For the Love of...

I have always loved cooking. For as long as I can remember, actually. The basis for the love has evolved over time, but my earliest, happiest memories are of standing on a stool at the kitchen bench, waiting impatiently for any opportunity to help: stirring, measuring, pouring, wooden spoon-licking. What started as an intimate food relationship in my Grandmother's kitchen changed as I grew up. Later, the love was based on the joy of creativity, then on the challenge of learning to cook professionally, next on the joy of mastery, later still on the comfort of deep familiarity. Most recently my love of cooking has again become about an intimate, loving relationship with someone in the kitchen: my two little boys. I know how special my time in the kitchen with my Grandmother was, I hope it is the same for my two children.

I digress, a bit. My point is that I love the act of cooking and all that is involved; I get up every work day and genuinely look forward to going into the kitchen. Given the long hours, the physical demands of standing for 14-or-more hours a day in a hot, smoky environment, the emotional stress, the required constant, unwavering focus on the job (jobs, rather, several jobs at once) at hand, and the pressure to get every, single, detail, right, – given all this – you'd expect every chef to feel as passionate as I do about cooking. But they don't. Some chef's don't even like food.



This discovery came as something of a shock to me, because I do love food, and I sort of assumed such affection was a prerequisite of working in the industry. It turns out that is it not only possible to be a chef who likes nothing about food, but to be a damn fine chef whilst doing so.

There are, I have since learned, quite a few reasons people chose to cook. The first chef I met with an indifference to food was a Canadian who, incidentally, was equally indifferent to humor. We shared a section in the kitchen of a fine-dining restaurant and my first sense that something was wrong was when I realized he was more concerned with how many spoons we had ready for use during service than he was with the food we were serving. We'd often prep, side-by-side, all day, me chattering away about the amazingly fresh scallops or the perfectly ripe tomatoes, while this guy was thinking predominantly about silverware.

Evidently, though I did not know at the time, there is a whole genre of professional cooks who are more or less the same. They are chefs not for the love of food but rather for the love of structured monotony. Cooks like my Canadian friend thrive on the structure of a day, on the hierarchy of a kitchen, on the discipline. These people would have done equally well in the military. The well-defined structure and general organization which define commercial cookery – daily routine, prep-lists, expectations, duties, workflow, and the like – provide a solid framework around which the rest of their working universe is structured, and order, rows-and-columns order, is their single driving factor. That the food is good is secondary, but only slightly so. A side effect of this chef type is that reproducing perfect copies of a given dish is a natural extension of this obsession with order. Such obsessives make great chefs.

Other chefs are in it not for the order, but for the chaos. Not total chaos, mind you, but the marginally contained confusion of fire and stress and sweat and shouting that is a busy dinner service. Working chaos, let's call it. These cooks are more or less adrenaline junkies. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the food takes something of a back seat to to the trill of an insanely busy service. Prep is a necessary evil required to get to the fun at the later half of the day. I didn't know such a creature existed until one of them pointed himself out to me. “You really love cooking. I can see that. I don't love it at all. I just can't wait for the dockets to start flying in.”

Finally, there are cooks who do it solely as a job – those who come to work only to finish the shift. These cooks don't seem to enjoy any aspect of the career. Cookery is no different to any profession in this respect, I suppose. I've worked with plenty of such “chefs,” though I've understood none. It is so easy to make the same money working half as hard outside of hospitality, I don't understand at all why anyone would persist.

Anyway, this week's post is about quail. Why quail, you ask? Because it is exactly the kind of food you have to care enough about to prepare. Quail are fiddly little creatures with little meat on their minuscule bones. You have to love to cook (and to eat) in general to bother preparing quail.

Actually, that is not remotely true in the US of A. Quail in the states are widely available semi-boned. That is: with all the bones from the chest cavity removed. Leaving only the leg and wing bones intact. This makes nearly any preparation of quail overly simple. The rest of us, well, we have to work for it.



BBQ Quail with Honey-Lime Marinade and a Grilled Pear and Rocket Salad.

The trick to tasty quail is to be delicate at all times. First, when trimming up the birds, be careful not to break their tiny bones, it's no fun to chomp into a bone fragment. Second, marinade the quail only long enough to add flavor, but not so long tat the lime juice starts to cure the meat; about half an hour. Finally, use gentle heat – hot but not blinding and cook the birds until just done; the meat should still be quite pink on the bone.

This is a great spring meal – pears are still in season, and it's just warm enough to fire up the BBQ.

4 quail, backbones removed (I use kitchen shears)
1 lime
2Tbsp honey
2Tbsp olive oil
5 sprigs thyme
3 garlic cloves, cracked
12 black peppercorns

Mix the juice of the lime with the honey and olive oil. Roughly chop the leftover lime skin. Place the quail in a small container, just wide enough to hold them all in one layer and pour the lime juice mixture over. Sprinkle the remaining ingredients over and refrigerate for half an hour, turning the quail over once.

Remove from the fridge. Take the quail out of the marinade, brushing off any solids. Generously salt the birds just before cooking. BBQ them on a medium heat, breast-side down, for 2-3 minutes. Turn them over and continue cooking for 3-4 minutes more. Keep in mind that we've added sugar the the bird, which will cause it to burn quickly; keep a close eye on the quail when cooking. Give the breast a little squeeze. If it still feels a bit raw, flip the quail again and give it a minute or two more. Remove from the grill and rest a few minutes before serving with a grilled pear and rocket salad (below).

Grilled Pear and Rocket Salad

I love this simple salad. It only needs to be dressed with oil and a splash of balsamic. Yum.

1 pear, peeled, quartered and sliced ½cm thick
shaved parmesan
handful of rocket
oil
balsamic vinegar

Clean your grill. On high heat, grill the pears just until they color a bit, flip, do the same, and then remove from the grill. Overcooking will give you mushy pears.

Toss the pears together with some shaved parmesan and rocket and dress lightly with oil and vinegar.