Thomas and me

So I made my first foray into the French Laundry cookbook this weekend. I went with one of the easiest and least expensive recipes: "Salad of Haricot Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil". This one doesn't require any long-simmered stocks, tricky knife work, truffles, whole lobsters, or caviar. There are several ingredients that are made separately and combined at the end, but none are difficult to make.

It started with tomato confit and tomato powder. Last night, I cored and peeled a bunch of tomatoes, cut them into quarters, and removed the seeds. The ribs and remaining pulp were chopped and placed on a piece of parchment and microwaved to dry them out. They were then to be ground into a powder that would be used to garnish the dish. This was my big moment of failure as I neglected to put the microwave on low and basically burned the whole thing. I could have started over and tried again, but I didn't have any more tomatoes so I decided to bag the tomato powder garnish. This was not easy, as a very stern voice appeared within my head stating, "What the hell is the matter with you? Did I say you could omit the tomato powder? Where do you get off making such a decision? DO IT OVER!" It didn't seem happy with being ignored.

Today, I took the tomato quarters, put them on a foil-covered baking sheet that had been coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper, drizzled them with more oil, and baked them at 250° for an hour or so. These were then chopped finely, mixed with minced shallot, minced chive, and a little balsamic, and refrigerated. The voice came back while I was working on the shallot and chives. "You call that minced? Do you know the definition of minced? DO IT OVER!!" All I could think of to reply was, "Yes, Chef!"

I then took a half cup of whipping cream, whisked it up to thicken it, and folded in a teaspoon of red wine vinegar, and put this in the fridge. The voice sniffed, "Well, you seemed to manage that with minimal failure. Perhaps you're no less useless than a common third grader."

Then it was time to blanch 8 oz. of haricot verts in a gallon of water with a cup of salt in it (as per the instructions for "Big Pot Blanching"). These were in the boiling water for a couple of minutes, cooled in ice water, dried, and then put in the fridge. The chive oil was made by pureeing chives with olive oil in the blender and then allowing the oil to drip out of the puree. The voice asked me how the hell I managed not to screw any of that up.

Final assembly involved taking a three inch round mold, drizzling a ring of chive oil around the inside rim of it, filling it with enough of the tomato tartare to cover the inside, flattening that into a disc, heaping some green beans tossed with the red wine cream on top of the disc, and topping with some frisee that had been tossed with olive oil and S&P. It looked and tasted great, and the family loved it. (The voice: "Hmm. I suppose you're not fired yet. But if you ever leave out a garnish again, I'll stick this 10 oz. ladle so far up your....." )

Overall, a good experience despite the harsh criticism levied on me by the voice.

[David M. Bueker]

I expect that is was some version of Keller shouting in your head, but I kept thinking of the evil/lazy chef from Ratatouille.

Is your middle name Linguini?

I need to get my copy of the Keller book back from Salil.

Great narrative, Mike. Next time, remind the voice that he is there as an instructor, not a critic, and that his recipe is merely a guideline! Keep doing it your way.

Good story-telling, Mike.

I have "the voice, too"...understand And why I read his book for fun but not to cook from....he has help.

[Jenise]

I think we all recognize that we too hear a voice. It might not be Keller's, but it's the part of us that knows better, that requires the do-overs when we short-change a recipe with a shortcut or a badly performed step. Ever since seeing Julia and Me, I've kind of given Julia's face to the stern taskmaster in my mind--unless I'm making risotto, then it's Chef Roberto Gallo of Washington DC who scared the wits out of me when I did a course with him at the CIA.

Most of the time, I do look at my cooking with a somewhat critical eye, recognizing that I'm anything but a pro but that I've managed to improve steadily over the years. Unfortunately, Keller's voice really comes through when you read the FL cookbook. While he's toned things down for the mere mortals, his strong sense of precision comes through in spades. It can get to you a little bit.

Great story, Mike. In my case, that voice in my head has a distinctly female tone and chides more than criticizes with the recalled voices of my mother and Mrs. Wiggins (our long-time housekeeper who was also a fabulous cook), the two women who taught me how to cook. It's usually along the lines of "When did you get lazy about chopping onions? I taught you better than that!" It's all about the guilt, Mike.

Mark Lipton