Since she'll be in the States for the next few weeks, however, kitchen duty falls on my plate (pun intended). I enjoy cooking, but it is never easy. She left me with some tips and a list, which will help, but it won't be the same. Part of it is watching her cook. It is an art. From timing, to planning, to presentation, she's got a knack, and you can tell that she loves it.
I recently finished the book, Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. A great book dealing with life on the cusp of poverty. In it Orwell explains this 'art' of cooking better than I ever could. Here is Orwell's perspective of the head chef while working as a plongeur to earn end's meat at the Hotel X in Paris:
"Undoubtedly the most workmanlike class, and the least servile, are the cooks. They do not earn quite so much as waiters, but their prestige is higher and their employment steadier. The cook does not look upon himself as a servant, but as a skilled workman; he is generally called 'un ouvrier,' which a waiter never is. He knows his power-knows that he alone makes or mars a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes late everything is out of gear. And he takes a genuine artistic pride in his work, which demands very great skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the doing everything to time. Between breakfast and luncheon the head cook at the Hotel X would receive orders for several hundred dishes, all to be served at different times; he cooked few of them himself, but he gave instructions about all of them and inspected them before they were sent up. His memory was wonderful. The vouchers were pinned on a board, but the head cook seldom looked at them; everything was stored in his mind, and exactly to the minute, as each dish fell due, he would call out, 'Faites marcher une colette de veau' (or whatever it was) unfailingly. He was an insufferable bully, but he was also an artist."Thanks for the tips darlin, but it won't be the same. Safe travels!!
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thank you my dear!! :)
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