Good Way to Become a Chef!

I still get the Sunday Enquirer each week. I actually enjoy walking out to the end of my driveway in my robe to pick it up and bring it into the house. It’s as if it was a specially delivered gift I get to unwrap each week. It covers the news from the world to my city and sometimes even to my neighborhood. Once in a while I will cut out pertinent articles I want to remember, line my kitchen compost bin with it, save it on the porch to start a fire, or occasionally I’ll wrap delicate pieces of glass or china in it for storage. What’s left goes into the recycle bin. It’s a great return on my investment.

Recently, I read about how our local grocery stores were rated against others in the country. My new favorite Aldi had been rated third, higher than Kroger and equal in popularity to Costco. There is always plenty of coverage about restaurants thanks to Keith Pandolphi’s insightful reminders of the bounty before us in Greater Cincinnati. One year he even wrote about the BonBonerie. That was such a thrill. All of the staff wanted copies of the article to hold on to as if it was an award. Being praised in print elevated their perceptions of their work and how it was loved and appreciated. I saved a few copies myself.

In a recent Sunday paper, a national article highlighted the philosophies and recipes of several award winning national chefs. Chef Josh Moore from Louisville’s Valore and Michael Sibert, the chef at Butter and Wine in Massachusetts, both remarked that it was the cooking with their Grandmothers, their Mothers, or both that motivated their passion for cooking. Their stories revolved around family gatherings from childhood, where they would watch and eventually help their grandmothers and mothers in the kitchen. It was there that they learned practical cooking skills but also the deep familial knowledge of how beloved recipes were created and passed down like treasured family heirlooms. Each of them emphasized that it was more than just the recipe. It was the doing it together hour after day after year that is imbedded in their souls that now shapes the visions for their restaurants.

I completely understand how that happens. Lately, while cooking dinner, I have begun to share the techniques and tips I learned from my Mother with my husband while I prepare dinner. I helped her almost every day after she came home from teaching first grade to cook for our family of six. She had a degree in home economics, a degree I didn’t realize at the time that added so much depth to my Mother’s cooking advice. Things like adding a potato to over salted soup to remove some of the salty mistake, what a Bain Marie was, or how to make a mock hollandaise sauce for steamed broccoli in a pinch.

I enjoy cooking for me and my husband and for friends and family. My Mother demonstrated every night that preparing good food matters to the body and the soul. We were close in that way more than any other. Look how it affected me. Even though my Grandmother only lived with us a few years, I will never forget seeing her make homemade bread, watching it as it rose on the dining room table, waiting for her to “punch down the dough” after its first magical rising and finally forming it into velvety white loaves that transformed into Granny’s homemade bread. A bread that was so delicious that when our neighbor smelled her bread, he would rush over telling her he would bring her pounds of fresh butter if he could have just one loaf. She often obliged his passion and in turn we had a generous stash of butter instead of the oleomargarine that mostly graced our table. There is no better smell to me in the world than bread baking. How can such a simple smell bring such comfort? I call it food perfume.

What does this mean for future chefs? Extended families living together is as rare as Sunday dinner with your Grandparents. Families have spread out in multiple directions. Who will future chefs learn from? How will they understand from deep down in their beings about the transformative powers of cooking if they don’t experience it? Great cooking and joyous eating comes from a deep place, an appreciation that builds with time and knowledge that you can taste. It’s a passion for a particular dish that you look forward to eating time after time. Aunt Rea’s wind cookies or my Mom’s Swiss steak have stayed with me forever. I’m sure many of you have tried to make a family recipe held sacred on a stained recipe card. You thought it would taste the same when you made it, but it rarely does unless you stood next to that person to see the unspoken secret of the recipe. I’m certain many of you can tell if there is a different chef cooking in your favorite restaurant too. Often it just doesn’t taste the same. When it comes to food, one person’s knowledge really matters. A great recipe comes from your heart, hands and your head. Every one of the highly lauded chefs from that article in the paper know that in their bones.

I hope that you can taste that in every cookie, cake and pastry you ever enjoyed from BonBonerie. Many of the recipes we make came from someone whose pastries and cakes were inspired by the recipes of someone we loved and learned from, others from serious authors of great cookbooks. These cookbooks are threaded with research, passion and guidance designed for you to succeed. I’m not criticizing the internet. It has given me a recipe or two in a hurry, but I am a true believer that if you cannot regularly stand next to a familial expert, you can stand with a renowned cookbook writer who can also share their passion, depth of knowledge and philosophy that will lead you to become a great cook. I encourage you to spend some time to get to know one really well. You’ll be surprised, but they might just become a member of your family.

Here are some of the authors I stood with in my kitchen to learn how to be a better baker and cook.