Happy Valentine’s Day, CulinaryWoman readers! Sending you much love. It’s interesting to think about the evolution of Valentine’s Day in our lifetimes.
When we were kids, it was about collecting valentines from our classmates in our little shoebox mailboxes.
Then, when we grew up and fell in love, it became a day of delight, and for some, anxiety. In the restaurant business, Valentine’s Day is both a celebration and a day that puts some people on edge.
Nobody wants to let their customers down by failing to stage the perfect atmosphere for a proposal, but that’s hard to do when couples across the restaurant are expecting a singular experience.
In these times, I think of Valentine’s Day as simply a day to show kindness and affection for everyone. We certainly can use as much of that as we can get this year.
First Lady Jill Biden kicked that off on Friday at the White House. Joe Biden says it’s her favorite holiday, and her giant cut out hearts definitely lifted peoples’ spirits.
What else can lift spirits? Cooking. And children. And, that’s what I want to look at this week.
Michelle Obama’s New Cooking Series For Children
In 2018, Michelle and Barack Obama founded Higher Ground Productions, a multi-year deal with Netflix to produce scripted and unscripted television and film projects.
They won an Oscar with their documentary, American Factory, and produced Michelle’s documentary, Becoming, based on her best-selling autobiography.
Now, Higher Ground is wading into an area that is ripe for more new entries. Last week, Michelle announced an upcoming children’s series called Waffles and Mochi. It’s aimed at teaching kids about food and healthy eating.
The trailer features lots of well-known food names, including Samin Nosrat, who bubbled about it on her Twitter feed.
The announcement got me thinking about how — and when — we learn to cook. The pandemic has revealed something I didn’t realize: many people never learned to cook when they were kids, and now they’re having to pick it up as adults.
How we learn to cook
I’ll be honest: I thought everybody learned to cook when they were kids. I certainly did. As soon as my mother could trust me with a knife, I was helping out in the kitchen.
One of the first things I learned to make was apple crisp. My mother let me peel and slice apples into this pink Melamine bowl, which I still use regularly. Then, I made the topping from oatmeal, brown sugar and butter. My little hands were adept at crumbling them together.
Eventually, I graduated to things like grilled cheese sandwiches, and pancakes, and cakes and cookies. Other girls my age were given Easy Bake ovens, which my thrifty parents found excessively commercial.
Instead, I was given a set of little cake pans, and baked my own small creations when my mother was making a big cake.
I don’t remember watching any television shows aimed specifically at teaching kids to cook. My brother and I loved The Galloping Gourmet, which aired on Canadian TV, and we liked Joyce Chen and Julia Child on PBS.
But until cooking videos came along, my instructions were mostly hands on. Apparently, that’s how other young people learned, too.
Last year, I asked Billie and Helen, who write the delightful Greek cooking blog Mia Kouppa, how they learned to cook. Billie says that she asked for lemon potatoes so often that her mother finally taught her to make them.
“I went through a phase where I ate roasted lemon potatoes with every meal, and as a snack. I still love them, although these days I try to limit myself a bit more,” she says.
Helen remembers learning to make chicken kokkinisto, which is chicken cooked in a rich tomato sauce that is usually served with rice or pasta. (If you’d eaten in Greek restaurants, you’ve most likely tasted it.)
She was about 10 when she was given the task of finishing supper so that it would be ready when their parents got home.
“I remember many burnt pots, because I probably had the attention span of a 10-year-old,” she says.
In Korean families, women take on much of the responsibility for crafting the multiple dishes that go onto the dinner table. That was true for my friend Luke Song, whose mother and sisters generally were the family cooks.
But, he says his mother taught him to cook the summer before he went to college. The pair cooked all summer until he had mastered classic Korean dishes. “She wanted to make sure I had skills,” Luke says.
Fast forward to the past year, and it’s been interesting to see how many people have waded into cooking without much background in it.
What keeps people from cooking
I’ve been trying to figure out why people don’t know how to cook, and I’ve come up with a few reasons. One is that it’s so easy in big cities and suburbs to find food.
I grew up at a time when Ann Arbor had only one McDonald’s, and it was an event to go out to eat. My godmother Maxine Clapper would take us there on Saturday nights, and we’d get ice cream from Baskin Robbins afterwards.
Otherwise, my mother cooked, with my help, and my dad would grill on Sundays, or make his special sweet corn pancakes on on Saturday mornings.
But Millennials and Generation Z have never known a time when you couldn’t summon food with a few taps on a phone.
They’ve never been limited to only pizza or Chinese food delivery. So, they didn’t need to cook the way other generations did, assuming they were affluent enough.
Likewise, with two working parents, or a single working parent, eating out and delivery were routine several nights a week. Even Michelle writes in Becoming about the convenience of whirling through a McDonald’s drive-thru to pick up meals for her family after work.
Beyond that, there haven’t been that many cooking shows aimed specifically at kids. There are some competitive ones, like Master Chef Junior, but tutorials are fewer and far between.
Many of the young people I know watch adult programs (Ina Garten has a huge following among my college students) and how-to videos on YouTube.
So, Michelle is definitely filling a need with her new series.
I hope it doesn’t talk down to kids. I can tell you from my long-ago experience that we pick up techniques quickly, and you can trust us not to destroy a kitchen, if you give us a chance to learn.
And who knows. Among the viewers could be some grown-ups who are secretly need a little instruction.
King Cake Season Is Winding Down
In Christianity, Jan. 6 is celebrated as the Feast of the Epiphany, the day when the three wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. It’s also known as Twelfth Night, the end of the 12 days of Christmas.
In New Orleans, Jan. 6 officially kicks off Carnival season, and to us food lovers, that means we can officially eat King Cake.
Traditional King Cake has a brioche based dough, spiced with cinnamon, topped with icing, and filled with a variety of flavors. Alternatively, there’s galette des rois, or literally “cake of the kings,” which is puff pastry dough filled with almond paste.
Both are good, but I’m devoted to the traditional kind. I have lots of company. Every bakery and many restaurants in New Orleans produce King Cakes, and there is even a store where you can buy different kinds from across the area. (Sadly, they don’t ship.)
This year, with travel and Mardi Gras parades curtailed by the pandemic, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get a King Cake. I got on line at my favorite bakery too late to order one.
And it simply hasn’t migrated to Michigan, or at least I’ve never found a decent version here. (I can get galette des rois, but, nah, I need that icing.) We’re more focused on paczki, the Polish jelly donuts sold on Fat Tuesday.
So, I was delighted last month when a package arrived from Dong Phuong, which I believe makes New Orleans’ best king cake. My friend Simone Reggie, the Southern brand ambassador for Tabasco, was kind enough to send it.
Dong Phuong is officially sold out for this year, and Tuesday marks the last official day of King Cake eating.
Mine is long gone, but my heart is with everyone who is having their last piece of King Cake for 2021. Happy Mardi Gras, baby.
A Tale Of A Restaurant, Race And A Relationship
When you dine in Savannah, it’s not going to take long before somebody recommends that you eat at The Grey. (These days, that will be a slightly different experience.)
It is housed in what used to be a beat-up old bus station, and there’s a bigger story than just transforming the building into a restaurant.
It’s told in Black, White And The Grey: The Story of An Unexpected Friendship And A Beloved Restaurant, a dual memoir by Mashama Bailey and John Morisano.
Black, White And The Grey tells you about two New Yorkers, one Black, one white, who moved to Savannah to open their first restaurant. They were supposed to be business partners, but their relationship turned into an exploration of human nature.
Don’t rush this one, because like a good dish, there are all kinds of layers to the writing. I’d recommend that you read a chapter, think about it what it’s revealed, and then read another chapter.
Of course, I want you to try the recipes, like Salted Honey Chess Pie. But I also hope you will absorb what they write about the restaurant business, race, and the challenges of two people learning about each other.
As I’ve found writing my Zingerman’s books, the best partnerships aren’t between people who are alike. They’re between people who each bring something different to the equation.
And, that’s vividly true in Black, White And The Grey. If you decide to order a copy, try E. Shaver Bookseller in Savannah, which has been in business since 1975.
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Stay safe, wear a mask, and Happy Valentine’s Day. See you next Sunday!