I taught a double yesterday at Bastyr University – I was the substitute teacher for two cooking classes (combined with nutrition lectures).  In the kitchen, some of my students hesitantly approached me to ask basic cooking questions – and I had to assure them that no question was too trivial. As I mentioned in my last post, “Mr. Pollan, People Need Cooking Lessons,”  it’s difficult to learn how to cook from a piece of paper. And it’s even more challenging for a novice cook to be able to tell if a recipe is even worth making.

I’ve noticed that since the explosion of cookbooks and recipes on the internet, that it’s not always easy to find a truly well-tested recipe that turns out right. More accomplished cooks are able to adjust a vague recipe but new cooks just end up thinking they are terrible cooks – which I often hear about in class.

I’m the first to admit that it isn’t easy to write a recipe. I often end up editing the same recipe every time I teach it over the span of several years. I’m a pretty detailed oriented person but I still find it challenging to write a recipe that is clear, detailed, and gives enough information to follow it with confidence but not too much information that it feels overwhelming.

The good news it that I have collected a few tips on how to quickly review a recipe to see if it’s worth making. These days, nobody has the time or money to prepare a dish that doesn’t turn out well. I’m probably missing a few things here (inevitable) and will up editing this list several times…but here it goes:

1) Determine the source. There are some authors who always write solid recipes – the kind of recipes that you can cook for a dinner party even if you’ve never made it before (although this is not recommend for brand new cooks). I made a list that I rely on for guaranteed winners – please note that there are many, many other accomplished cookbook authors that could also be listed but I can’t fit everyone! (see list below)

2) Review the ingredients list and instructions. Are the ingredients in the order that they are mentioned in the instructions? Is there enough information so that you won’t be confused at the store (“4 – 6 oz salmon fillets, skin on” versus “4 salmon fillets”) or when you are preparing the dish (“3 medium yellow onions, diced into 1/4-inch squares” versus “3 onions, diced”) – a well-written recipe that has been tested several times will give you very specific information.

3) Details mean someone took the time to really test it. Does the author give you a preparation time and serving size? Does the time suggested look appropriate to the length of instructions? If the suggested prep time looks too short for the recipe length, I’m immediately skeptical about the entire dish. I’m also wary of recipes that don’t mention salt (preferably kosher or sea salt) or a salt alternative like soy sauce or miso. Salt is an important ingredient for almost every dish – even baked goods – and makes all of the flavors “pop.” (I also like seeing “freshly ground pepper” – I can’t live without it.)

4) Does the author give some background information or ideas on how to alter it? Extra information means that the author has made it several times and knows the dish well enough to offer you substitutions or alternate ways of preparing it.

5) You should be able to visualize it. Does the author recommend which kind of pan to use? The amount of heat? A detailed explanation on when to move to the next step? Ideally, you should be able to read the recipe and be able to visualize each step and the equipment you’ll need – even if you aren’t an experienced cook.

6) And finally, does it make your mouth water? Or do you look at the combination of ingredients and feel doubtful? I’ve heard many stories from students who said they thought a recipe looked “kinda weird” but made it anyway – and ended up being disappointed. Trust your instincts – they are your best asset in the kitchen besides your taste buds and sense of smell.

Check out the previous blog post down below for an example of a well-written recipe. It’s from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison and Edward Espe Brown.

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My list of sure-fired cookbook authors (please note that there are many, many others that could easily belong on this list – I’m just offering you a few):

Martha Stewart, Mark Bittman, Julie Child, Mollie Katzen, Deborah Madison,  Alice Waters,  Tom Colicchio (I love his older Think Like a Chef cookbook), Ina Garten (again, love her older stuff), anything published by Cooks Illustrated, of course – and also, the magazine, Eating Well.  Two chefs I’ve had the pleasure of working with also write fantastic recipes and I love their cookbooks, Myra Kornfeld and Peter Berley. I also love collecting cookbooks from other countries when I travel…but that’s a whole other blog post….

I love buying cookbooks. I’m thinking about buying the Kindle but even if I do, I will still always buy cookbooks. There are some incredibly well-written cookbooks that have been published in recent years but I tend to prefer the old school stuff.  I’ve found that the older cookbooks (prior to 1995 or so when cooking became a TV star) are often sure bets. For example, the recipe below is from Deborah Madison’s Greens cookbook which was first published in 1987 (she is well-known for her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone which was one of my first cookbooks).

I’m constantly asked by students for recipes on how to cook greens and I came across Madison’s book in my collection the other night so I thought I’d pull a recipe from there since there are so many wonderful greens available this month.

I haven’t made this recipe before but I trust Ms. Madison – and my instincts – that this will be a delicious addition to your summer recipe repertoire. Please note how detailed her instructions are – she tells you everything you need to know including how to garnish it! If she were one of my students and this is what she submitted for my “Recipe Writing Assignment,” she would lose only one point for omitting the preparation time – otherwise, this recipe is a great example of a well-written recipe. Enjoy!

Romaine and Summer Vegetable Salad with Lime Vinaigrette

1 head romaine lettuce or several heads red and green garden romaines
1 small red onion, quartered thinly sliced
2 small yellow pattypan squash or zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick
16 yellow pear or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small red pepper or a mixture of different colored peppers (long, slender Gypsy peppers are ideal), thinly sliced into rounds or strips
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced (optional)
4 large red radishes, thinly sliced
1 cup jicama, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large avocado, peeled and sliced
2 lemon cucumbers, sliced into wedges
Lime Vinaigrette (see below)
1/2 cup dry jack cheese, grated
1 to 2 tablespoons chives, sliced into small rounds for garnish
Long sprigs of cilantro, for garnish

Remove the large outer leaves of the romaine, and cut the crisp heart leaves into pieces about 1-inch square. Wash and dry them, wrap them lightly in a kitchen towel, and put them in the refrigerator until needed. Cover the onion slices with cold water and refrigerate [julie note: this is a technique to mellow out the taste of raw onions].

Bring a quart of water to a boil and add a teaspoon of salt. Add the squash, boil 30 seconds, and then remove it to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking. Set it aside on a kitchen towel to drain.

Cut and prepare all of the vegetables. If lemon cucumbers aren’t available, use another kind of cucumber and slice it into rounds.

Prepare the vinaigrette.

Just before serving, drain the onion slices and add them to the rest of the vegetables. Pour most of the vinaigrette onto the vegetables and gently mix it in with your hands [julie note: I prefer tongs!]. Dress the lettuce with the remaining vinaigrette. Lay the lettuce around the sides of the bowl and set the vegetables in the middle. Grate the cheese over the top, garnish with the chives and the cilantro, and serve.

Lime Vinaigrette

Grated peel [zest] and juice of two limes
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
2 to 3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 clove, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons olive oil

Combine the lime peel and juice, vinegar, and herbs and seasonings in a bowl, and then whisk in the olive oil. Taste, and adjust for salt and tartness.

Serves 4-6
Recipe from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison and Edward Espe Brown (Broadway Books, 1987)

NOTE: If you are wondering if you can call a recipe your own, you must make 3 significant changes to it – when in doubt, please always credit the original author by stating “Adapted from Deborah Madison’s cookbook…” and if you are simply reprinting someone else’s recipe, always give credit!

Undoubtedly, gardening is the comeback hobby of 2009. This year, the National Gardening Association reported that 43 million households planted a backyard garden or has a share in a community garden – up from 36 million in 2008.

But what about cooking? In Michael Pollan’s most recent article in The New York Times Magazine, “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch,” he asserts that cooking has become a spectator sport:

“Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation…that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking…when Julia [Child] arrived on our television screens [in 1963]. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef”…. many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.”

I’m thrilled that Mr. Pollan has drawn attention to this issue, especially the fact that the more we cook, the healthier we are and the less we weigh – which is pretty much the entire focus of my career. However, I disagree with him that people are cooking less because they “no longer have the time.”  I do think that’s an issue for some folks but it’s been my experience as a cooking instructor that people often don’t cook because they don’t know how to – can you imagine how much time it would take you to do a task that you are completely clueless about?

The art of cooking has been lost. “Scratch cooking,” (i.e. cooking a meal entirely from scratch) according to Mr. Pollan, is a rarity these days. He mentions many reasons for this – the least obvious one being that food corporations spend billions of dollars convincing us not to cook so that we spend more money on their products. And for a couple of decades, it seemed like a good idea to let other people prepare our meals – even if it meant families stopped teaching each other how to cook.

“Scratch” cooking used to be passed on from generation to generation – and for good reason. Even the best written recipes can be hard to figure out if you’re a novice cook and never made them before – learning how to cook is hard to do unless someone actually shows you how to do it. To make matters worse, home economics classes are now almost nonexistent in schools.

If no one is showing you how to cook at home or at school, there are limited options as to where else you can learn the basics, like knife skills or when to use a saucepan versus a skillet. As Mr. Pollan points out, most of the cooking shows on television don’t offer step-by-step instructions like Julia Childs’ real-time shows.  Bookstores are stuffed with cookbooks but it can be overwhelming for a newbie cook to figure out which one to buy. You can plow through the internet and find every recipe under the sun but what if you don’t know what the word “mince” means? The simplest of recipe instructions can frustrate someone with zero kitchen experience.

It’s only recently that we, as a country, started to realize that we should be more involved in our food preparation (and growing it too). I don’t mean to absolve people from personal responsibility – that is not my intention here. Rather, I think it’s important to recognize that there is still a growing awareness emerging about reconnecting with food and getting back in the kitchen. And this movement, similar to the gardening movement (I hope) can’t happen without more culinary education opportunities.

We need modern home ec classes back in the schools and parent/child classes available in the evenings or on the weekends. We need to take it upon ourselves to ask family members and friends to teach us how to prepare simple dishes. I’m curious to watch Jamie Oliver’s new show this fall where he will teach Americans how to cook! I think that viewers will be surprised at how enthusiastic Olivers’ students will be to learn.

I truly believe that if people had the necessary kitchen skills and access to healthful, inexpensive food, they would be cooking more – and cooking well. As Mr. Pollen said so beautifully in his article (and I also mentioned in my “Can Cooking Make You Happier?” post), there is something about cooking that we need:

“Maybe the reason we like to watch cooking on TV is that there are things about cooking we miss….Why? Perhaps because cooking — unlike sewing or darning socks — is an activity that strikes a deep emotional chord in us, one that might even go to the heart of our identity as human beings.”

Some of us just may need a little help finding our way back to the kitchen….

Tips on how to learn how to cook without spending a lot of money:

• Cooking stores that offer free cooking demonstrations to help sell appliances

• Large “community kitchens” where you prepare two weeks worth of meals while socializing and receiving guidance from chefs

• Private cooking classes in your home with a chef instructor – do it with friends and the cost comes down per person

• Your own at-home cooking “class” – invite a mix of friends who are beginners and experienced cooks

• Join Rouxbe, a wonderful online cooking school with professional videos at http://rouxbe.com/cooking-school

Have you ever tried planting lettuce on a farm in the middle of a thunderstorm? Well, neither had I – until last week. This was no ordinary farm either. It sits on top of a large Brooklyn building that’s used for filming movies most of the year – and aptly named, Rooftop Farms.

There have already been some great articles and blog posts about the farm, so I won’t regal you with too many details of their amazing feats but just imagine this: a lush 6,000 square foot organic farm grown in a just a few short months – it all started by using a crane to haul the correct amount of soil so that it wouldn’t weigh too much for the roof. How’s that for innovative? I’m excited if I can get a few tomatoes to grow in a pot! My lack of gardening knowledge is something I hope to rectify very soon – but I’d always assumed that I’d have to live somewhere like Seattle to grow food. I was wrong. Rooftop Farms offers volunteering opportunities and classes so that children and adults living in an urban setting can plant, pick, and eat fresh, local produce. Rooftop Farms grows lettuce, kale, eggplant, beans, tomatoes and more – which you can buy on Sundays between 9am-4pm. If you can’t make it on Sunday, you can taste their succulent goods at several nearby restaurants.

Who is behind this progressive endeavor? Annie Novak, farmer and Ben Flanner, business-man-turned farmer. Annie has a very impressive resume (she has farmed in a half a dozen countries including growing chocolate in Africa). She loves sharing her incredible knowledge and hopes that she can inspire others to find ways to grow food in alternative settings. Both her and Ben work very hard to make the farm accessible to everyone – especially kids. She also holds classes and workshops for kids through Growing Chefs and at The New York Botanical Garden.

I had the pleasure of coordinating a field trip to the farm last week for my students (HealthCorps coordinators). The plan was for us to farm for a couple of hours and then walk over to a wonderful new restaurant, Anella – where Annie and Ben arranged to have the produce we picked for our dinner. The weather, however, did not cooperate – a major thunderstorm hit that day. We all braved the rain to plant lettuce, stake tomato plants, and have a tour of the farm. I could have stayed there all day, even in my drenched clothes – maybe for the same reason I love cooking – there is something so fulfilling about working with food…especially when it means digging in the dirt.

We then shuffled over to the restaurant, Anella for what ended up being a VERY memorable meal of roasted beets with fresh herbs, pesto pasta with tomatoes, sautéed chard, truffled white pizza pie (yes, it was as good as it is sounds!),  bruschetta smothered in goat cheese and drizzled with a balsamic reduction – I have to stop now or I will put myself in a food coma just thinking about it. Let’s just say the meal was DIVINE.

The best part, for me, was witnessing the astounded looks of discovery and pleasure on my students’ faces. I’d spent a full month waxing on to them about how we should eat as many whole foods as possible – and that if we consume deliciously prepared meals made with “real” ingredients, we will feel so nourished and satisfied that we won’t crave junk food. Our lovely meal was the perfect ending to their training -  hearing me say the same thing over and over again was no where near as powerful as TASTING it.

The next day, I was thrilled to hear my students say, “After that dinner, I just felt so happy all evening” and “I was full but not stuffed and felt so satisfied” and my favorite, “I had no idea I could enjoy a vegetarian meal and feel full from it.” As an educator, my goal is to help my students make connections. I think (and hope) that my main message was made clear that evening: Pollan’s sage advice – eat real foods, mostly plants, and not too much. Okay, so, none of us did so well on the last one but I told them that if we were to eat those kind of meals ALL of the time (like many Europeans), we wouldn’t gorge on it! Instead, we’d eat small amounts and feel full and most importantly – feel happy.

For a new recipe for all of your summer vegetables, check out: Farmer’s Market Ragout (see blog post below).

For more information about urban farms, visit Rooftop Farms, Growing Chefs and Will Allen’s extraordinary successes as a city farmer.

Ragout, which means “stew” is usually more of a winter dish – however, I’ve found it’s a delicious way to use up vegetables and fresh herbs (even if they are bruised or starting to wilt!) from the market or your CSA. This recipe is just a guide, so feel free to experiment. It lasts in the fridge for several days and will actually taste better the longer it sits. Throw in some white beans or chickpeas for protein and you have a complete meal.

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 medium eggplant, diced
1 zucchini, diced
1 yellow squash, diced
6-8 medium beefsteak tomatoes – ones that are bruised will work well (or one 28 oz can, whole peeled tomatoes)
1 bunch kale, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1 tablespoon fresh basil
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Extra basil for garnish

Sauté onion in oil over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, until translucent. Sprinkle in garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add carrots, eggplant, zucchini, and squash and sauté for about 10 minutes.

Add fresh or canned tomatoes and half of the fresh herbs and cook, stirring occasionally, for around 30-40 minutes until vegetables are tender and tomatoes have broken down. Toss in kale and cook for for 4-5 minutes until kale is bright green and wilted.

Pull off heat and allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Stir in second half of fresh herbs and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour ragout over pasta, couscous, or quinoa and garnish with extra basil.

Preparation time: 1 1/2 hours (but mostly inactive cooking time)
Serves 6
Recipe by Julie Negrin