“When you cook, there is a great deal of love. You cannot cook indifferently. You have to give a lot of yourself. Cooking is the purest act of love, whether it’s for your kid or your grandmother or your lover or your wife. It’s always to give.” (Jacques Pepin/Artnet)
I learned how to cook at an early age by watching my parents. They were passionate about food. They were foodies before the term was coined.
Cookery and food eventually turned into a passion. I took some classes at a culinary school to up my game. I have enough to equip a small restaurant between my parents’ equipment and the stuff I bought over the years. I have more knives than any one person should own. I have over two hundred cookbooks and books about food. For a time, I wrote a food blog with recipes or writing about food issues.
During the late 1970s, firehouses were burglarized when the firefighters went on their runs. A police officer would be assigned to sit in the unattended house until the firefighters returned. I had to do that one evening.
I got to the house as the cook had just finished laying out his dinner prep. He was not happy he would have to leave, and dinner would be late. He was making pasta with meat sauce. I told him not to worry. I would cook the sauce. All he had to do was cook the pasta when they got back. He was leery but agreed. He ran out and left me in the kitchen.
I put everything together, diced, sautéed onions, peppers, and garlic. I browned the meat, seasoned it all, added the tomato products to the pot, put it on simmer. I made the salad and put the dressing in a container. I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down to watch television.
The firefighters came back about two hours later. The cook immediately went into the kitchen and tasted. He had a smile on his face. I took off. About a half-hour later, I was called back to the firehouse. The fire lieutenant wanted to know if I could switch jobs since I could cook. This brought some laughter at the cook’s expense. It was the first time I cooked for people other than my family. Firefighters take their cooking seriously. Some of the best meals I ate were in firehouses.
When I took care of my mother, I cooked for her and her care workers every day. She enjoyed the meals, and that made me happy. She refused to part with some recipes. Every answer was that it was too much work or too difficult. I asked her why she always said that when I finally pried a recipe from her. She smiled and said if people knew how easy it is to make things, they would not ask you to do it. I have three boxes of her recipes, some written and others clipped from newspapers and magazines.
I volunteered to help cook a Christmas dinner for residents at a Salvation Army center for the past few years. Chefs Alan Lake and Gary Wiviott lead a group of chefs and, volunteers spending the day prepping and cooking a prime rib dinner with all the fixings. They have been doing this for several years. Other volunteers set up tables and chairs, decorate, and turn the gym into a dining hall.
The dinner is table service. Volunteers go to various stations. The plates are filled with salad, prime rib and sides, then delivered to the tables. The first year I volunteered, I walked through the gym while serving the meal. One gentleman in his 30s just sat and stared at his plate. I asked him if anything was wrong. He told me that this was the first time anyone had served him a meal. Due to the COVID pandemic, I did not volunteer for the past two holidays.
I love cooking for others more than myself. Since COVID, I rarely cook for myself. The grocery stores are packed with stupid humans who forget there is a pandemic and get too close to others or refuse to adhere to other precautions.. Evidently, saying, “Stay the fuck away from me,” is considered hostile violence to the overindulged, privileged shoppers. One good thing, I ate in many places and sampled a lot of good food.
Chicago is the best food town in the country. We do not needPR firms to hype our restaurants. It is no hard to find the good stuff, from fine dining to a modest ethnic food cart. You can source ingredients to cook any ethnic cuisine. We have it all and it is the best.