Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan

Reading 'Cooking Dirty', Jason Sheehan's memoir of his rise from plongeur to (non-celebrity, but that doesn't matter) chef, is giving me the creeps. Mom, I promise not to do drugs and cook at the same time! Maybe I'll do one or the other, but not simultaneously, nyahaha!

Nah. You know me. I've always been the good girl.

Seriously, his stories of drugs, filthy kitchens, juvenile pranks, assault, meaningless sexual encounters on top of bakers' prep tables, hands dipped in 400 degree deep fryer oil and putrid locker rooms are enough for me to momentarily contemplate putting my tail between my legs and begging for my cushy office job back. Except anatomically, I do not possess a tail. And my pride would cause me to slit my wrists than go cowering back to my glamorized role as keyboard pusher who picks up after Big Media Company's other news desks.

And I love making food too much. And I'm not a quitter.

"Si Tita Ruth! Si Tita Ruth!"

"It's Aunt Ruth [Reichl]! It's Aunt Ruth!" you might have heard a (mildly) mad-looking woman exclaim this at your friendly neighborhood Powerbooks sometime between 6 and 8 pm on Friday night while doing a silly little shimmy. Ruth Reichl and I are not related. but lately I've taken to calling friends and most everyone I feel an affinity with kuya (big brother), ate (big sister), tita (auntie), tito (uncle), lolo (grandpa) or lola (grandma).

Anyway. Ruth Reichl. She's my goddess, my food journalism mother. She's what I hope to become in the event I attain a measure of authority and respectability in my new profession. Of course, now that Gourmet has folded, I'll never be validated by getting published there one day.

But, enough about my writing ambitions. What I really wanted to say is that I'm thrilled to find a slew of food writing in my favorite bookstore. Garlic and Sapphires, one of Reichl's memoirs, was the very first one I spotted, but it wasn't long before I started salivating at the smorgasbord on the shelves:

1. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

2. Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan.

3. It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time by Moira Hodgson.

4. Tender At The Bone by Ruth Reichl.

5. Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl.

6. Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl.

7. I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci.

8. Born Round by Frank Bruni.

9. Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard.

10. Sacre Cordon Bleu by Michael Booth.

11. My Life in France by Julia Child.

12. Cleaving by Julie Powell.

The Book of Sweets by Marina Schinz

Don't be misled by the frippery title - it's a documentation of the history of sweets, the lore surrounding them and the art of the confectioner.

Sweet and Sugarfree by Karen E. Barkie

I love this book's healthy concept. It keeps its promise - you won't see any sugar in the ingredients and even honey is singled out as a bad guy.

I have yet to try out the recipes though, since I don't have an oven. A pastry chef, which is where I feel the heartstrings tugging, without an oven is like an F1 racer without his car. If the recipes turn out well, I'm going to serve the pastries in the cafe I'm dreaming up.

Oils & Vinegars: A Gourmet's Guide by Karen Farrington

Photo from Amazon.com

I bought this from a bookshop near school yesterday. It's loaded with information that will boost anyone's culinary eggheadedness without fail. The entire book covers different oils and vinegars, their history, production, uses and standards of quality, but unfortunately has no recipes, which disappoints me a little.

Kinilaw: A Philippine Cuisine of Freshness by Edilberto Alegre and Doreen Fernandez

Oh no, somebody stop me. I have gone insane. Two days after a big-ticket book purchase, I bought another one. In my defense though, P140 is hardly a big-ticket amount.

Anyway, it's Doreen, dean of Filipino food writers. On Amazon, it says that it's out of print. And it's another lucky find, the prize of another unplanned saunter into a bookstore. So let's not call our friendly neighborhood mental health professional just yet.

Alinea by Grant Achatz

I went to the Manila International Bookfair, and adopted a new baby that is keeping me up most nights:

It wagged its tail and picked me. It was the only one of its kind - I didn't see it at the other booths and it seemed to be the only copy left in the National Bookstore stall. So. This is the best P1,684 ($35.59) I've ever spent! I feel it's quite underpriced (but shhh, don't tell Nanay) - even at the original price of P2,105 ($44.49) sans the 20% discount, that's still cheap for a 400+-page, deluxe edition cookbook.

I don''t plan on replicating the recipes at home any time soon. Some of the recipes actually look doable, while others look too complex in terms of the complexity of methods or exoticness of ingredients used. Where does one source microchives in the Philippines, for example? And good luck, LL, cobbling together a sous vide cooker in your bare-essentials dwelling.

I bought it more for inspiration, to channel the spirit of Grant Achatz's innovativeness and food philosophy in my cooking, and to use his food presentation styles - "plating" would be a misnomer, since he often does not serve his food on plates - to inspire mine.

Who is Achatz? I first came across him while looking up molecular gastronomy, stumbling upon this excellent article on his battle with tongue cancer. A promising young chef is threatened with being struck down by a terminal illness, which, if he survived it, also included the very real possibility of the permanent impairment or loss of his sense of taste - that had to be one of the most richly ironic jokes the universe could ever play, and I've been fascinated ever since.

More than the drama of his illness however, it was his philosophy towards food that drew me in. Far more eloquent commentary has been written about this, so I'll just say that what struck me the most was his affinity for the avant garde, and his attempts to challenge old notions of dining out as a relaxing, laid-back activity. From Alinea's disorienting hallway to his custom of serving food that makes guests squirm, Achatz actually wants to make diners feel uncomfortable about what they're eating, to provoke thought and elicit emotion.

For more about the Alinea cookbook, visit Alinea Mosaic, the companion site.

Day 32: In which my knowledge of sauces remains stuck in Escoffier's day

08.21.2009: Those of you who know me well might recall that it usually takes only either the presence of books or food, sometimes both, to cheer me up.

I was feeling the need for some book retail therapy last night, when I and the entire class were blind-sided by at least seven questions in our written final exams. These questions included naming the six modern-day sauces. I didn't really memorize that part of the lesson because chef Vic told us to concentrate on remembering all the small sauces, and so was able to name only three. The answer to the other question was gastrique, the term for sugar caramelized in vinegar. Okay, this was my fault. I really should study everything.

The most satisfying trips I've ever made to bookstores are the purposeless ones, when I walk into a store with no agenda except to browse the shelves. The pleasure of finding an unexpected treasure becomes even more intense, like finding a P500 bill on the street or running into a very dear friend one hasn't seen in decades.

So, imagine my happiness wandering into Booksale in Starmall Mandaluyong and finding a DK Eyewitness Companion to French Cheese for only P140 (about $3), marked down from the original P240. Although I am not a turophile, or hardcore cheese connoisseur, I appreciate this veritable encyclopedia of more than 350 cheeses, brimming with useful information on their nomenclature, places of origin, production and how to identify good-quality ones, how to cut and serve them and which breads and wines to pair them with.

Cover photo from Amazon.com

It's designed like a guidebook - small enough to be tucked into a bag pocket and handy enough to be carried in one hand (while you have a wedge of Bûchette de Banon in the other, I suppose). It's beautifully illustrated too.

Professional Cooking by Wayne Gisslen

It turns out that Wayne Gisslen's Professional Cooking (6th ed), one of the books in my fantasy library, is going to be used as our textbook. Our instructor says it is the same book used in Le Cordon Bleu, the world's oldest professional cooking school.

So there, that's one part of my fantasy fulfilled.

The book comes with a CD that contains software allowing users to search for recipes, view nutrition information, generate shopping lists, perform measurement conversions and modify recipes. Nifty, isn't it? The software unfortunately does not seem to work with Vista, so I'm contacting tech support to see what can be done.

Renaissance Recipes by Gillian Riley

I stumbled on this little hardcover gem two days ago while killing time at a nearby mall waiting for class to start, and couldn't resist the P120 ($2.50) bargain it offered.

Some of what you'll find inside:

and ...

How could I have said no? It has art and cooking, two of my favorite things.

Aphrodite by Isabel Allende

My Facebook status today says, "T had a hilarious conversation earlier with a friend about hanky panky in the kitchen. Lines such as 'He garnished my salad!' and 'I batonneted his cucumber!' were exchanged." Said friend was telling me earlier about her "earthy" chef friends (and I don't mean the flavor they tease out of mushrooms).

In response - perhaps to encourage me to give in to my garnishing and batonneting impulses? - my friend I sent me this review of Isabel Allende's Aphrodite. The extract about how she procured some truffles is deliciously sensual. I'm adding Aphrodite to my reading list!

Today's Specials

The day's food articles that caught my fancy:*


* Slate's food issue satisfies on many levels as it looks at the challenges faced by industrial food giants, the existentialism of cooking, cookbooks that are more than just about cooking, lard's limelight moment, a review of a cookbook that specifies only ratios in its measurements, and a writing grant that also funds foodies.

* Naturally aged garlic, or black garlic, is the new "it" ingredient among America's chefs.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less you Cry by Kathleen Flinn

Another book I'm eyeing for my library:

Cook goes on bookstore rampage; takes one hostage

Twelve tomes were killed and nine injured when a wild-haired female cook went berserk at five book shops in the Philippines-based SM Mall of Asia, vandalizing the stores and going on a skewering rampage.

Eyewitnesses said the unidentified crazed cook began her rampage at National Bookstore, disarranging hardcover tomes in the cooking section.

A source who declined to be identified said the woman, who was sweating profusely, could be heard mumbling, “Susur, where are you? I've been looking all over for you,” and appeared to be intently searching for something.

Authorities believe the woman was looking for the book Susur: A Culinary Life, a two-volume work chronicling the career of Hong Kong-born chef Susur Lee which also contains instructions on recreating 57 of his signature dishes.

Failing to find the title, the woman, who was allegedly suffering from mental instability, scurried out of National Bookstore and entered Books For Less, where she lectured the sales assistants for “failing to display the cookbooks prominently enough.” The staff were too stunned to stop her when she left the shop after pouring hot vegetable oil on the cashier's terminal.

Similar scenes of mayhem occurred at Fully Booked, where the deranged woman torched an entire display of Rachael Ray titles. One sales assistant who witnesses said was a little slow on the uptake – the woman was heard spelling out the title of the book to him – was stabbed in the eye with a steel skewer.

Police said the woman, by now in the middle of a complete psychotic breakdown, then barged into Powerbooks. Renovations to the facility – the food books were now at the back – somewhat slowed her down. Actually seeing the title she seemed to have long been coveting appeared to undermine her already fragile mental state.

Witnesses said the woman began trembling and making loud unintelligible noises. She then sprinted over to customer service, where she was heard ranting about the “damaged spine” of the book.

The customer service officer called for assistance on his walkie-talkie to ascertain if there was a more pristine copy of Susur: A Culinary Life in stock. The “damaged” copy was in fact the last one left not only in the MoA branch, but in the entire country, the man at the counter apologetically mumbled while offering her a 30 percent discount.

“Thirty percent?” the crazed cook was heard shrieking. “Do you even know who this kitchen god is? He has a soft spot in his heart for our very own kalamansi!” She then grabbed the man by the collar and held a rusty cleaver to his neck to make her point.

Police who belatedly arrived at the scene surrounded the establishment and evacuated the premises. After a five-hour stand-off during which police refused the woman's demand to be served foie gras terrine with black olive dust and cocoa nibs cooked by Susur Lee himself, snipers opened fire on and instantly killed the hostage-taker. Susur: A Culinary Life was mangled in the firefight.

Photo from sunday driver's photostream on Flickr

Palayok by Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez

The exquisitely written and illustrated Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, On Site, In The Pot by Doreen Gamboa-Fernandez is the first of hopefully many acquisitions for my food books collection.

A collage of some of the contents of the book:

My fantasy library of food reads

Feeling a little down today, I went to National Bookstore to look at their food books and try to cheer myself up. A book store often buoys my spirits – just fingering and looking at books, deciding which one to leisurely leaf through and being in the company of, yet separate from, other bibliophiles somehow always makes me feel better. I began fantasizing about the library I would build. My future library, the world's most extensive collection of books devoted to food, would include:

1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die


American Food Writing, edited by Molly O'Neill


Connoisseur's Guide to Herbs and Spices by Kathryn Hawkins


The Cooks' Bible by Le Cordon Bleu


Larousse Gastronomique


Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan


Professional Cooking by Wayne Gisslen


What to Drink with What You Eat by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page


Also part of my library, but not photographed, would be Gilda Cordero Fernando's Philippine Food and Life, Marion Trutter's Culinaria Spain, Lizzie Cunningham's Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, Claude Tayag's Food Tour, Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine, Marilen Nolasco-Espiritu's Wrap, Store, Peddle and Doreen Fernandez's books.