INTRODUCTION
Probably the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me was that I got a job in a restaurant at the impressionable age of fifteen.
The addiction was immediate. Once I discovered the pace and intensity of this delicious business, I was hooked. I found restaurant people to be fascinating characters. Whoever was writing this script had an outrageous sense of humor, and I wanted a part in the production.
I was supposed to have become an actor but soon found the living theater of the restaurant world more compelling than the stage and discovered that working with food gave me a much-needed grounding and connection with the real world, which contributed to my remaining somewhat sane. Running a restaurant allows me to be the producer, director, set designer, and lead player in a wonderfully fractured nightly performance in which the world of complete illusion in the dining room is brilliantly juxtaposed with the blood-and-guts reality of the kitchen. The fact that no scene can ever be captured or exactly replicated adds a certain spice to the intensity of the moment.
This book is a distillation of my thirty years in the kitchen. Many of the recipes I have included are like old friends who have been brought from distant places for a culinary version of This Is Your Life. Each one has a story to tell and relates to the others. Collectively, they define a style and taste that are uniquely American, though full of influences from other countries.
This is not a typical chef’s cookbook of esoteric, egomaniacal, and impossibly complicated formulas that only a wizard with a staff of eighty would attempt to produce. The recipes assembled here make up a practiced, finely honed repertoire of elegantly simple and straightforward dishes that are continually evolving. Everyday ingredients are elevated to new heights through surprising combinations and seductive presentations.
As a self-taught chef, I have learned my most valuable lessons through making mistakes. I hope this book will keep you from making similar ones. You should be encouraged to know that I taught myself to cook by reading cookbooks and through years of trial and error. I was recently quoted in the book Becoming a Chef as saying that cooking “can’t be taught, it has to be caught” — rather like a fever, which then takes on a momentum of its own. This book is intended to help you catch it — to become consumed with the passion.
In addition to some of my favorite recipes, I want to share some of the less tangible secrets of creating a memorable event centered around a meal. Great food is simply one component of a magical dining experience.
In planning a menu, I always aim for an element of novelty. A guest expects the food to be delicious and perfectly executed but also craves the unexpected surprise—something to remember and talk about. Often it’s the tiniest details that leave the most indelible memories. They represent the thoughtfulness that goes into making an occasion special and are often personal touches that cost little or nothing.
For example, hand-writing individual menus on interesting little cards that include the date lets the guests know what they’re eating and gives them an inexpensive souvenir of your party. Enhancing the moment by emphasizing the season in both your choice of food and its presentation strengthens the memory-making potential of a dinner party. Try to make each meal a celebration of the moment: look for ingredients that symbolize the time of year and try to do something out of the ordinary with them.
My suggestion for the home cook has always been to build confidence and a repertoire by mastering one well-conceived three-course meal, re-creating the same three dishes over and over, perhaps one night a week for six or eight weeks, until you’ve made every mistake possible and learned something from each one. By then, your menu will feel like a part of you, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can accomplish the preparation. At that point, you’ll be ready to invite guests, who more than likely will be astonished at what an accomplished cook you are, even though secretly you may not be able to cook anything but those three dishes. You’ll then have the confidence to proceed and live up to your newfound reputation as a wonderful cook.
Like a good wardrobe, many of the components in my recipes are interchangeable. I invite you to rearrange them as you like. At The Inn at Little Washington we sometimes joke about “spinning the dial” in choosing the accompaniments to the dishes on the menu. One day the tangle of tart greens may be served with the rabbit sausage and the next day with the venison. An unusual sauce may complement five or six different foods. Mixing and matching is part of the fun. I’ve provided suggestions for substitutions with the recipes, as well as alternative ways of using various components interchangeably. Flexibility is essential to creative cooking.
In planning a party or an event, I visualize it in advance, as if I’m watching the preview of a film. I pretend I’m the guest and walk myself through it scene by scene, from the entrance, to the table, through dessert and departure, looking for areas of potential discomfort, glitches, or rough edges. This exercise can be done in minutes and will always bring to your attention details that you forgot to take into consideration. While on your walk-through you’ll probably come up with great ideas for special touches.
It’s reassuring to have a little rehearsal of the meal a few days in advance to ensure that everything works and to analyze how the food makes you feel. As a result, you may decide to add or delete a course or to increase or decrease a portion size.
The best way to minimize stress while entertaining is to be thoroughly organized. Knowing exactly what china and serving utensils will be needed for each dish is important. If you make this a habit while cooking for yourself or preparing simple family meals, it will eventually become automatic. A blackboard in the kitchen is useful for listing your menu, garnishes, and side dishes to ensure that nothing is forgotten in the tense final moments of bringing everything together. Most of us can remember at least one occasion when we discovered that a course we’d spent hours preparing was left unserved in the kitchen.
To improve your cooking, it is essential that you receive helpful criticism. Find someone whose opinion you value and ask him or her to be brutally honest in critiquing your work. Don’t rely on your guests or friends because they’ll invariably tell you everything you cook is wonderful. Compare your creations with similar dishes in fine restaurants. Begin developing reference points of taste. While traveling, seek out and analyze the great dishes of the regions you’re visiting and try them at home. Compare the results and keep practicing until your version is even better than the original. Each time you prepare a dish, ask yourself, “How can I make it better and do it faster next time?” Fantasize about how you would like your food to look and taste and, amazingly, in time, little by little, your fantasy will become a reality.
But be careful. All your dreams could come true, and one day you might wake up owning a restaurant.
Copyright © 2011 by Patrick O'Connell. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
