Phyllis Kirigin

Preparing good food is an act of love. I became increasingly determined to learn to cook well when I got married (as Julia Child said, “Before then, I just ate.” ) and started a family. I wanted to prepare the best for my family and friends, but my skills left much to be desired. Fortunately, living in New York City gave me the opportunity to study with some of the best cooks in the country, including James Beard, Madhur Jaffrey, Diana Kennedy, Grace Chu, Virginia Lee, John Clancy, Bert Greene, along with classes at the Institute of Culinary Education, formerly Peter Kump’s. I have to say I went gung ho, even preparing all the baby food from scratch, especially after reading in Consumer Reports that the quality control of commercial baby food left something to be desired. Besides the absence of the taste of real food, insect remnants were found in the testings.

The birth of my first child coincided with the advent of the Cuisinart Food Processor and my acquaintance with James Beard. I remember him experimenting with it like a new toy finding out what it could do and not do. It took meat to a mince but not a grind, he observed. For me, it made the most silky, luxurious baby food. Imagine a chicken breast gently simmered in chcken broth,, skinned, deboned and then pureed to a velvety smoothness. Gerber’s, eat your heart out.

I have many collected anecdotes about my wonderful cooking classes which I will dip into from time to time, but for now let me say that if a picture is worth a thousand words, a demonstration is worth a million. You may have heard people say that if you can read, you can cook, but I don’t think that’s quite true. How valuable it is to observe a master, to see his technique, to take mental pictures of exactly how thick the batter for a French gateau should be, to see how far you can take whipped cream before it turns to butter and to take note of the wrist and hand movement in rolling an omelet out of the pan.