Stew You, Thomas Keller

If, as a young fraulet, I ever had a sport, it was cooking. Unlike “normal” kids who ran around and chased things (balls, pets, other kids…), I spent many of my otherwise idle hours of childhood pouring through cookbooks and food magazines. I started subscribing to Food & Wine at the age of 9; Gourmet a year later. I watched Saturday morning cooking shows on PBS instead of Saturday morning cartoons. I spent my pocket money on exotic ingredients and kitchen tools.

I am not entirely sure why this was the case, although I suspect it had something to do with the fact that my father, whom I adored, was a preternaturally talented and enthusiastic cook. I say “preternaturally” because, until the age of 28, he had never stepped foot into a kitchen. That sounds impossible, I know, but, in his case, it was true. He was born into the kind of elite Iranian family for whom the kitchen was just another “out-building.” There were three cooks whose days were devoted to the preparation of rice alone. So, the fact that this cavalier gourmand turned into an ingenious and industrious gourmet was something of an unlikely outcome. But, this is exactly how things turned out. And by the time I met him, in his late fifties, what couldn’t the man cook? Persian food was the bread and butter of his repertoire but he branched out early and often—Tex-Mex, Italian, Chinese. The only cuisine he shied away from was French food. He’d throw together the occasional cheese fondue or crème caramel (and béarnaise sauce on eggs for brunch…oh, how good that was) but he never had the patience to fuss about with composed dishes. He most definitely did not master the art of French cooking. What he did cook, he cooked without ever consulting recipes. He never once thumbed through a food magazine. He rarely paid attention when Julia Child was on except to celebrate her as an example  for his daughter of a brilliant, funny, capable, tall woman (that was back when I was predicted to be tall...). A scientific mind, his was keen on experimentation. What fun was cooking if someone else had taken the mystery out of it by writing things down?

For these reasons, I think, I started my life in the kitchen with a desire to supplement rather than duplicate my father’s skills.  La cuisine francaise it was going to be. I dreamed that I would one day dazzle the family with my patience and fortitude as I took on multi-page, multi-stage recipes. I prepared four course meals for special occasions. (A particular achievement was Crepes Suzette, which I made for a New Year’s Eve dinner when I was 11. I didn’t have the stones to light the thing on fire because I was SCARED OF FIRE but I made an otherwise serviceable showing). I bought cookbooks that were littered with the words “complicated,” “detail,” and “perfection.” I read Julia’s Mastering the Art and nearly memorized it. I repeated her mantra that the kitchen was a place to be at your best, that technique mattered. I added “garnishing tools” to my kitchen staples. In short, I became a recipe follower and a seeker of technical mastery.

As I grew older, however, I became more confident and less patient. I had built up street cred among my family and friends. I began to dwell on the jazz metaphors—improvisation was the true evidence of technical perfection. Who needed recipes when you had instinct? So, I stopped measuring things. I stopped laboring over every step. I stopped buying new and ever more niche-y gadgets. I stopped baking altogether. I started cooking to eat and to feed. I got lazy (and, yes, pudgy…).

And, then, three years ago, I read The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Towards Perfection. The book, written by Michael Ruhlman, chronicles the labors of Thomas Keller, the uber-chef behind The French Laundry and Per Se. Keller, as it turns out, is what you would get if you crossed a Swiss assassin and Pablo Picasso and taught that hybrid man-beast how to cook. He is an inveterate technician yet he is also instinctively creative. He is the philosopher-king of the kitchen. He is quiet, thoughtful, and rather polite for a mercenary perfectionist. He is Keller. In addition to running these restaurants, he collaborates with Ruhlman to write cookbooks so that the rest of us can learn the fine arts as he practices them. He has faith in us.

Keller’s first book, The French Laundry Cookbook, features the restaurant’s impenetrably-complicated classics. The book is fussy and gorgeous and expensive. One would not want to get any actual food anywhere near it lest it become irretrievably besplattered with the evidence of one’s gastronomic shortcomings. Each dish costs no less than $150 to make if you include equipment and fancy white plates to serve it on. No mere mortal can really cook out of this book, beautiful though it is. The exception that proves this rule is the indomitable Carol Blymire who cooked and blogged her way through The French Laundry Cookbook with great success. (Okay, so I feel badly here. The book isn’t THAT difficult. If I quit my job and stopped watching TV and fucking around on Facebook, I could totally cook from it. It does not, however, suit the life I actually live; only the one I wish I were smart, talented, and rich enough to live. And, at the end of the day, who needs that kind of pressure from a cookbook?)

Much less intimidating, however, is the sequel to The French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon. The book dwells on the “casual” food served in Keller’s bistro of the same name—a restaurant he opened because, as he explains, he wanted to “have a place to eat after cooking all night at the French Laundry.” The book is entirely about technique, about rediscovering the wonders of humble ingredients, artfully prepared. As Keller notes in his introduction, “Bistro dishes have become somewhat debased…by over-use and lack of understanding.” Here he is speaking my language. The immeasurable delight of a plate of good roast chicken or steak frites is one of the many joys of returning to my favorite restaurant near Les Halles. It comes from eating something that the people in the kitchen have made a thousand times for a thousand boisterous diners, exactly the same way their grandmothers did. And so, I bought the book with the intent of rediscovering technique, of remembering the satisfying tedium of preparing something in many steps with care and attention, and of re-creating the simplicity of a meal that is not just good but is also fine. I thought this would be fun.

I will begin this paragraph by quashing the hopeful tone of that last sentence. Preparing a meal out of Keller’s Bouchon was not, actually, any fun at all. Full of devotion to the task of creating the platonic ideal of a bistro dish, I invited some friends over for Saturday night chez nous, went shopping, and came home to begin the three day-long process of preparing a classic boeuf bourguignon. I chose to make this dish of beef braised in wine because it had been one of those things I had taught myself how to make from “instinct” back in college and I wanted to see how a proper recipe compared. In addition, I love it. I love it more than I love many things and people. It is hearty and filling and sublimely rich. It is beautiful to look at because it is a big jumbly mess of delicious things. In addition, the ingredients were all available locally and in season (save for the wine). It all seemed to be coming together.

Keller begins his recipe by writing that “the primary techniques for Bouchon’s beef bourguignon are those of refinement—removing the impurities at every opportunity.” As I embarked upon this recipe, I repeated those words to myself, full of faith in the inherent decency of the undertaking. No one wants to serve one’s beloved amis impurities, after all. And what frau doesn’t strive for refinement at every possible turn? Little did I know, my friends, that what at first sounded like a virtuous and pure-hearted endeavor was really a cruel eugenic food-engineering project.

It all went wrong with the stock, which is, piteously, the first and most important step. The recipe is in the back of the book, under the heading “Basic Preparations and Techniques.” The objective is a rich, beefy brown stock. Okay. Simple enough. I’ve made a thousand beef stocks. This one was a bit different but, cool, technique. I’m learning. So, sensei TK, what do I need? First, I need bones. Meaty bones. And lots of them. My butcher cut them into Keller’s requisite 2-3 inch sections. I heard the saw buzzing away. Yum! Here is my big bag o’bones. Meaty, hmm?

While the bones are roasting at high heat and emitting a smell that is decidedly less pleasant than one might imagine, we are instructed to halve an onion crosswise and place 1 half, cut side down, in a dry skillet over indirect heat for 30 minutes. One wants a charred onion half. “This will add color to the stock.” Like this:

Here is the hot mess of roasted meaty bones. 

They smelled like dead animal. Not good. But, faith I had. I was feeling good, like I was refining something, like mysterious powers to cook perfectly were just waiting for me to harness them. I felt like this:

So, after all the roasting, you throw the bones and seasonings (including 10 peppercorns, not 9, not 11!) into a big stockpot and cover with filtered water and let “gently simmer” for five hours, skimming often. You would think that this would be the moment you could move on to something else, returning “often” to skim impurities from the top of the pot. If you thought that though, you would be completely wrong. As wrong as I was. Which was terribly, terribly wrong. Turns out that when you are seeking refinement, you must be ever-vigilant. For five hours. Because if during that five hours you allow your stock to come to anything more than a very gentle simmer (like a simmer as gentle as the breeze caused by the flapping wings of a butterfly on the other side of the yard…), your stock is totally fucked. Irremediably, irredeemably fucked. It is cloudy. The OPPOSITE of refined. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. So, yeah, that happened. It happened sometime between hours four and five, when I needed to pee so badly that I thought my internal organs might burst and when my relief watch was on the telephone. After returning to see bubbles on the top of the stock (Bubbles!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!), I gathered my wits about me and finished the process. A little cloudy stock won’t ruin this whole thing, I thought cheerily. All the while, a dreadful feeling sat in the pit of my stomach, as I knew that somewhere, Thomas Keller felt my failure. Thus endeth Day 1 of beouf bourguignon. I went to bed with the smell of roasted bones in my nose and a twinge of regret in my heart. “Why, oh why did it have to boil?????” Here it is after I strained it through a fine mesh strainer like, 14 times, and then through coffee filters. Really. I was desperate. 

I call this "Piss Off, I Like Being Cloudy" Beef Stock. (And so should effing Thomas Keller, for that matter). 

Having slept on my disappointment, I was workmanlike on day two. Day two involved cutting up a lot of delicious stuff and cooking it all separately. First, fingerling potatoes, then carrots, then bacon and mushrooms, then pearl onions (12 red, 12 white, cooked separately). See, that’s technique, bitches!

Day two also involved the main event—searing the beef. This went pretty well. Look at all those perfect cubes!

The day’s tasks culminated in putting together the actual dish and cooking it so that it could supposedly marinate in its own juices overnight. Even though my quest for refinement was pretty well compromised by la catastrophe du fond, I followed Keller’s instructions to a tee. I chopped vegetables and laid them out in my dutch oven in perfect order. See:

This step—putting cheesecloth on the vegetables and wine and then laying the beef cubes over it—seemed like a much more important guarantor of refinement anyway.

Maybe the stock didn’t matter all that much after all, I thought, with hope in my pitiful heart. After cooking, one must strain the sauce over the beef cubes and refrigerate. The vegetables that were so carefully chopped to Keller’s merciless specifications were tossed out having sacrificed their flavor to my impure sauce.  

Day three dawned bright. Guests were coming. A lemon tart was prepared. A lovely little salad with a Dijon vinaigrette was assembled. The beef was reheated per the Maestro’s instructions and was subsequently plated (Oh and I went out and bought fancy white plates…Keller’s imperious gaze made me do it). See? 

"Wait, you're putting this perfect meal on THOSE plates? Hold on a minute, why is your sauce cloudy?"

The separately-cooked carrots, bacon, mushrooms, pearl onions (two colors!), and potatoes were delicately placed on top just so. A whisp of fleur de sel and finely-chopped parsley was sprinkled on top (sorry no pictures…too busy telling my guests this story…)

Finally, after three days of agony, I awaited the moment of ecstasy. The ooh’s and the aah’s. The “technique is everything” moment. I pondered the next attempt. Perhaps I would cook this dish over and over again until I got it right, until my stock was perfect and my sauce was glassy. Until it looked not just LIKE this but exactly like this:

I put a morsel in my mouth. I chewed. I looked over expectantly at my darling. As he finished his first bite, he spoke true words. “This is good…but isn’t it just beef stew?” Sometimes, this sweet and brilliant man can verge on the artless in his commitment to honesty, but on this occasion, our minds could not have been more in sync. What sat on our expensive new plates was, after three long days of struggle, just beef stew. It did not transport me to Les Halles or make me feel the cobblestones of Montmartre under my feet. Indeed, all I felt was sore from standing for the hours of fruitless skimming (skimming, skimming, skimming!) that I had undertaken two days earlier. Of course, it was just beef stew because boeuf bourgignon IS just beef stew. And the dinner party was a success not because I spent five hours making stock but instead because we had good company around the table and several bottles of red wine on top of it.

What lessons do I draw from this frustrating episode? I suppose I learned that while Thomas Keller may believe that refinement is everything (and as a potential diner of his, I am grateful for his commitment to that ideal), I believe that good food, like life, happens while you’re busy making other plans. Yes, talent and execution matter but, for the most part, they matter less than we’d like to believe. And, yet, we use this as an excuse NOT to cook. How many times have you heard the phrase, "...but I don't know how"? If one intends to cook for money, then the quest for perfection is a remunerative exercise. After all, no one would pay Thomas Keller to make them“Just” Beef Stew. But, if you cook for pleasure and for sustenance, instincts will take you much farther than precision. Good eaters make good cooks. The kitchen then, is, in my experience, a place in which to lead, not to follow. Alas, I fear that this realization means two things for me. First, I will never get paid to cook. And, second, the soul of this chef will never reach a state of perfection. By the same token, however, I will never go hungry and as long as I’m nearby, neither will you.