I Work Better With An Audience: Thoughts on Life, Love, Food and Jiggly Bits by Inglis Jennifer

Author:Inglis, Jennifer [Inglis, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781630018351
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2013-03-14T18:30:00+00:00

Julia Child is Spinning

I come from a line of good cooks. My great-grand–mother, Mimi, made a Tomato-Beef Soup that I swear once made my father weep. (This is despite having to use, in her words, “Goyishe bones.”) My grandmother has a recipe for an amazing Apricot Chicken that I like to think her ancestors carried with them as they fled some shtetl in the Ukraine on their way to begin a new life glazing poultry in America, but, in actuality, is one she found on the back of a box of Lipton soup. She is a magician. My own mother, when properly motivated, makes a lasagna that would make Mario Batali kiss her on both cheeks. (“Of course I know Italian food,” she once said. “I’m Jewish.”) Obviously, the bar has been set pretty high.

I seem to be the Muggle in the family, because my success in the culinary arts…well, let’s just say that although the bar is high, I managed to find a very tall stool and I’m at the end of it having a gin and tonic.

I have tried. Lo, have I tried. My problem seems to be that I have no desire to find a small repertoire of dishes that I do well and stick to them. I am always experimenting with new things, techniques, gadgets and ingredients, and have been left wanting. (I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do with a chafing dish.) And while I’m not good in the kitchen, I do love kitchen gadgets. I have a thing that turns zucchini into something resembling angel hair pasta. I have a food processor with attachments I still don’t understand, and they confuse and frighten me. I have two different kinds of egg poachers and a thing that’s supposed to slice avocado, but since it is lacking a release button it just turns the slices into blobs. So it’s not for lack of enthusiasm.

For example, I once made an eggplant casserole that turned greenish-orange. Need more? One – no matter how thoroughly I think I drain pasta, I invariably wind up with a pool of red water at the bottom of my plate. Two - I tend not to sauté anything, because half of it will wind up on the floor. (I guess I get a little overexcited.) Three - I once had an ill-advised foray into vegan cooking, which resulted in what my Dad calls, “The Great Bean Ball Incident of ’94.” (This is not to be confused with “The Great Neil Balle Catastrophe of ’92,” which is completely unrelated – although in all fairness, if I had to choose between the two, I’d rather have the beans again.)

If I concentrate very hard, though, I manage to find some sort of offbeat equilibrium in the kitchen. I find if I stick to a minimum number of ingredients and no fancy strategy, I can create something edible. Take, for example, fish. On the Food Network, Rachael Ray might suggest a grilled filet of cod with roasted spring vegetables, and a nice dill sauce.

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