One Thought

It’s Saturday morning, and I have no idea what I’m going to cook. All I know is that by Sunday evening I need to complete four dishes — a full meal.

The dishes need to be fancy. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be edible.

I’m starting my cooking challenge. The rules: one man, one weekend, no prior planning. The goal: one fancy meal, cooked and ready to eat.

What’s so challenging about cooking? If you’re me, a lot. I’ve avoided it my whole life. When asked to illustrate a recipe in high school German class, I diagrammed Ramen noodle preparation. Through college, I chopped vegetables for others but never did the cooking myself. Right now, cooking means heating up pasta and pouring sauce out of a jar — and that’s if I’m feeling ambitious.

Every year for the last decade I’ve thought, “I really should learn to cook one of these days,” but I haven’t done anything. The years have passed by; I’ve procrastinated and come up with excuses. There’s always been something else to do.

Well, no more! A week ago I decided to undertake this cooking challenge. The goal: to eliminate my fear of cooking once and for all — and to do it in a single weekend.

So here I am on Saturday morning.

I need to decide what I’m going to cook and then I need to get all the ingredients. As planned, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do.

I head to the bookstore. There are a lot of fancy cookbooks — French Laundry, Chez Panisse, etc. — but the first thing I think is … Top Chef! If you’re not familiar, Top Chef is a popular TV reality show that pits chefs against each other. Fancy dishes are usually the result. I’ve watched a couple seasons, and I like it.

Unfortunately, the Top Chef cookbook doesn’t look very good. It’s high on trivia and low on recipes. The recipes seem vague. They use obscure ingredients I probably won’t be able to find.

That’s actually something I’m worried about — I don’t know what’s in stock at the grocery store, and that makes it a little difficult to plan what I’m going to make. I just need to hope that everything important is there. I’m not going to bet on finding quail eggs.

But I do like the Top Chef idea. (After all, it lets me use “Top Chef” in the title of this article, right?) So I pick up a copy of Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef. If you’re not aware, Colicchio’s the stern, bald judge on Top Chef. He’s founded a couple famous restaurants in New York City.

Colicchio’s book looks good. The recipes seem doable, and he explains the techniques well. There’s even a lot on his cooking philosophy. Great! I buy it and head home.

I spend the next couple hours reading about half of the book. I learn about roasting, braising, blanching, and so on. I think about what to do. I finally decide on four recipes — three from this book and one from another of Colicchio’s books.

These are the dishes I plan to make:

• Artichoke Hearts Braised in Olive Oil and White Wine, with aromatic vegetables
• Roasted Tomato Risotto
• Roasted Herbed Leg of Lamb with Apple Cider Sauce
• Banana Upside-Down Cake

Sounds pretty good, right? I make a huge list of all the ingredients I’m going to need. There are about 40 of them! This could take a while…

I also list the equipment I need to buy. I live in a large apartment with a lot of useful stuff — pots and pans of every size, strainers, lemon juicers, etc. — but I still don’t have everything. Among other things, I need to get a cake pan, a meat thermometer — I’ve never used one before — and twine for tying meat.

I buy all the produce first. I’m able to find almost everything at Golden Produce, a local shop, and Safeway. Fresh tarragon is out, so I have to settle for dried.

Then I get the rest of the ingredients, mostly from Safeway. Luckily Safeway stocks legs of lamb, which are about five pounds each. Nowhere else I looked does.

I have to take about three separate trips to the store to get everything, and I’m pretty exhausted when I finish. So many new concepts and recipe details are floating around in my head. I’ve spent about eight hours today on this challenge: first looking for cookbooks, then reading them, then deciding what to make, and finally getting all the ingredients.

Time to go to sleep and prepare for day two.

I sleep fitfully. I’m nervous about how this is all going to turn out. There are a lot of things I’m going to need to do tomorrow that I’ve never done before. Will they all work out?

Sunday comes. After taking a shower and eating, I procrastinate for about an hour. Then I get started.

First I come up with my plan of attack. I’ll roast the tomatoes and garlic first. They’re needed for the risotto, and roasting them takes a few hours. Then I’ll make the braised artichokes and upside-down cake, both of which can sit at room temperature. I’ll prepare the lamb and start it roasting. Finally, I’ll make the risotto and the apple cider sauce.

I’ll spare you the details of everything I do. I work methodically and try not to have too much going on at once. It’s easy to let things overcook if you’re not watching them. I learn techniques as I go — clarifying butter is hard without the right tools! – and improvise where necessary.

The most challenging part comes when it’s time to cut the hearts out of the raw artichokes. Doing so isn’t easy, even with directions. The artichokes fight back every step of the way. It’s not clear where the hearts begin and end. It takes me several artichokes before I feel like I know what I’m doing.

Everything else goes surprisingly smoothly. I credit that mostly to my attentiveness: I watch everything cook with eagle eyes, making sure not to let it go too long. Overcooking would have been particularly disastrous for the risotto, where I have to add more stock every few minutes.

After about eight hours of cooking, I’m done! I’m tired, but it’s great to see all the finished food — and, of course, to eat it. I share it with my brother Chris, his girlfriend Terra, and my apartment-mates Arvel, Sarah, Steve, and Brett.

Everything is good. The artichokes are tender, the risotto is creamy, the lamb wasn’t overcooked, and the upside-downcake is, in my brother’s words, “perfectly executed.” (I think he may have been channeling Tom Colicchio!)

So, success!

In a mere sixteen hours spread over two days, I have all but eliminated my fear of cooking. Sure, there’s a lot more to cooking than following recipes — and most chefs don’t even like recipes — but for the casual cook they work well.

What have I learned? First, cooking isn’t such a big deal. No huge surprise there, I guess.

But more importantly: Sometimes it’s best not just to face fears, but to kick their ass. After a decade of procrastination, I’m glad I got down to business and did this in one weekend. I could have taken a more measured approach — researching, planning, trying one thing at a time — but I’m glad I didn’t. The measured approach is boring, slow, and probably less likely to succeed, anyway.

Screw that. I want my roasted, herbed leg of lamb with apple cider sauce now!

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Pictured below: My four dishes