Cooking, Fine!

A nod to the career that was never supposed to happen.

Becoming a cook is the best thing that ever happened to me and it is the career that was never supposed to happen. Thank God, or otherwise, for the unexpected. It took me until my late twenties to turn onto the inevitable path, go to culinary school, and just like my mother and her father and all his people, become a cook, professionally.

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I love restaurant kitchens. The polished stainless steel, tile floors, the walk-in, cooks in clean whites start their days as the prep cooks finish theirs. I live for service, dimmed lights and candles lit, music, bottles being sold and popped, and smiles after the first bite. I revere 7pm, tickets rushing in, orders being yelled and followed, fires being turned up and put out. It’s loud, hot, and demanding. I wait for the collective phew as we scrub the kitchen again, polish the glassware again, mop the walk-in again, all signaling the end of the night. Let’s do it again tomorrow, we say.

Welcome to Fine Cooking, a newsletter. Here, we’ll talk about some of that. Mostly we’ll cook at home and practice the skill of tasting. We’ll talk about the spiritual nature of hosting and its life-changing qualities. We’ll eat.

Ah, a proverbial knock at the door. Thanks for being here, take a seat, are you hungry?

XOXO

Lauren