Kitchen Towel Rice, and other tales...

Including a valuable lesson about cooking for crowds, my upcoming cookbook seminar, thoughts on gathering recipes in the field, and a whimsical shrimp curry that will never let you down.

I did a dry run of my cookbook seminar the other day to work out the kinks before the actual delivery of it next week. I presented to six people, five of whom said they never wanted to write a cookbook EVER, or at least didn’t until after the workshop. Ha! I converted them all! How heartening to be able to share what I know and to see people suddenly light up about what they themselves might do to tell their own stories through recipes. One friend who hates cooking, and whose mother also hates cooking, thought she might actually have a cookbook in her about exactly that.

The night before the seminar, one of the participants, a friend and terrific cook, came over to teach me a signature recipe of hers that I’ve been pestering her for, because it’s so good. Four hours of preparations ensued — she went home at 10 p.m. — and we weren’t even done then, because the dish had to be finished the next day, which took another two hours. I drafted as she chopped and stewed and baked, scribbling like a schoolgirl while trying to make sure she didn’t make any swift moves without my getting them down. I’ll tell you, it’s tricky work getting recipes “in the field,” as it were, especially from people who have them safeguarded in their heads and hands alone. Of course, people like that are always the best cooks, with unrecorded recipes you really, really want. You’ll be getting her recipe from me eventually (it’s for a delicious Romanian potato moussaka), but it will need a few more tests first to get the quantities right. The whole process was a reminder of how much time, not to mention money, goes into producing a single recipe. They look so simple once they’re on the page, and yet…

I said the same to my seminar audience the other day about cookbooks.