wine stains on his teeth. Then, as a finale, he declares the exact grape, area, producer and vintage of the wine. The crowd is stunned with awe in witnessing such an amazing feat.

The above is the cliched version of blind tasting. To actually get such an amazing amount of detail correct is more the exception than the rule, but if you pay attention to what’s in your glass, it’s amazing on how close you can get to the above scene. Hopefully, sans stained teeth.

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Taking the Cure: Charcuterie Class at the FCI Part 3

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

September 30, 2009

Every obstacle possible was thrown in my way as I tried to make it to the last session of charcuterie class at the French Culinary Institute. Just missing the bus, construction on the train tracks, and other wrenches were thrown my way as I hurried to Broadway and Grand. I made it to the kitchen with just a few minutes to spare for the most interesting class yet.

First up was saucisson a l’ail, garlic sausage with pistachios. A version of this makes its way onto just about every charcuterie plate. We cubed up some pork butt and mixed it with TenderQuick(salt and nitrate mixture), sugar, black pepper, red wine(very cold) and garlic. We chilled this down a bit before giving it a medium grind and mixing in the nuts. This was put into a medium beef casing so it was a fairly fat sausage. We pooled are sausages and they were put into a water bath to cook.

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Taking the Cure: Charcuterie Class at the FCI Part 1

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

September 17, 2009

Charcuterie, the art of preserving meat was born out of necessity in the time before refrigeration. Today we embrace it because it just tastes so darn good. Any art that gave us bacon deserves further study. To that end I returned to the French Culinary Institute for a three Saturday class.

It was deja vu all over again walking into the locker room at the French Culinary Institute. I was even found my old locker free and waiting for my use. I quickly donned my chef’s uniform and was about to leave when I was besieged by requests for lessons on how to tie the neckerchief. Once my satorial lesson was over, I climbed the stairs back to the kitchen where I spent six months of Saturdays learning the basics of French cuisine. This time, I was going to learn the intricacies of charcuterie. The giant pig laying in front of the class left little doubt on the source of today’s protein.

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I Got a Golden Ticket! My Day with Thomas Keller.

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

September 7, 2009

I have seen the light! More exactly, I was fed the light. Saturday’s dinner at Per Se was definitely one of the best meals I have had in my life.
Several months ago, I received an e-mail from American Express. It was their standard monthly e-mail listing of upcoming events for cardmembers. There, among the concerts and sporting events, was Chef Thomas Keller doing a demo at the French Culinary Institute followed by dinner at Per Se. I was so in. I immediately lunged for the phone to dial in when I noticed that tickets were not on sale yet. As the days wore on, the memory of the event slowly faded. Another e-mail from Amex reminded me of the event, and it has been on sale for some time now. This time I did lunge for the phone and dialed in for a reservation. I was lucky and space was still available. It was a total Charlie Bucket finding the golden ticket in a Wonka bar moment.
I waited for the day with the same excitement of a 6 year old waiting for Christmas. When the day finally arrived, I had to find chores around the house to keep myself from showing up 4 hours early and pacing impatiently in front of the FCI. The rain that was falling all day ended as I left for the bus to NYC and the FCI.

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Hoboken Heirloom Tomato Festival

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

August 26, 2009

Hoboken loves it festivals. Art, religion, ancestry, and just plain good times are celebrated with equal gusto here in the Mile Square City. Every August for the past 10 years, Jersey’s favorite summer crop gets the spotlight.

The Heirloom Tomato Festival is a low key affair, only occupying the passage way in front of the Hoboken Historical Museum. The physical size of the festival does not seem to diminish the buzz it generates judging by the lengthy queue of people waiting to pay for their bags of summer’s bounty. An equally long queue was formed at the highlight of the festival, the tasting table. There, spread out in a sea of reds, yellow, purples and greens were about 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes cut up for your tasting pleasure. Pink brandywines, ramapos, yellow plum, mortgage lifters and others formed a gastronomic gauntlet for the festival goers to taste their way though. Each bite added to the lively discussion of the pros and cons of each variety.

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Ed Mitchell, BBQ Maestro

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

August 21, 2009

The mission of the James Beard Foundation is the promotion of American cuisine in all its varied forms. When people hear cuisine, they immediately think white table cloths, fine china and wine lists the size of phonebooks. But American cuisine encompasses myriad choices such as fine dining in San Francisco, lobster shacks in New England, and the smoky barbecue of the South.

Ed Mitchell is a legend among the BBQ cognoscenti. With numerous TV appearances, including beating Bobby Flay in a ribs throw down, he is getting noticed outside of his usual area. Judging by the lines for his food at the Big Apple BBQ, the message is being received.

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Food, Feasts, and Family

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

August 4, 2009

Where would we be if we did not cook for each other? This question is usually simmering on a back burner somewhere in my mind, but Pollan’s article on the decline of home cooking and Michael Ruhlman’s insightful response to it, made me move it to the front of the stove.

So many of my memories are of family gatherings. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner before sunrise so that we can eat at Grandma’s at 11AM. The wonderful smell of the turkey thankfully winning the aroma war with Staten Island’s Fresh Kill land fill as we sped along to Bayonne. Peeling pounds of potatoes and trimming pounds of string beans on Christmas Eve. The wonderfully chaotic mess of the blue claw feast the day of the annual family crabbing outing.

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I Hope This Chicken is Cooked Before the Cock Crows

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

August 3, 2009

Everything took more time than normal yesterday. The frittata I made for brunch seemed to take forever to prepare. I’m usually pretty quick in the knife skills department, but I seemed to be moving in slow motion. What were suppose to be quick shopping trips turned into shopping treks and the day slipped quickly by. We came home, did a few chores, then we sat down to relax. I preceded to relax too much and quickly fell asleep.

I eventually awoke and stumbled to get my wallet. I needed to go across the street to the grocery store to pick up some garam masala for the chicken tikka masala I was making for dinner. That’s when I realized it was already after seven and dinner would be a long way off.

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