Happy New Year and welcome back to The Academy! And a big warm hello to all you new subscribers, at either level. Were you given the Academy as a gift? Lucky you. Probably the best gift you ever got, amirite? Today’s post, despite having an accompanying video, which is usually reserved for paid subs only, is open to everyone as my holiday gift and happy new year to you all. You’re welcome! If you are a new subscriber and would like the twice-weekly posts, with videos, subscribe here.
I sincerely hope everyone had a peaceful and enjoyable festive season, or just a little well-deserved time off. I know I did; I relaxed, got a lot of exercise, made some good food, and now I am BACK and despite the existential dread about the obvious, I am ready for 2025 and everything super-exciting that is coming up this year! So where to begin?
There’s so much good info in this week’s video, and so much to talk about, but let’s start by getting the business stuff out of the way. If you are interested in any of my upcoming trips; South Korea and/or Japan in May (you can join us for both countries or either one), or Farm-To-Table Ireland in late June, or…soon to be launched Puglia and Campania and Burgundy and Bordeaux (!) next fall, the place to get all the info, deets and registration links is on my Travel With Me page. Also please always feel free to email me with questions at thechefsmartypants@gmail.com or in the messages or comments here on Substack. Happy to answer!
We are six weeks out from our Chile, Argentina and Uruguay trip, which has seemed so far off in the future for so long I never really imagined it happening, and it is now literally here, so I’m getting pretty excited about that. The only South American travel I’ve ever done was a brief trip to Bogotá, Colombia twenty years ago so I’m long overdue. Red meat and red wine, here we come! For the record, I am actually not a big meat-eater at all, and can only handle 1-2 glasses of wine a night, so I’ll be the world’s cheapest date on this trip, but I’m still really excited to go. I cannot wait to see the Andes, I love mountains. And if you’re coming along, you can finish my wine and steak, just take it, I’m good.
Ok, travel promotions completed, let’s move on. I did mention T-shirts, so let’s get that done, too. Ok done.
To start, the Instagram Miso Dressing Video
And now, the real writing.
We only had a black and white television in my house when I was a child. We didn’t make the switch to color until I was in high school, because tv’s were really expensive back then and my mom was a single parent of very limited income. Her divorce agreement didn’t make any provisions for things like upgrading our electronics, I mean it barely covered our basic daily needs of life, like food or college. Thanks, dad, what a guy. So I only ever saw the groovy orange of the Brady kitchen or the twinkling blue eyes of Michael Landon on LHOTP if I watched at a friend’s house on their glorious sixteen-inch color tv’s, usually in a hulking furniture console set atop shag carpeting and watch through the haze of parental cigarette smoke.
My television world was colorless, trapped in the flat gray tones of the early decades of the medium, of I Love Lucy and the dingy apartment of the Honeymooners. It didn’t stop me from watching endless hours of tv, though. Whatever was on, I watched it. But when The Wizard of Oz would air, once a year, which was a really big occasion for us kids in the pre-VCR, tv-on-demand days, my sister and I watched it all the way through in black and white, without knowing about the big change to color in the post-tornado half of the film. We didn’t know that when Dorothy opened the door of her house after landing in Oz that she was stepping out from the grim, dusty tones of the Depression era into a Technicolor dream world. I thought it was called the Emerald City because there were big cut gems on the set, not because of the color change. I don’t recall the first time I saw it in color, but it must’ve been a surprise to me, to finally see what the big deal was about. Yellow roads, red poppies, ruby slippers, and green everywhere. Was my little mind blown? I can’t remember, honestly. I do however, to this day, remain terrified of the flying monkeys.
Blanching a green vegetable like broccoli always gives me that same little shiver that I felt and still feel, every time I watch Judy Garland swing open that worn wooden door and the Dorothea Lange dingy sepia of Kansas gives way to saturated cinematic color. It still thrills me, both the blanching and the film scene, to watch the transformation, the polychromatic world springing to life. The power of chemistry, physics, water and light. And magic. In my mind, the entire country was actually black and white during the depression, one big Lange photo album of sad, hungry people driving west like the Joads. A living, migrating Steinbeck novel. Imagine what a psychedelic thrill ride a viewing of The Wizard of Oz must have been like for someone in 1939? Did the kids in this famous photo get to watch it, in a theater? Or did they watch it years later on tv, with their grandkids?
I like to use the term “culinary alchemy” when I teach, to show how simple applications of science can do magical, transformative things to food. Like blanching broccoli to a velvet green, or roasting cauliflower until it’s golden, crisp and sweet. Small but powerful acts that can yield big results. Cooking can be a series of very tiny steps, cumulatively adding up to a big musical showstopper. Blanching to bring out the emerald tones, tearing the tofu instead of cutting it, blending a dressing instead of whisking to emulsify it to creaminess so it’ll coat and cling, not slip off, toasting sesame seeds to their nutty, oily best. Like Dorothy in the balloon, bringing the recipe back home, landing it in a spectacular, 1939 musical style, and knowing the way to get there. It only takes some knowledge, some guidance and maybe some heart and courage too? You can’t take big leaps without being brave, so maybe you’ll make this the year you get more brave about food, about cooking, about eating more broccoli, about life? There’s a LOT to be scared about right now, with good reason, and I’m so scared too. But the only thing you can do, is to try to live your life in the best, most meaningful way you can.
So put on those ruby slippers, link arms with your buddies, summon up your courage, and go forth, and tear your damn tofu, I dare you. Be bold. Have heart. And please, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
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