Move past microwaving this spring.
Just to be clear: Unwrapping a Cliff Bar and cracking the seal on a kefir smoothie doesn't qualify as "cooking." Sometimes it seems as though we have become a society capable only of
heating
, not actual cooking. And yet we remain obsessed with food. Even as a generation of kids is being raised on a diet of Bagel Bites and Sprite ReMix, we are fascinated by people like Julie Powell, the 20-something New Yorker who spent a year
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cooking every recipe in Julia Child's
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
. Powell's wildly popular blog led to a bestselling book, in which the author details
her (initially feeble) attempt to master the art of French cooking on a wee apartment stove.
Whether you're a Bagel Biter in a 12-step program or a luddite stubbornly resisting the pressure to buy a microwave, you
can
learn to cook and what better time of year than spring to embark on a new hobby? Here is some advice from three people who have mastered the art of combining and preparing raw ingredients for human consumption.
Go Back to School
For young people who want to get a degree and prepare themselves for quick entry into the profession, going to school can be the best choice. Chef/instructor Jim Heywood of the Culinary Institute of America (in Hyde Park, NY) was in New Mexico recently to talk to students about the school. He recommended hitting the books if you want to learn to cook because it gives students broad and comprehensive exposure to the basics of cooking from the ground up. In addition, students learn things like accounting, business ethics and purchasing-vital tools for success as a professional chef.
It's no surprise that the guy from the CIA recommends going to cooking school, but he also says that a culinary education can-and should-start before you even graduate high school. "Take advantage of every opportunity," he advises. If your school offers cooking classes, take them. And more importantly, work in a restaurant; the CIA requires at least six months of experience working in the profession before they'll even accept you.
"Read everything you can get your hands on," Heywood says. His favorite is Cooks Illustrated (
) because of the expert explanations and in-depth recipe, technique and product comparisons. He also recommends Food Arts (
), an industry publication that is free to working cooks.
But you don't have to go all the way to Hyde Park to go to cooking school. Both Santa Fe Community College and Albuquerque TVI offer degrees in culinary arts; you can also take individual classes there. Community college programs can't teach you everything a cooking school can, but they can jump start your career. Those who are looking simply to learn a few new tricks can take classes at a recreational cooking school. At Las Cosas Cooking Shoppe, Chef/instructor John Vollertsen teaches classes from basic knife skills to high-altitude baking and classic French soups. The Santa Fe School of Cooking will show you how to make tapas or steaks or Native American dishes. It all depends on how much thirst for learning you've got.
Find Your Passion and Stick to it (Like Molten Sugar)
Chuck Higgins never went to cooking school and it hasn't hurt him any. Higgins is an expert candymaker and the owner of Santa Fe's Chuck's Nuts (847 Niñita St., 820-1315), where he sells outstanding fudge, nut brittles and nut rolls. He believes the exact path you take to culinary competence is unimportant. "Whether it's fudge or anything else, the only thing that's really required is passion."
Higgins found his passion after a Proustian experience at age 10. "I walked past a candy shop window and saw a peanut roll. I bought one. I had no idea it could taste that good," he recalls, grinning widely and wearing an apron embroidered with "I Love Chuck's Nuts." Twelve years later Higgins married the daughter of the man who made that memorable nut roll.
But it wasn't until several more years had passed that Chuck Higgins had the epiphany that would change his
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career and his life. He had just entered his in-laws' line of work, making and selling his own nut rolls at a Renaissance fair. "I realized I could work my ass off and have a great time at it!" he says, nine working hours into a recent Sunday.
Once he found his passion and discovered he could follow it full-time, nothing could stop Higgins. Candymaking is a very
specific kind of cooking, more science than art, involving very high temperatures, lava-like melted sugar and giant copper kettles. He got his start from his (now former) in-laws, but pursued his science on his own, through dogged determination, research and trial and error.
"Santa Fe has a lot of good chefs and opportunities to learn," Higgins says, recommending that an interested cook would do well to apprentice himself to a chef who is doing the kind of work he wants to do. Marrying the chef's daughter is optional.
Listen to Your Mother
Jo Ellen Thompson of Four and Twenty Blackbirds (620 Old Santa Fe Trail, 983-7676) didn't go to cooking school, nor did she apprentice herself to a professional. She learned to cook the old fashioned way-by watching her mother and her grandmother in the kitchen. "I can still see my grandmother's fists kneading dough," she recalls. No book or class can give you this same kind of intimate experience with food.
Thompson also says that the first time she cooks a recipe she'll follow it faithfully, but after that she won't remain so diligent to every item, "because then there's no creativity to the process." For her, "It's about feel," she says about being creative in the kitchen, "but sometimes it doesn't work out and I make mistakes." And there is a lot to learn from your mistakes, just like your mother told you.
