Blue Jean Chef

My Dad tells a joke about Adam in the Garden of Eden, asking God for the perfect companion. After Adam describes what this companion would be like – she would honor and worship him, feed him, nurse him in poor health, clean his home, shower him with love, respect him, yada yada yada – God says “That will cost you an arm and a leg!” Adam responds by asking “Well, then what can I get for a rib?” Then my Dad laughs very hard. Very funny, Dad.

I’ve been thinking about my father’s joke recently, because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in ribs. You see, tomorrow night at 8pm ET on QVC, the Blue Jean Chef show returns to the air, and the theme this time is “Ribs”. I’ve been making batches of ribs – smoking them, BBQ-ing them, slow baking them in the oven – to come up with the perfect Blue Jean Chef recipe. I’ve almost (almost) had my fill of them – and I ain’t ribbing you!

What I found most interesting was that during my recipe testing, I chose to cook a rack of baby back ribs along side a rack of St. Louis cut spare ribs, using the same preparation for both racks. I ended up preferring the baby back ribs, but that’s probably because the spare ribs needed more time in the oven, and that’s beside the point and not what I found most interesting anyway. As home cooks, we rarely seem to do this – side-by-side taste comparisons. I mean, if you were cooking for your friends or family, you’d choose one cut of pork or the other, not both.

At least, that’s what I used to do. From here on in, I think I’m going to mix up my meals for company a little. I’m going to buy variations of the main ingredient, prepare them the same way and let my guests (and myself too) compare in a way they don’t often get the chance to – side-by-side. That’s the best way to reflect on the taste experience, rather than trying to rely on the memory of the last time you had that food or ingredient. It also makes a great conversation starter – which variation does everyone like better.

Of course, there is a down side. Inevitably there is going to be a least preferred part of the meal. But… at least you can blame the ingredient, and how often can a cook do that!

My mother hates peanut butter.

Most mornings, I get up and slice a piece of bread off my latest favourite loaf, toast it up and spread some peanut butter on top. That, along with a couple of cups of coffee, is breakfast. My favourite peanut butter is Trader Joe’s Organic Creamy Peanut Butter – delicious, natural, only two ingredients, just salty enough. Smucker’s Natural Creamy Peanut Butter is a pretty good substitute when I can’t get to Trader Joe’s, but I have to admit, often I’ll make the trip to TJ’s just to get their peanut butter. It’s sort of their loss leader for me (only I doubt they’re taking a loss!).

Perhaps five days a week, I get up and as I’m spreading the peanut butter on my toast, I think of my mother. She really hates peanut butter. Now you may think this is not a big deal, but my mother is not extreme. My mother is not someone who makes outrageous claims or speaks in superlatives. She has a solid personality. She’s reliable, dependable, practical and full of common sense (more than anyone else I know) – she grounds me. My mother doesn’t “hate” things. And yet… she hates peanut butter.

Sometimes, when I’m preparing my breakfast, I think back to a trip my family made to Tobago when I was about twelve years old. We were staying at a beach resort, and I thought it one of the best holidays ever. I was allowed to wander around the little resort on my own, swim in the pool and visit the bar for a pina colada and say “charge it to my room”! Does it get any better than that? Of course, it was a virgin pina colada, but I didn’t have to order it like that – the bartender and I had an understanding. I’m sure, in retrospect, there was a watchful parental eye on me all the time, but it was imperceptible at the moment, and I felt like an adult for one of the first times in my life.

One night at the resort restaurant, my family had just finished our main meal and the waiter came over to ask us if we were interested in dessert. Silly question – he clearly did not know my family and our very serious and professional approach to eating. He started to go over our options. When he got to ice cream (another subject taken very seriously by my family), my mother… or perhaps it was my father, who is the real ice cream expert and fanatic, inquired about flavors. It doesn’t really matter who asked. The point is that as the waiter went down the list of flavors, he suddenly said “peanut butter”. My mother shuddered violently in her chair and exclaimed “Eeeuuuwwwwuuuuggggghhhh!” in a loud voice. My brother and I looked over in alarm at the woman who had consistently instructed us in royal-standard table etiquette since our infancy. The waiter was taken aback, and even my father looked somewhat shocked. Indeed, other diners at other tables might have looked over for all I know. Mum quickly regained her composure and apologized for her outburst. It took a second for all of us to recover and start breathing again, and then we laughed. I’m sure I thought it great to see a tiny crack in the wall of perfect tableside manner. Truth is, I’ve never forgotten the incident. You see, that’s what peanut butter can do to my mother.

Most of the time, however, when I’m spreading what I think is delicious peanut butter on my morning toast, I think about the light in my mother’s dark and deep-seeded hatred for peanut butter. Every day of my brother’s and my junior and senior high school years, my mother would get up in the morning and make us peanut butter sandwiches, even though she hated just the smell of the spread. Sometimes, a little peanut butter would get on her finger and she would pop her finger into her mouth simply to clean it off. This automatic reaction was always followed with a little choke and “bleecgh” sound, as Mum would rush to get a glass of water or something to get rid of the taste in her mouth. And yet, the next morning, she would rise and suffer through the production of another set of peanut butter sandwiches for us to take to school.

I don’t have peanut butter on toast most mornings because my mother hates peanut butter. I have it because peanut butter reminds me of my mother, who loves me.

What a year!  After a two quarts of busy days, three cups of new projects, half a cup of distractions, a tablespoon of vacation and a teaspoon or two (ok – maybe three or four!) of lazy negligence, the result is no new posting on my blog!  Shame on me.

It has been a busy year for the Blue Jean Chef, and now I find myself busier than ever with a new show on QVC.  Each Thursday in January at 7pm EST, I’ll be focusing on a theme and exploring that theme through lots of kitchen tools, gadgets, appliances and pots and pans.

Two shows have already aired.  The first was on Honeybells, that delicious cross between a Dancy Tangerine and Duncan Grapefruit that I wrote about a couple of years ago.  I really enjoyed creating all the recipes for that show and still have some Honeybells at home to enjoy.

The second show was all about sandwiches.  We made lots of different sandwiches on the show.  Just thinking about them now is making my mouth water.  There truly is something about a sandwich that is so appealing and appetizing.  I could eat them every day and never get tired.

This week, we’ll be doing a show called “Eating Out at Home”.  Throughout the hour, I’ll provide lots of tips on how to make your dinners more like eating out at a restaurant.  I love going out to eat, but when I’m in money saving mode, or when it’s so darn cold outside that I don’t want to leave the house, it is always fun to dress dinner up at home.  I’d rather dress dinner up than dress up for dinner!

Hope you’ll join me on Thursday, January 22nd at 7pm EST.  Casual attire.

When I was young, my mother always kept a well-stocked pantry. It was a long tall cupboard and it always seemed full. I remember flours, sugars, cereals, tomatoes, nuts, anchovies (yes, anchovies), vinaigrettes, teas, pastas, rice, beans, loads of spices (to this day, my mother has a larger spice collection than anyone I know – alphabetized, no less!), and always…always chocolate chips.

Whenever we would bring home the groceries, Mum would immediately open the bag of chocolate chips and dump them into an old coffee tin, which we kept in the lazy Susan. As an adult, I now know that coffee tin was the kiss of death for both of us. It was this coffee tin ritual that resulted in us often not having enough chocolate chips to make a batch of cookies! It was too easy for both of us to just lift the lid of the coffee tin, slip our hands inside and grap a handful of chocolate chips at any time. Had we left the chocolate chips in their bag, it would have meant actually opening the bag in order to have a little snack – too much of an open indulgence of our whimsical cravings. No, it was more enjoyable (and guilt-free) for us to have the chips “stylishly” stored in an old coffee tin. If we didn’t have enough chips for a batch of cookies, why we’d just have to go get another bag, of course!

Many years later, when I was out of school, I’d go visit my parents in the summertime. It seems both my mother and I had graduated at that time – me from university, and she from chocolate chips. The coffee tin of chocolate chips was no longer. Instead, I found large bars of high end dark chocolate in the uppermost section of the fridge door. Of course, having been schooled in the fine art of chocolate love and obsession as a child, I eagerly sought out the graduate school of chocolate that my mother now stored in a more careful place. The old adage rang true – mother always knows best. My love for chocolate progressed to the next logical step, and I began to seek out only dark chocolate.

That was that. I officially left chocolate chips behind. Indeed, sometimes I’ve even been known to scoff at them as inferior chocolate-wannabe’s. Chocolate chip cookies are not even worth the caloric expenditure unless they are chocolate chunk cookies, and even then, those chunks had better be 65% cocoa solids at the very least!

Now I’m many years older and still hold chocolate dear to my heart. I can no longer indulge my chocolate fantasies as much as I’d like to, so I have to be selective and weigh my options carefully. Would I ever give chocolate up? No way! Instead, I indulge myself with the cream of the crop, the very best chocolate I can find – not too much, but just enough to satiate the craving. Stopping is not always easy, but I wouldn’t want to eat all the chocolate in the house. Afterall, there’s something comforting about having a bar of very fine dark chocolate in the uppermost section of the fridge door – my security bar.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I think it was a sign that perhaps I was eating too much. I was standing in a buffet line, eating what was already on my plate in order to make room for more. As soon as the deviled egg passed my lips, I knew I was in trouble. I turned to the woman behind me in line.

“This is not a good sign,” I said, stuffing the perfectly cooked egg white with the creamy, mustard-yellow center into my mouth, and continuing down the line.

She just looked at me as if I was from Mars. I was beginning to think that she might be right.

This incident has haunted me ever since it happened, and I feel the need to revisit the situation. I had been invited to a wedding shower, which rarely happens. The organizer of the shower had set a theme for the occasion. We were to wear 50’s style aprons and a strand of pearls, and bring retro American food dishes. In short, we were to do our very best June Cleaver imitation.

I pulled out my strand of pearls, a twenty-first birthday present from my parents, and managed to find an apron that looked as though my grandmother had worn it, even though it was barely two years old and came from Anthropology. The other guests looked more the part than I did. They wore frilly aprons and body snug dresses in floral patterned fabric. They told stories about what it was like when they first moved in with their husbands – how all the husband’s possessions ended up in the basement as they did their best to break him of old habits. I felt out of place – no frills, no dress, no husband. It’s not that I wanted any of these things – I didn’t and don’t – I just felt like I was on a trip to a foreign country with no knowledge of the language.

I have to say, the girls did a tremendous job with the decorations and setting up the buffet line. Laura showed her artistic talent with two beautiful flower arrangements. Linens in pink and green were thrown over the counter with boxes underneath in strategic places to give the buffet variance in height. Shimmery material (what is that stuff called?) accented different areas of the buffet line. Bows were tied; streamers were hung from the ceiling. Me? I contributed. I blew up a balloon. It was a really hard balloon to blow up – one of those long balloons that street performers make into the shape of a poodle for children. The girls were impressed that I managed it, and gave it a place of importance – sticking straight out of the table centerpiece flower arrangement.

The ladies also outdid themselves with the food. There was macaroni and cheese (Liz’s “world famous”), very bourbon baked beans, tea sandwiches cut into shapes, potato salad, two different quiches, a neon green Watergate salad (cool whip with pistachio pudding and chopped fruit), and those damned deviled eggs. Paula brought punch. It swished around appropriately in a punch bowl, and floating in the punch was a huge decorative block of ice with fruit frozen trapped inside. As the ice melted, the fruit was set free into the mixture of juices. I had contemplated spiking the punch, but had thought better of that when I realized I was already out of my element by just attending a wedding shower, and didn’t need to alienate myself any more. Besides, this was a mature occasion, a rite of passage, and not a time to revisit younger days. For dessert, there was a pyramid of frosted cup cakes, all tied together with ribbons and with a plastic bride and groom stuck in the top. There were also some Rice Krispie squares, but these ones were made with peanut butter flavored Captain Crunch instead of Rice Krispies, which I suppose made them “Captain Crunch squares”.

It didn’t help that I was hungry before the shower started. I had been trying to wait patiently for the moment when someone would finally go up to the buffet line, like a racer waiting for the starting gun. I have a huge appetite, and besides, I’d spent a lot of energy blowing up that balloon. We raised our glasses of punch in a toast to the bride to be, and then one brave soul pushed her chair back and headed to the pink and green counter. “Bang” – we were off! I felt excited. Why? I think it had everything to do with what foods were there. Foods that I rarely ever see in front of me.

Generally, I try to monitor what I eat. I don’t particularly want to work out all the time, so I watch what I put into my body. Not too much fat; not too much sugar; not too many carbohydrates. Waffling between all the recommended diets, I just try to be moderate with all the so-called food sins… well, most of the time I try. When I looked at that buffet counter, however, I saw no moderation. Everything was high in fat, high in sugar, and very high in carbs. What could I do? My mother always taught me to be polite. People had brought this food and I felt it only showed a good sense of etiquette to try everybody’s dish, even that neon green cool whip salad (despite much trepidation). There was no getting around this one – I was going to have to throw caution to the wind and forgive myself for breaking all my self-set rules. I pushed forward with courage.

I started piling foods onto my plate. Macaroni and cheese, a smoked salmon tea sandwich in the shape of a “C” (in honour of the bride-to-be’s first name), a cream cheese on cinnamon raisin bread tea sandwich in the shape of an “O” (probably the center of another “C”), a deviled egg, a piece of quiche Lorraine, and some of that futuristic green cool whip “salad”. My plate was full, but when I looked down the line, there sat the bourbon baked beans in a very hip turquoise cast iron pot that must have started its life in the 50s. Where was I to put the baked beans? The plates really were too small. The answer was obvious to me at the time – clear room by eating the easiest thing to pop into your mouth, the deviled egg. In retrospect, I probably would have been wiser to scrape the Watergate salad back into the serving bowl and fill its space with the beans, but again, etiquette got the best of me. Sort of. Down went the deviled egg. Then came the foreign gaze of the woman behind me, who was seeing a Martian for the first time. It was too late. I couldn’t take the egg out of my mouth. That would have been rude. It’s not easy to smile with a deviled egg in your mouth, but I did my best and moved on to the baked beans.

The food was tasty. I felt free. I felt like someone walking to their dead-end job when a flurry of hundred dollar bills gets suddenly dumped on them from above, jumping around trying to grab as much money as they can. I felt like a baby bird in a bird bath on a hot summer day. Fun – I was having a lot of fun in this foreign country. I didn’t hold back, but had another piece of quiche – it was sitting right in front of me after all, and I hadn’t tried the spinach and mushroom quiche yet. “Shiitake mushrooms? Really? Wonderful.”

I think it was around that time that I started to feel full.

“Who wants a cupcake?”

Again, I heard my mother’s voice “Be polite.” Now, I blame the other guests. They forced me to indulge in a cupcake. Truly. Most of the other girls said “No thanks” to the offer. It was getting awkward and I was feeling anxious. Someone had to have a cupcake. I didn’t want to hurt Jeri’s feelings. She’d put all that work into making the beautiful cupcake cake. True, she wasn’t actually in the room when the cupcakes were offered up, but surely she would find out that people hadn’t eaten her cupcakes. In true sacrificial mode, I said “Sure, pass one over.” I couldn’t contribute to the husband stories, but I could do my part in making this shower a success by eating the food everyone had brought.

It was around this time that I started to feel ill.

Here’s what I’ve learned. You can go back to a buffet line. You can fill your plate with small portions of everything, or, if you’ve over-filled your tiny plate, you can go back to the buffet and get those things you missed the first time around. I continued to feel ill for the rest of the day. I made it home and before I knew it, dinner time rolled around. It is not like me, or anyone in my family for that matter, to miss a meal, no matter what. Still, I had committed great sins that day. Surely, I needed to repent. I was coming down off my sugar high and was starting to feel depressed. I could have bowed down and prayed to the porcelain god, which I think is what June Cleaver must have done in order to fit into those dresses, but that’s not my style. No, I believe in a forgiving food god. I had learned my lesson and swore to behave differently at my next buffet. I was forgiven. I had a bowl of cereal, a cup of tea, and went to bed wiser than when I’d woken up.

I’ve been eating blueberries by the handful lately. I don’t have a huge family to feed, and yet I buy the largest container I can of the little blue fruit and keep them in my fridge. I start my day with a handful or two on my cereal or in my oatmeal. Later on, when in need of a snack, I grab another handful and pop them in my mouth one by one. In the afternoon, I get the urge for something refreshing. Yes, once again, I grab a handful of blueberries from the basket in the fridge. Recently, I’ve started to worry a little about my blueberry binging. Is it safe to have so much of a good thing? I mean, are we actually permitted to indulge in a pleasure to such an extent? And, what about repetition killing desire? Will I tire of blueberries if I overdo it?

Blueberries have had some very good PR in recent years. It’s next to impossible to hear mention of blueberries without also hearing something about their nutritive powers. Phytonutrients. Antioxidants. Anthocyanin. These are the words used in conjunction with the little berries. The general consensus about blueberries is that they promote “healthy aging”. The antioxidants in the fruit “neutralize free radicals” and “protect against inflammation”, thereby helping to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses associated with aging. Blueberries are supposed to be beneficial for your brain, your heart, your urinary tract, your vision, and, on top of it all, are cancer preventative. Wow. With a reputation like that, why isn’t everyone eating blueberries by the handful?

I’m not really influenced by the stories. Yes, there might be scientifically proven studies behind these claims, but frankly, I don’t really care. I’m not eating blueberries because they are a medical wonder-fruit. No, my binging and obsession is more organic, so to speak. I simply eat blueberries by the handful because I like them. I like the way they taste and I like the way they burst in my mouth. I like the way they mix with the milk in my cereal, sweetening it ever so slightly and turning it a little purply-grey. I like that blueberries are blue, unlike anything else in my fridge or pantry. Really, I’ve been binging on blueberries because they are in season right now, abundant in my grocery stores, practically begging me to take them home. They’re also on sale.

So, is it really necessary to continue pushing the nutritive benefits of blueberries? Doesn’t the essence of the blueberry speak for itself and keep blueberry sales up? Well, I wouldn’t suggest firing the PR department just yet. Their work in creating such a positive image for the blueberry has allowed me to like and indulge in blueberries – guilt-free! So often foods that we love are declared “off limits” and interwoven with guilt. We’re warned not to eat too much fat, too much sugar, too many carbohydrates. While we can’t really go eating donuts or cream puffs by the handful, blueberries are a whole other story. They are good for us, according to the “experts”, so we feel a sense of permission to down them by the handful. At least I do.

With permission to eat as many as I want without the guilt, will blueberries become boring? Well, possibly. If I look at all the other food obsessions I have ever had, one thing is certain – they all come to an end. (Well, almost all of them.) I’m not worried, however, for the end of my food obsessions usually coincide with the end of that food’s season, only to reappear the following year. The season for blueberries is quite long (pretty much all summer), so I have a few months of blueberry binging left.

In the meantime, I’m just thankful that chocolate has no season.

When I was growing up, it seemed that no-one even knew where Trinidad was located (let alone Tobago!). Things are different now. Just recently, I stumbled across three references to Trinidad and its cuisine in mainstream American print media. Saveur, one of America’s top food magazines, published an article devoted to Trinidad Carnival in their March 2006 issue. Chile Pepper Magazine also featured Trinidad in the very same month, giving special attention to Trinidad’s local Congo chile pepper. Topping both these articles was the release of Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago, by Ramin Ganeshram, a 247-page cookbook full of recipes and anecdotes wholly Trinidadian.

Books on Caribbean foods are a dime a dozen, but not since the ever-popular Naparima Girls’ High School Cookbook came out in 1988 has such a comprehensive book solely on T&T cuisine been published.

Sweet Hands is not a flashy cookbook with color photos for every recipe, but it is well-written and very complete. The book covers all types of Trinidadian main dishes, street foods, appetizers, breads, soups, drinks and desserts. All the classic dishes are included: Pelau, Callalloo, Buljol, Doubles, Dal Puri and Buss Up Shut, to name a few. Ganeshram’s recipes are easy to follow, making them amenable to the amateur cook as well as to the die-hard Trinidadian gourmand.

Though of Trinidadian descent, Ganeshram currently resides in New York, and has written her recipes with the North American cook in mind. She is true to her Trinidadian roots, listing traditional local ingredients, but always offers substitution suggestions for her non-Caribbean readers – collard greens for dasheen leaves, cilantro for shado beni. The glossary of ingredients and dishes at the back of the book is an excellent reference resource to those unfamiliar with the cuisine. In this regard, Ganeshram educates her readers on the finer points of Trinidadian foods.

Sweet Hands is more than a textbook, however. As I read through the book, I found myself getting the urge to return to Trinidad and Tobago to visit all the places she mentions and to seek out the food experiences she describes, from high tea at the Pax Guest House in Tunapuna, to roti at Shiann’s Roti on Cipriani Boulevard. I doubt Ganeshram intended Sweet Hands to be used as a travel guide, but it certainly could be read as a handbook by the food-obsessed wanting a Caribbean vacation.

Some people use cookbooks simply as references for meal-making; others read cookbooks like novels. Both types of readers will be happy with Sweet Hands. Ganeshram’s personal anecdotes and stories about friends and family make the book highly readable. The pages are littered with histories on ingredients and culinary traditions, so even if you’re not looking for what to make for dinner, you’re bound to come across something interesting.

Being of Trinidadian descent but living in the United States myself, I appreciate Ganeshram’s book as a clear and accurate explanation of the food and culture of Trinidad and Tobago. In her introduction, she mentions that “an inordinate number of people don’t know where Trinidad and Tobago is”, and I have to agree. I have encountered this lack of knowledge often, and constantly find myself following any reference to T&T with the explanation “off the coast of Venezuela”. Things are changing, however, and I believe that Sweet Hands will contribute to the public relations of Trinidad and Tobago here in the United States and elsewhere. Meanwhile, as more and more people get their hands on Sweet Hands, don’t be surprised to see more culinary tourists heading to Trinidad.

Sweet Hands:
Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago
by Ramin Ganeshram
Hippocrene Books
March 2006
$29.95/Hardcover
ISBN 0-7818-1125-2

I have lived in the United States for almost thirteen years now, and “Canadian bacon” continues to perplex me. I grew up in Canada and yet had never heard of Canadian bacon until I moved to Vermont at the age of 23. I quickly learned that Canadian bacon is simply back bacon – bacon taken from the loin in the middle of the back of the divine swine, rather than from the belly. The fact that Americans have declared back bacon to be “Canadian” strikes me as very odd.

When you are a citizen of the Great White North living south of the 49^th parallel, the mention of anything or anyone from the motherland is of fundamental interest. Canadians on the whole are known to be a somewhat quiet, modest, and self-deprecating people. This does not mean, however, that we are not proud of our citizenship. On the contrary, we are very passionate about Canada and our heritage. The thing is, Canadians generally pass un-noticed in the United States, unless we start talking about going ‘out and about’ or ask for ‘serviettes’ instead of napkins at the table, and I believe that living invisibly is why, when we discover something or someone “Canadian”, we immediately identify ourselves as the same and want to know more.

So, imagine my interest when I started culinary school to learn that there is a Canadian … bacon? Pardon me? Neither I, nor the other two Canadians at school had ever heard of such a thing. Why was it called Canadian? It started making a little more sense when I realized that Canadian bacon is back bacon – what Bob and Doug McKenzie, hosts of The Great White North, had been obsessed with for years. But could Americans really be that influenced by a pair of fictitious brothers hosting an SCTV skit?

Back bacon is very popular in Britain, but in Canada, however, I am challenged to find back bacon at all. Still, south of the border, back bacon continues to be called “Canadian”. It’s really quite confusing, for when grocery shopping in Canada, should you ask for “Canadian bacon”, you’ll be given peameal bacon. Peameal bacon is pork taken from the leanest portion of the loin, cured in sweet pickle and then rolled in cornmeal. It is sliced about a quarter of an inch thick and has approximately one eighth of an inch of fat around its perimeter. Its name, “peameal”, comes from the fact that it used to be rolled in a ground yellow pea mixture. It is really quite different from plain back bacon.

To add to the confusion, back bacon is also sometimes called “Irish bacon”. Rashers of Irish bacon and sausage are a main ingredient in a substantial Irish breakfast. I wonder, however, if the Irish know this? Perhaps they consider Irish bacon to be something altogether different to back bacon, as is the case in Canada.

There’s no confusion about Italian bacon, otherwise known as pancetta, however. The Italians established their bacon with certainty and no-one questions the origin of the bacon that is cured, not smoked and rolled into a log before being sliced.

So, what is the answer to why Americans call back bacon “Canadian”? Did they need to distinguish it from streaky bacon or slab bacon, and needed a scapegoat nation that wouldn’t complain about having its name used? Did they think that Canada was appropriate because as back bacon is a leaner version of bacon, they felt that Canada is a leaner version of the United States? Could it really have been Bob and Doug McKenzie’s cross-border influence? Perhaps it all started with a conversation between two American pig farmers that went something like this:

Pig Farmer #1: “What do we call that other bacon?”

Pig Farmer #2: “Which bacon?”

Pig Farmer #1: “The bacon that’s not from down here.” (points at pig’s stomach)

Pig Farmer #2: “Where’s it from then?” (not looking at Pig Farmer #1)

Pig Farmer #1: “From up there.” (points at pig’s back)

Pig Farmer #2: “From up there?” (not seeing where Pig Farmer #1 is pointing) “Canadian bacon?”

Pig Farmer #1: “Yeah, that must be it.”

Well, maybe. I’ve searched for the answer, but have come up with nothing. All I am left to conclude is that unless the pig is one of the 15 million swine born and raised in the Great White North, back bacon is not Canadian. It’s just from up there.

I’ve been thinking about chicken noodle soup. I’ve been thinking about the excellent home-made chicken stock in my freezer, the vegetables in my crisper, the half a grilled chicken breast in my fridge, and the open package of fettuccine in my cupboard. I’ve been thinking that I have all the ingredients for chicken noodle soup, which supposedly has restorative value when you’re sick with a cold or the flu. Now, if only I could pull myself off the couch and out from under this blanket, and muster up enough energy to stand for about 20 minutes, I might just make some.

The story unfolds like this. I found myself in the middle of a Nor’Easter (I always feel like a sailor when I say that), which would eventually dump twelve inches of snow on Philadelphia. Simultaneously, my dear, sweet, loving and adorable pooch had an upset stomach. Between the hours of 11pm and 5am, sweet Sadie whined and cried from two stories down, begging me to please open the front door to let her out. Not once… but four times, I made the urgent leap out of bed and down two flights of stairs, opened the front door for Sadie, and plunged forth into the blizzard wearing my pajamas. After all, I know she would do the same for me, if only she had thumbs and could manage the door handle.

The next day was a battle between me and the weather. I’m not sure, but I suspect the world would have stopped turning had I not made it into work, so for everyone’s sake, I fought the elements and took the train out to the suburbs. I waited in the blowing snow for 30 minutes at the other end of the line for a ride the rest of the way to the studio. Later, after work, I was dropped off at the train station and waited outside for another 40 minutes for the return ride home. The train stopped at the station before mine, and didn’t seem to want to move any farther. I got out and walked the distance. I had to get home to my sick dog. What havoc would she have wrecked on my home in my absence, not able to open the door herself?

Over the next two days, Sadie’s health improved while mine quickly deteriorated. She was lethargic for a day, but soon tried to eat the mailman again – a sign that she is back to normal. Meanwhile, I moved myself down to the couch and crawled under a blanket. Frankly, even typing on the computer seemed to require too much energy. That’s when I started thinking about chicken noodle soup.

I honestly can’t remember if my mother made chicken noodle soup for me when I was sick as a child. I know that I don’t particularly like chicken noodle soup, which is a good indication that I did have it when I was ill, for I have developed bad associations with foods and drink that were used as restorative nutrients. To this day, ginger ale will bring on cold and flu symptoms faster than any virus I’ve encountered. In keeping to this theory, there’s a good chance that chicken noodle soup was on the list of “sick foods”. When I finally made it out of the house and to the grocery store, I stood in the soup aisle for about 15 minutes, staring at all the different chicken noodle soup options. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up any of them. I mean, truly, I didn’t even touch a can or package to look at it more closely. The soup simply held no appeal. Instead, I chose an organic tomato soup.

So, why then, do I still have chicken noodle soup on the brain? Is it because all my ingredients are sitting in the kitchen, practically begging to be put together? Is it time for me to give chicken noodle soup another chance? Are there really restorative qualities in this concoction given to sick children world-wide? I decided to find out.

It didn’t take me long to discover that this question has been posed by many over the years. Indeed, there have even been a few medical studies on the subject, but none have been very thorough since there’s no monetary incentive – no-one will be able to patent chicken noodle soup and become a millionaire. What I did find out was that most “experts” agreed that the steam inhaled when eating a hot soup aids in unclogging congestion. No kidding. Big deal. Mum made me lean over a bowl of boiling water with a towel over my head to ease my congestion. That’s not why she would have made me eat chicken noodle soup.

Then I read other less-agreed-upon theories on why chicken noodle soup is good for more than just your soul. Some think that there’s an amino acid released when chicken is cooked that aids in reducing inflammation and slows mucus production – a common problem with the common cold. Others maintain that the fat content of chicken noodle soup helps soothe your sore throat. The most in-depth study, by a Dr. Rennard who used his wife’s Lithuanian mother’s recipe in his research, asserts that it stops neutrophils (inflammatory white blood cells) from accumulating in your bronchial tubes.

As I read and learned more, chicken noodle soup started to hold even less appeal. I lay on the couch, thinking about mucus, inflammation, Kleenex, bronchial tubes, chicken fat, amino acids, over-cooked carrots, slippery noodles sliding down my throat, where I was pretty sure a golf ball was lodged at the moment. My distaste for chicken noodle soup was just getting worse.

I then had a sudden revelation. I realized what had been left out of the scientific research. I’m quite sure that in no case study were the patients required to make their own chicken noodle soup. I’m sure it was made for them. Perhaps even made for them by a Lithuanian grandmother! It was the fact that the soup was prepared for them, and the love and care involved in that process that really held the healing power. I snuggled down deeper under my blanket, knowing that there was no longer any reason to move off the couch and into the kitchen. Sure, I had all the ingredients for chicken noodle soup in my home, but I was missing the key component – the person to make it for me.

I never really liked chicken noodle soup anyway, and I’m already feeling much better.

I am told that as a child, I would go grocery shopping with my mother and “tidy up” the store while she shopped. I would return misplaced or abandoned items to their rightful homes and make sure that all the labels were facing outwards for the customer to see properly. Had my mother been a little more entrepreneurial, she might have rented me out, for there are companies who actually pay people to do such work for their product, and clearly, I had talent. Instead, she just kept moving up and down the aisles while I made sure that everything in her wake was in order.

I’m quite sure this little childhood story comes as no surprise to those who know me now. Given my somewhat “overly organized” personality, it is entirely believable. I can live in someone else’s mess for a little while, but in my own world, I like things to be where they are supposed to be. After all, if whatever you’re looking for is in the right place, it is easier to take the next step in doing whatever you happen to be doing that involves whatever it is you’re looking for, no? For instance, if your keys are on the hook right near the door, it is easier to leave the house and lock the door behind you – you don’t need to stop and spend time looking for your keys.

In my overly organized fashion, I like to apply this concept to almost every aspect of my life, and cooking is no exception. Indeed, when cooking professionally on a line, organization is critical. Without structure, the whole kitchen would fall apart. The restaurant line is only as good as its weakest link, and with emotions as raw as they can be in a restaurant kitchen, you do not want to be the weakest link.

At home, preparing the evening meal is usually a solo performance. In most cases there’s no-one else working with you, relying on your effort in order to pull the meal together. Consequently, the home cook should feel a little more relaxed. Why then, do so many people feel stressed out about making dinner, especially when entertaining? The most common answer to this is timing. The home cook has to prepare all parts of a meal themselves, and needs to time those different components to be ready simultaneously. Therein lies the challenge. But more than that, the home cook wants all parts of the meal finished pronto, with no time put into them at all.

So, how can one make timing the meal easier and reduce the stress on the cook? I’d like to argue that being organized is the first step. Mise en place is something that every professional, and many home cooks, understand. It translates from French as “to put in place”, and refers to doing all your preparatory work before actually cooking – chopping what needs chopping, measuring what needs measuring, etc… It is a standard procedure in restaurants and commercial food settings, and for years has been something that I’ve preached to the home cook. Why? Well, it prepares you to cook, prevents last minute rushing and panicking, and facilitates timing parts of the meal. It simply makes the cooking process so much more enjoyable. At least… that’s what I think. But then, I enjoy cooking in general, and as previously stated, I thrive on organization.

But what about all those people for whom cooking at night is a chore, a burden? What about those people who like to fly by the seat of their pants and just get a meal on the table? Will doing their mise en place before they cook help them, relieve them of stress and allow them to enjoy the process? Having given this some thought, I think that unfortunately mise en place will only frustrate and add to their nightly burden, for despite the fact that the ingredients prepared for a meal can look delightful in little bowls or even little piles on a cutting board, the big drawback is that preparing mise en place definitely takes time. It is hard for me to accept this. It is difficult to think that not everyone in the world enjoys food preparation and eating the way I do.

In her latest cookbook, Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals, Sara Moulton touches on this subject. In her introduction, she describes her disappointment in learning that most people these days seem to want to prepare dinner in fifteen minutes or less. “Fifteen minutes?!” she writes, “What’s the big rush? Cooking is fun. Cooking is therapeutic. Cooking is creative. Cooking concludes with a wonderful meal that brings the whole family together.” Still, she succumbs to her readers. This cookbook is a good compromise between someone who is truly a cook at heart, and the general hungry public. She provides 200 recipes that will satisfy your culinary creativity, but can be completed in thirty to forty-five minutes. In order to accomplish this, she’s done away with the concept of mise en place.

“Technique–wise, I’ve dispensed with what the French called mise en place … That’s a smart way to go for a restaurant chef, who has to cook hundreds of dishes to order on any given night. But it’s definitely not the fastest plan for a home cook, who can certainly wait to chop up the garlic and peppers while the onions are browning.”

Reluctantly, I guess I have to agree with Sara, but I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to get off my mise en place soap box. I often find the preparation of ingredients as enjoyable as the actual cooking, but I do understand that not everyone has the luxury of the time it takes to do this, and many would probably rather be watching Law & Order. AND, I have to shyly admit that I too, usually do my mise en place in stages, so as to be as efficient as possible (there’s that overly organized part of me again!). I’ll concur that on a weeknight, when cooking for the family, mise en place is probably not necessary, but I will remain true to the premise that if you want to reduce stress and facilitate timing when entertaining, advance preparation is essential and will ease your tension.

Having softened on my quest for universal kitchen readiness, I’ve created a compromise of my own. I’ve decided that I will now consider my pantry, my refrigerator, my overall food inventory, to be my mise en place. After all, if my cupboards are in order, and I know what lies behind their doors, I’m prepared to not only cook my meal, but do my grocery shopping, AND it leaves room for more creativity, knowing what is there to throw into a meal at the last minute. Not only that, but now I can browse through my pantry and return misplaced or abandoned items to their rightful homes and make sure that all the labels are facing outwards. You see how this works? Now I can satisfy not only my overly organized personality, but the child inside as well.