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| Coelacanth: A fairly ugly fish once thought extinct and never served with huckleberry rémoulade. |
Chopped is a televised cooking
competition. Four aspiring chefs each receive a basket containing the same ingredients--jicama, Funyuns, cardamom, and talapia filets, for example--and have to create a dish appropriate as a specific course.
After each course, the least successful chef is "chopped." The others go on to the next round and face another basket full of surprises.
The pace is frenetic. Creativity is valued. It's pretty good TV.
One of the basket ingredients was coelacanth. Imagine that.* A "living fossil," a carnivorous fish about six feet long with a nervous system primarily composed of an oil-filled tube and a fat deposit: Now turn it into a dessert.
The similarities between writing and cooking are obvious, so you can skip the next part and just leave a comment about how you cook with food or words: ingredients that you avoid--that sort of thing...
Truth is that some cooks are terrible. My mother was a terrible cook. It has occurred to me that it might have been a way to make food last longer. Here is my reconstruction of one of my mother's recipes
The Noodle
- Mix flour, salt, and egg until you have a ball of dough about the size of a toddler's head.
- Roll the dough out onto a cloth diaper--not the pre-folded kind, the single layer sort.
- Mound all available leftovers on in the middle of the noodle.
- Lift the corners of the diapers and tie the whole thing into a bundle.
- Put the whole thing in a bucket of boiling water and leave it until mealtime.
A properly prepared noodle can "feed" a family of seven for days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
My mother could probably have cooked coelacanth without batting an eye. And if the judges complained, she would have whacked them with a ladle. This is why you do not want me to be your crit partner. You really don't.
* I sure imagined it. The real ingredient was geoduck, almost as primitive, but not so on the verge of extinction.
First of all, I love Chopped! I've actually taken the show into my own kitchen and done it with my daughter and husband. We each had three mystery ingredients and had to come up with an appetizer, entree, and dessert. It was a blast!
ReplyDeleteNext, I cook with words, I cook with feelings, I cook with pictures. Cooking is exactly like writing only you can pack it for lunch. (Although, I must admit, I have my words on many occasions.)Which also explains why I can never stop rewriting and tweaking recipes.
And lastly, I would most certainly have you for a crit partner any day of the week. (Speaking of which I didn't fully get your crit on Sunday ... don't worry I've just rewritten the chapter.)
So, did I answer your post?
I'm surprised you made through childhood. I absolutely love to cook, bake, can, etc. anything that involves food and creating. (that's probably why I desribe food scenes in vivid detail, LOL) I just hate cleaning up the mess afterward. Although if I took up your mother's way of cooking, maybe there wouldn't be as much mess, just through the diaper away and all.
ReplyDeleteAnd Blythe you need give yourself more credit. You gave me a great crit on Sunday and I appreciate your comments.
Seriously? A coelacanth? That's just... wrong. (I'm a Top Chef watcher myself. They do some wacky challenges but nothing like that so far.)
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised there wasn't a public outcry, not from environmentalists but from the Society for the Prevention of Assinine Public Behavior. Although, admittedly, they're probably so backlogged with things to protest, they'll never catch up to the coelacanth-cookers.
As for the noodle recipe, I picture a doughy basketball with a greasy sheen to it.
michele: Well, yes, a dandy answer. I think some of the workshop pages got lost or misplaced. We were a little rushed at the end. But DAMN! good workshop.
ReplyDeleteStephanie: Thank you.
Klipmart: You maniac. Read the footnotes. I wonder if there will be a basket that features permafrost preserved mammoth. Really, I do. Also, how do you breathe? Waiting drives me crazy. Finally, they killed a bear with a bean bag here in Montana. I often feel that I'm playing for the wrong side.
One time my cousin and I committed "Random Chicken." We both turned our backs on the cupboard and each picked one spice/herb, one box of something, and one canned good, and added it all to the chicken before we baked it. I don't remember how it turned out, but I do remember apricots being involved.
ReplyDeleteI am right in the middle of revising the middle of my middle-grade novel (coincidentally, also about a dead chicken) and I'm about at the point where I'm willing to turn my back to the proverbial cupboard and start reaching out blindly.
The conference was terrific. Inspiring and humbling in equal measure.
I read "Freak Observer" when I got home and was humbled some more. Best thing I've seen between two covers in a long, long time.
Bravo, Blythe!
shelley freese
My mother loathed cooking. She was a teacher and did all the housework; her idea of a great meal was a can of beans and a can of tomatoes opened at the kitchen counter and consumed there, followed by a bushel of fruit. No precious reading or thinking time wasted, very little mess, and after eating, you just recycled the cans, composted the apple cores or whatever, and you were done. She'd have gone along with your mother's leftovers noodle whole-hog, but it sounds a little fussy for her.
ReplyDeleteI love cooking, but the busier and older I get, the more I see the logic in my mother's methods. And I recycle leftovers like nobody's business, but I'm sneaky about it. I never, ever tell.
Actually, I think you'd make a great critique partner! Especially having had a mother like yours.
Haven't seen this show but I would enjoy it I'm sure. I love cooking shows. Gordon Ramsey rocks. And your noodle recipe is the best LOL! Also, must let you know my 18 yr old son loves The Freak Observer.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen this show. I don't cook. But if I find a show about takeout or delivery, then I'll watch it. ;)
ReplyDelete