KICK IT UP A NOTCH
Laura Brehaut explains how a good cook can get even better.
Is it seasoned correctly? Could it use something else? Is it good enough?
Improving your skills in the kitchen comes down to asking questions, chef Naomi Pomeroy says. The more questions you ask yourself and the more people you ask for feedback, the better your cooking will become.
“Good chefs are always asking themselves how something could be better, and good students are always asking themselves that same thing. The desire to learn is really what it’s all about,” the James Beard Award-winner says.
“For me, teaching is about sharing a different perspective because there are so many different ways to cook and to learn to cook.”
As Pomeroy writes in her first cookbook, Taste & Technique (with Jamie Feldmar; Ten Speed Press, 2016), helping others learn to cook has been one of the great joys of her career.
The acclaimed Portland, Ore.based restaurateur is self-taught — she honed her craft primarily from poring over cookbooks and learning from fellow chefs.
Early on, Pomeroy came to the realization that mastering a series of culinary “building blocks” was the basis of better food.
These foundations, she says, can be techniques (such as how to whip cream) or ingredients: Knowing how to make an excellent stock prepares you to make demi-glace (a rich brown sauce used as a base, or a sauce in its own right).
Becoming more proficient means having the ability to respond and react in the kitchen — not merely carry out a set of instructions.
Take a recipe for example — there is no guaranteed result. As a reader, you can reasonably expect that a given recipe has been tested and is sound. You cannot, however, expect to get exactly the same result as the author. Or to get the same result each time you make the dish yourself.
The final product depends on many variables. It requires active participation and the capability to make on-the-fly modifications. It demands practise. “Even the recipes (in Taste & Technique) are going to be different every time.
“If you make the tomato soup (smoky tomato velouté), maybe you cook it at a slightly higher heat, so it reduces faster. Or maybe the cream you used had more dairy fat in it than the last time … any plethora of things could change. It’s not just set-it-and-forget-it. It’s not just, ‘Follow the instructions and it will be exactly right,’” Pomeroy says.
“These recipes were tested five times apiece — they are going to work. But whether it’s perfect for you, whether it’s perfect for your guests, whether that soup just needs to be thinned out a tiny bit more because your tomatoes were richer or whatever, that’s the idea of honing something.
“Constantly asking the question of, ‘How could this be improved upon — in my opinion, in the cook’s opinion, and in the opinion of the people having it?’”
Cooking should be a pleasure, Pomeroy says. Recognizing that home cooks don’t always have the luxury of time, she recommends starting small and highlighting the simplicity that can be found in classic dishes.
“The reason I wrote this book is because people are forgetting how to do (things). There’s a language of cooking that’s almost becoming like an ancient language.”