Meals Are Made With Passion, Love, and Mistakes

My father taught me that cooking is like jazz and baking is like classical music. In cooking, you can take a recipe, understand the flavor profiles and structure, and riff. Add some stuff here, change it up a bit there. Cooking can be forgiving. Baking is more precise because there are chemical reactions at play that don’t like when the time signature changes without prior approval. And that is where skill marries with knowledge and creates art. You don’t want to play jazz, but often in cooking, improvisation is often forced upon you. Mistakes happen. Sauces break. Dinner goes sideways. Sometimes, produce isn’t as fresh as it could be. The skill to adapt, improvise, and overcome is highly needed in the kitchen. Is it a surprise that when I joined the military, that concept was already well ingrained?

The realities of the kitchen are not reflected in the videos you see posted online. Just as my Instagram channel is made up of the travel and food images that I am most comfortable and proud of, cooking videos tend to be less instruction and more influencers wanting to be the Next Food Network Star. I too, am guilty. No, I don’t want to be the NFNS — I’m a writer and I paint with words — however, it is simpler to provide a quick video of a recipe that I am sharing, rather than write the words that describe the process perfectly, to an audience who probably wouldn’t read the description to the end anyway. Am I adding to the problem? Probably. Do I get jazzed when I see the number of likes? Absolutely. Am I conflicted? Definitely.

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More than a few years back, the Food Network made a major shift in how they wanted to program. At the time, Anthony Bourdain was told that his show, No Reservations, was too smart for the channel. That people wanted more barbeque. More tailgates. And so, they dropped his show and moved in the direction that has ended where they are today. Extremely profitable, entertaining, and banal. It makes sense. The people who watch the Food Network rarely cook. As ratings of food and cooking shows in America have increased, actual cooking at home has gone down. We love to watch food, we just want someone else to actually do the cooking. And at the same time, we’ve gotten heavier. Most likely because we do less of the thing with which we seem to be so enamoured.

Food in America has become voyeuristic. It’s become a spectator sport. And it is popular. It feels good. But at what cost? Cooking is a dirty sport. It is not the manicured, curated process portrayed on social media. Your end product will most likely not represent the opening frame of the video you just watched. And that’s okay. Either will the dish of the person who made that video. Unless that is a dish that they have made over and over and over and over again.

The true skill in cooking is recovering when things go astray. And they always go astray. I can count on one hand the amount of dinners I’ve cooked that go exactly to plan. That’s the main reason for mise en place — Escoffier, when developing the brigade system, also knew that things in the kitchen, by their nature, go awry. And if you already have everything needed for the dish in its proper place then it will be one less thing to think about when the world skids sideways.

Stop obsessing about the cooking on television and social media and get in the kitchen. Get messy. Create a meal with the awareness of exactly what is going into the dish. Enjoy the magic of transforming a board of raw, whole, ingredients into sustenance for you and/or your family. Create something that brings joy. It’s winter, let’s create a comforting classic beef stew with a huge nutritional twist of a double dose of veg.

Classic Beef Stew with Dandelion Greens

This is a twist on the classic stick-to-your-ribs beef stew. Mushrooms provide an earthy flavor and the greens add a freshness and nutritional punch. It is the ideal dinner on a chilly winter's day. Beef, onion, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, turnips, dandelion greens, and red wine come together for the perfect comfort dish.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup flour
• ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 lb stewing beef, trimmed and cut into one inch cubes
• 2 slices bacon
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 cups red wine
• 2 cups beef bone broth
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 carrots, peeled and cut into one inch rounds
• 2 large russet potatoes
• 1 white turnip
• 2 cups sliced crimini mushrooms
• 1 bunch greens, chopped. Use a tough green such as turnip, kale, chard, or dandelion.
• 2 tsp salt

Directions

Combine the flour and pepper in a bowl in a paper bag or plastic freezer bag, add the beef and toss to coat well. Shake off extra flour and set beef aside.

In a dutch oven, cook bacon until crisp and remove.

In the bacon fat, add the beef a few pieces at a time. Work in batches to not overcrowd the beef. Brown beef on all sides adding more oil to the pan if needed between batches. Remove beef to a plate.

Add onion and carrot to the pan and cook until onion is soft.

Add tomato paste and cook until the paste is a deep red.

Deglaze the pot with the vinegar and red wine. Cook over medium-high heat, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits. This is flavor!

Return the beef to the pan. Add beef broth and tied up bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer.

Cover and cook, skimming broth from time to time, until the beef is tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

Add the potatoes and turnip to the pan and cook about 30 minutes until vegetables are tender.

Add greens and mushrooms and simmer an additional 15 minutes.

Add broth or water if the stew is dry and season with salt and pepper to taste. If you like a thicker stew, create a slurry with beef stock and flour, stir in, and cook an additional 5 minutes. Serve with crusty bread, preferably in front of a fire.

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