Cooking

I cook. Rather, I have become a chef. Naming me "chef" seems so eloquent. No, no, all wrong . . . I cook.

I cook "French Bistro" style dishes. It has not always been this way. I started cooking Asian in the 1980s, in a wok over a hot gas burner. Rice was my staple. I made it in a pan.  What I fixed in the wok was the seasoning/sauces/bits-o-food to put over the rice. So, I started cooking "rice." I was young and I was happy. 

And I was thin. Now, I am not so thin. Nor can I plant my foot on the solid earth and spin a round-house kick over people's head. People used to call to me as I walked down the sidewalks in Chicago . . . "Hey! Steven. Steven Seagal. How yu doin'?" My name is indeed Steven, but my last name is NOT Seagal. I did have a pony-tail and dark eye-brows though . . ..

After becoming bored with "rice, rice and rice,"  I started to include other styles into my repertoire. And I relaxed a little.

After a period of experimentations, I moved away from multiple nationalities and styles. I focused only upon Italy and France. I had grown tired of so many ingredients and condiments in my cupboard ending up in the trash bin. Italy and France share similar ingredients. So again, I was happy, but not so thin. 

Apparently, I cook pasta well. I can boil water and not burn it. And I can use my Chinese cleaver appropriately to cut and prepare the ingredients for my pastas (I only rarely cut a finger). For me, there is something ethnically similar in Asian and Italian cooking. Both require the freshest of foodstuffs and no over-cooking. Dishes must be presented immediately when finished. Cooking Italian, I enjoyed making a pasta or risotto first course and then followed with a plate, usually featuring meat. Antipasto beforehand but after the before-dinner drinks - salad after the plate. All orderly and formal. Marcella Hazen was my guru and inspiration. I imagined myself an Italian at heart . . ..

As Marcella stated; 

“The explanation is that I consider cooking to be an act of love. I do enjoy the craft of cooking, of course, otherwise I would not have done so much of it, but that is a very small part of the pleasure it brings me. What I love is to cook for someone. To put a freshly made meal on the table, even if it is something very plain and simple as long as it tastes good and is not a ready-to-eat something bought at the store, is a sincere expression of affection, it is an act of binding intimacy directed at whoever has a welcome place in your heart. And while other passions in your life may at some point begine to bank their fires, the shared happiness of good homemade food can last as long as we do.”
― Marcella Hazan

Recently, I have diminished my desire in Italian meals. Perhaps it is that France is what is in my blood  (my parental grandmother was from France). Perhaps I just prefer French Wine over all others. Perhaps I am a French Snob . . . no matter. I am happy now cooking simple French dishes. What I have done all along before enters into the preparations. How can it not? 

As for my weight and health: I know what to do. There is an old saying, "Knowing what to do and not doing it, is not to know." Knowing is not enough, we must apply our knowing to know.