I had a high complement paid me yesterday, one that bothered me all last night.
After my shift ended at work, der Brucer and I headed over to Cafe Zeus. We hadn't been over there for quite some time, and Cliff, the very hunky sous chef, had commented on that fact while at my register just hours earlier.
Things were slowing down in the kitchen, so Cliff came out for a smoke (they still do that here in Delaware, I know not why) and we got to talking about the chestnuts I'd roasted in the morning. I knew I wanted to make a gravy for the leftover turkey I was going to serve for dinner, and that said gravy would include some of the chestnuts and some mushrooms, but I wanted a suggestion for a third flavor element to go in the gravy. Cliff told me he'd be right back, trotted to the kitchen, and returned with a copy of Dornenberg and Page's Culinary Artistry, a great reference filled with lists of food pairings. We ended up agreeing that the best idea would be to spice the gravy with some cloves, whole and not ground since the ground would be too strong.
At about this time, chef Charles came out, and he got to joking with der Brucer about all the books I've got piled up in my "to read" stack...all either cookbooks or books about food. This led to Charles telling us about a local woman who is planning on teaching a cooking class at her farmhouse. It wouldn't really be a class for people to learn how to cook professionally, but more for people who want to learn to cook that well for themselves and their families. (Think of it as a class where Susan Mayer learns how to be Bree Van de Camp.)
And then Charles turned to me and said that I could teach a class in food history, if I wanted to. And he was serious. Figure maybe fifteen lessons, an hour each.
Well, I was certainly flattered, but laughed it off.
Heading home, der Brucer brought it up again. He thinks I could do it, if I wanted to. I countered with how I don't know nearly enough to teach such a class. He countered back with how I've never taken a junior college course, and most of the classes at that level are given by people with far less knowledge than I have.
Dinner was a success, of course. The cloves were exactly what the gravy needed. It was after dinner, while reading Rudolph Chelminski's The Perfectionist (about French master chef Bernard Loiseau, the Michelin rating system, and the causes of suicide) that I started to wonder about the challenge I'd been given.
I stayed up half the night pondering what specific subjects I could teach. An hour on Escoffier, Careme, and the rest of the Frenchmen who established haute cuisine, certainly. Another on the spice trade changing world trade. A third on American eating habits during the westward expansion (the Harvey Girls were real, not just something devised for a film musical). Early American restaurants, such as Delmonico's, makes for a fourth hour. James Beard and Julia Child. Alice Waters. Craig Claiborne and the birth of food porn. How we went from street food to fast food.
I still haven't come up with fifteen subjects.
But the more I went over my list of ideas, the more I realized what there is that I don't know. And I can't afford to add to my stack of unread books right now.
Oh, bother.
Der B and I will probably be back over at Cafe Zeus tonight. They're going to be showing Auntie Mame, on an eight-foot screen in their back room (with appetizers), and neither of us have seen it in a group setting.
