When I was in Grade Two my teachers all thought I was slow. I was having trouble reading. My vocabulary was poor, I wasn't keeping up with the rest of the class, and I didn't seem to be able to understand phonetics. I was put in a remedial subclass where I did even more poorly- I refused to do the work and had temper tantrums frequently. My teachers and parents were perplexed. Clearly there must be something wrong with me? Dyslexia... ADD.... ADHD.... what could it be?
I still don't know. I can remember being put in that remedial class, I can remember the very slowly moving word flash cards designed to improve my vocabulary... and I remember being terribly embarrassed by it all. My mother was a teacher. I was supposed to be bright and there I was, so
stupid. I didn't want to go so school any more.
And then one morning, I just woke up being able to read. I had gone to bed looking at the words all in a jumble, like they were solid things, real objects, not lexicographical symbols with form and meaning... and I just knew what it all meant, suddenly. I went to school and read all the words my teacher gave me. I did all the work and finished the little book about giraffes I was given by the end of the day. My teacher was astonished. My parents were relieved. I was moved out of the remedial course and into the gifted class by the end of the week. I still don't know what triggered the change.
Similarly, I was lousy cook until around the age of twenty. My mother (goddess bless) is of that generation that feels that if it is not black and cooked tough as a Vancouver hooker, it isn't done yet. There was no paprika in my mother's kitchen... no rosemary or thyme or oregano. There was a sad bottle of salty Misses Dash and a container of chili powder that eventually grew clumpy and got thrown away. It wasn't that my mother was a bad cook- she was just a simple cook. The sort of cook who virtuously follows a recipe to the letter every time and makes made chicken on Mondays and frozen lasagna on Fridays. She loved anything that came in a plastic tray and "convenience foods" were always a miracle to her. She worked very hard, and she never had a lot of time (or imagination) to cook. And so, for the first 20 years of my life, I was blissfully unaware that steaks came in anything but burnt and making spaghetti did not require a can opener.
And yet, it was my steak defiling mother who unwittingly piqued my interest in cooking. On her dusty bookshelf over the stove, next to back issues of
Chatelaine and copy of
Fanny Farmer, my mother had an ancient, rarely used version of
The Joy of Cooking from the late 60's. I used to take it down, run my fingers over the dust jacket made sticky with cookie batters and steam and salivating over the pictures of pies and meatloaves, Peking duck and beef tartar, without any real understanding of the illustrations. They were to me like animals in a story; they belonged to some imaginary land where no one ate Kraft Singles, White Wonder Bread or Oscar Myer hot dogs. Cooking for me was like a beautiful foreign woman- a delight to look and be around, even if you couldn't understand a damn word she said.
I put myself through university as a server. I worked in all kinds of kitchens but I never really understood what was coming out of them as any different that what I made at home- I knew it was often BETTER of course... but I never understood why. I didn't know the difference between ala dente pasta and over cooked smooshy pasta or Uncle Ben's and a mushroom risotto (I grew up on pasta like wet card board and instant rice cooked so white and starchy it was like paper mache). And then one morning, just like learning to read, I woke up speaking the language. I knew there had to be something better. I started watching the chefs in the kitchens I worked in. I read voraciously. I began watching cooking shows. I taught myself- and continue to teach myself- bit by bit, to cook.
Book Cook is a journal of my two loves: the language of food, and the language books. The two are far from mutually exclusive. One feeds the body and the other feeds the mind. And so I thought- why not put them together? Each week I will review a new book, even as I learn something new in the kitchen. I invite you to come along for the journey, share your own experiences and indulge in both the culinary and academic arts. Ernest Hemingway (one of my personal heroes) says in his memoir,
A Movable Feast, "Hunger is good discipline- you learn from it."- that, to me, has always meant that to be hungry, both physically and spiritually, is to desire. You eat, and are sated- you're always hungry again, and always eating, and always waiting, both to eat and be hungry. This is natural and good- it's part of the creative process and the human experience.
In honour of Hemingway, this week's book will be famous short story collection,
The Snows of Kilamanjaro and this week's recipes a rich (but exceptionally frugal) Salmon and Broccoli Fettuccine with White Wine Cream Sauce with Waste Not Want Not Peach Cobbler.
Eat wisely, read well. Mens sana in corpore sano!
Lori
