Thinking about summer food

We inch dishes along, focusing on the pieces of the whole, braise the cabbage that came from Robert's  garden, soak dry porcinis, prepare the herbs, persillade for the mushrooms, fines herbes for the berries. Prepare a stock, then strain and reduce the liquid for stock. Reduce some cream for the finished sauce. Inch the elements forward a bit at a time until it all comes together.

Once the pork is cooked, let it rest before slicing. The stock is combined with the cream. The cabbage braises till tender and sweet, is seasoned with salt, and fattened with a little butter. The mushrooms are also seasoned, given persillade because we know from Josephine that "a mushroom without garlic isn't worth the fart of a rabbit." We're working on her recipes today mixing mushrooms with cabbage, and lastly blueberries and fines herbs. With that accomplished, we immediately start to plate.

One of the students sits at the table and looks at the plate of pork with cream sauce, garnished with red cabbage and blueberries, he announces, "There is nowhere in town where you would get food that looks like this."

I love that we can do these dishes that date back 150 years and still find them appealing and exciting. Josephine Araldo brought them to San Francisco in the 1920's from Brittany where she grew up. She was taught to make them by her grandmother, La mere Jacquette. When Josephine left Brittany, she went first to Paris where she became the student of Henri Paul Pellaprat, France's kitchen god. She introduced him to the authentic food of the countryside, a cooking that dated to before Classique French food of which we are the inheritors.

The thinking that brought together these elements has long since been lost. We are all too far from the source that Josephine's grandmother knew.  She had her jardin potager behind the house. As she walked through it, she inventoried what was ready. Red cabbage, bursting with pride, would be an obvious choice calling to be eaten. She passed through the garden and headed toward the woods, the larder where the wild things grow. There she found berries, the same color as the cabbage, perhaps an easy association to make. But how to make the big red thing go with the little red thing? Those were her special gifts she passed to Josephine, who in turn, passed them to her American students.

La mere Jacquette made the big red vegetable marry the little red fruit by cooking the cabbage in wine or cidre, encouraging it toward the berry. She cooked it slowly, allowing it to cook deeply and become sweet without becoming sulfurous. On the other side of the equation she took the berries and vegetalized them by tossing them in fresh herbs. She didn't cook them so that their natural sweetness could find and connect to the sweetness of the cooked cabbage.

She didn't stop there. She found mushrooms in her wandering in the woods. Those she cooked, and tossed with persillade. When she mixed them with her cabbage and blueberries, they provided the perfect connecting element, the perfume of the woods, that crossed back and forth from cabbage to berry.

That student was correct; you don't find food like this anywhere. However, it's still ours since Josephine asked me to collaborate with her on a book to ensure that the treasured recipes from her grandmother wouldn't be lost. The book appeared in 1990, the year Josephine died. It's called FROM A BRETON GARDEN. You can still find it and step into the thinking of simple country people who had high expectations about food. They respected how it grew and was prepared. The recipes  are accompanied by Josephine's advice to "Sing. It will improve your cooking."

NEXT CLASSES AT THE CHEF STUDIO

(1) AUGUST 3rd - I will begin a 5-day series that meets Monday through Friday, beginning August 3rd. We will cook daily, visit markets, wineries, and invite guests who have an expertise in some aspect of food. The classes are intentionally small so that there is time to focus, practice, and learn how to cook food that has taste. The cost for the 5-day session is $750.

(2) SEPTEMBER 16th - The next 8 week Diploma course begins for the serious cook, regardless of professional ambition or avocational interest. It is a thorough course of study that Robert Reynolds has offered for over 20 years in France and in the U.S. It was designed as an alternative to longer and more expensive programs at culinary academies. The course is without comparison when it comes to the care and attention offered to participants in small classes as well as for the the training and experience that teacher, chef, and author Robert Reynolds brings to the kitchen. The diploma course operates 5-days a week for 8 weeks, or may be completed by signing up for two nights a week, plus one full day a month, across 4 sessions.

(3) NOVEMBER 16th and 23rd
COOKING AT THE SOURCE - REGIONAL FRENCH COOKING IN GASCONY
Two 5-day sessions are scheduled to include daily cooking, plus visits to artisans who raise ducks, another farm that raises pigs and prepares a range of products, and finally a visit to an Armagnac producer.