Gypsy Curses

I don't eat nearly as much as one might expect. At work, I spend 14 hours a day preparing and serving food. I am surrounded by it, immersed in it. By the end of each day I reek of roasted garlic and fish and oil and herbs and smoke. I could do no worse if I were rolling in the stuff. On any given work day I prepare ten-to-twenty serves of each dish on the menu and specials board, totaling a couple hundred possible meals, with the expectation that I'll serve at least half of them. Amidst all this cooking, all this preparation and serving, I often fail to eat much at all. It's an affliction that affects many of the chefs I know. It's silly, I know, to be surrounded with food for more than half of the hours in a day and not eat enough, but it is quite common. Ask a chef, at the end of the day, what he's eaten during work; I guarantee he'll have trouble recalling a single meal.



It's not that I don't like to eat. Don't, for the love of god, get that impression. I love food. And I love to cook it just as much as I eat it. I spend a great deal of my spare time either cooking, or reading (or writing) about the history, science, and theory of food. I can think of little I enjoy more than eating out. I love to sit down to a meal someone else has prepared for me; I appreciate the effort and look forward to eating something I haven't personally followed from providore to plate. The greater the quantity and variety in a meal, the better. Twelve-course degustation menu? Hell yes. I love food.

It's just that at the end of a day in the kitchen, after innumerable tastes of this and that (add more salt, taste again), dozens of carrot nubs and celery stick tips and tomato cores which find their way into my mouth rather than the rubbish, the stomach-tightening stress of service, I simply don't feel like eating. I suppose I should understand when other's feel the same.

Usually, people come to me and ask me to cook for them. That's how a restaurant works. I ask that you, the diner trust my cooking abilities; you, in turn, tell me what you'd like and how you'd like it cooked. Outside of work I don't take orders, per se, but when I ask people over for dinner, I generally feel that their anticipation is genuine. Having people want to eat my food becomes the natural state, and I begin to mistrust anyone without an appetite. In short: I expect people to eat.



There are two people, however, who are not always excited to eat when I cook for them. In fact, more often than not I find myself asking, aloud, what is so wrong with the food I've prepared. I'm loath to admit to reducing myself to begging, but begging I do. I've been known to desperately plead my two little boys to eat.

Perhaps this is a gypsy's curse for a chef – that I dedicate my life to cooking and then have to beg my own children to eat anything at all. I should stop angering gypsies.

The one thing I know my two little ones will eat is rice. Both of my boys lap it up, in nearly any incarnation. Why they'll concurrently decide that they don't want to eat roast pork with applesauce, or that they no longer like salmon, I'll never understand, but I do get why they'll eat their collective body weight in my pilaf. It's really tasty.



Orzo and Rice Pilaf with Lemon Thyme and Leek

This is a side dish. A garnish. And one of my favorites. This is a versatile and delicious dish which acts as support personnel for the main event. While you could quite easily sit and make a meal of this rice-based dish, it is a great accompaniment to just about any protein. With this version in particular, I like to pan-roast a baby chicken, backbone removed and flattened, and then rest it on the just-finished pilaf. The juices from the bird soak into the rice and impart a flavor which is a perfect match for the leeks and thyme.

Pilaf is essentially just steamed rice. I add orzo, or risoni, as it is sometimes called, a rice-shaped pasta. Combining this tiny pasta with rice, treating it like rice, lends a contrast in texture and a bit of creaminess to the finished pilaf. This is the sort of recipe you should know by heart: ½ cup rice, ½ cup pilaf, 1 ½ c stock, 1 onion, diced, and something to add flavor: some garlic, a handful of herbs, whatever.

This pilaf is infinitely adaptable: add a half lemon to the pot when you pour in the stock (try substituting fish stock) and serve with pan-fried trout; add some diced carrots when you are toasting the rice and pasta, use beef stock, and serve with a braised veal shank. You can even change up the ratio of rice to pasta. All you need to know is that the the volume of stock should be one-and-a-half times the volume of the rice and pasta together. Other than that, go crazy.

½ c aborrio rice
½ c orzo
1 leek, split, cleaned
1 clove garlic, peeled and cracked
1 ½ c chicken stock
4 sprigs lemon thyme, leaves only

Bring the stock to a simmer in a small pot and keep warm.

In a medium pot with a tablespoon of vegetable oil, sweat the leek with a generous pinch of salt until it is soft and sweet. Add the garlic, the rice, and the pasta. Toast until the rice becomes translucent around the edges. Add the thyme and stock, bring to a simmer and cover.

Reduce to the lowest heat for 15 minutes covered. Remove from the heat and leave undisturbed for another five minutes. Fluff with a fork, season to taste, and serve.