A Chef is Born

I've had a few people ask me lately how I got into cooking. I'm not when it happened, but I discovered cooking at home. For school, I put on a full traditional Icelandic meal for my family and I used every dish and utensil we owned! My poor parents kindly offered to do the dishes but asked me to learn to clean up as I go! Then I put on a Seder meal with a full Jewish passover ceremony. Once I started university, my ability to do daily chores was drastically compromised by the amount of homework and the fact that I had classes preventing me from being home around the dinner hour. So Sundays became my day in the kitchen.

Every Sunday prior to going to church I would prepare a roast, stick it in the oven and prepare the side dishes. We were conservative in our food - we stuck to our favourites, experimented very little and there was little room for adventure of the sorts you have seen on this blog. But my desire to try something different started in the kitchen in my home town with the Sunday roast. I would experiment with the spices and would never give away my secret ingredients for fear that no one would actually eat the lunch I have prepared. The roasts became my one thing that I could prepare without a recipe far better than anyone else in the home.

Once I started living on my own I enjoyed being able to experiment. I bought a slow cooker which became my favourite appliance for cooking. I had my successes and failures - I could cook a mean chili! But I learned the hard way that 2 cans of jalepeno peppers is a lot of peppers to slow cook for 10 hours! and as much as it saves time, putting 5 cups of dry rice in a slow cooker with the appropriate amount of water and butter means that I have to eat rice for the rest of the month.

And then one day I had my heart broken. One of my mentors gave me a brilliant idea - she spoke of how much I love cooking and suggested that I choose a nationality and cook and master that food. She said that way I can turn my pain and sadness into something good, as well as prepare for the day when the right one would come along. I think that was one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard in my life. My colleagues and I had recently gone to a Moroccan restuarant and I had instantly fallen in love with the spices used. So I decided to master Moroccan food.

I started with a chicken tajine, a dish with lots of tomatoes and onions! I began serving this to relatives and friends. For Christmas, my cousins gave me a Moroccan cookbook and I was in heaven! I made kefta, a spicy flavourful meatball in a yummy spicy sauce!

After 10 or so months of practicing, I was ready to put on my first full Moroccan evening. For my third anniversary of my Exodus, I decided to celebrate with a few friends. Since Moroccan food had special significance I decided to cook for about 6-7 of my closest friends. I made kefta, zucchini salad, moroccan spiced chicken, carrot salad, couscous and a rosewater milk pudding. It was a successful dinner!

Some people ask why I chose Moroccan food? I chose it because I didn't know anyone else who did it. It became my thing. I do things outside of the box, if everyone does it, I have no interest in it!

My summer supervisor quickly learned of my love for cooking and I agreed to cook a fancy Moroccan meal for the last night of our Leaders in Training Experience for the youth. The meal had many of the same recipes as well as a few others and a pastry dessert that proved most challenging without a fully stocked kitchen!

It did not take long for cooking Moroccan food to move from being a way to heal to being a way to have fun. I discovered how much I love the process of cooking, the turning ordinary ingredients into something extraordinary. I love trying new recipes, especially ones with ingredients that I don't think will work together! I can spend hours cooking. Cooking is not only a way I relax, but a way that I connect with God. I turn on the music and truly enjoy God's company for the hours of food preparation.

I have since moved on to different nationalities. Moroccan food is no longer a favourite, but it does hold a special place in my life. I am so thankful for the advice that i was given. I don't think I would have discovered how much I love cooking, or how amazing saffron and turmeric are. I would never have known what a tagine is or how to prepare a jalepeno pepper. Here are a few pictures from before the start of this blog that show a little of what I have done.

Salad with Blackberries Carrot and Coconut Loaf Chocolate Stew

with Dijon & Parsley dressing

Coconut Dhal Best Kraft Dinner ever! Cajun Quinoa

Indian Fruit Salad with Syrian Lentil Meal Peanut Butter, Broccoli and Tofu

Peppercorns and Fennel

It has been through cooking in many ways that I have discovered my calling in life.... one of the many aspects of the life I anticipate having is one in which I am involved with hospitality ministries. I've started now. Sometimes I cook a fancy meal for myself. Other times I plan to have a few people over to cook with me. Others still, I start a meal and spontaneously invite others to come and join me. Often it is last minute. I dream of teaching cooking and nutrition. I dream of creating a study curriculum that combines seeking God and food at the same time.

I collect cookbooks, sauces, vinegars and spices. I am eager to try new foods. So far I have dabbled quite a bit in Moroccan, Indian, Ethiopian, Japanese and now I've started the Caribbean. Next stop: Poland, Germany and Eastern Europe.

Caribbean Night

My absolute favourite thing to do is cook.... and it is something that can bring a smile to my face however gloomy I feel inside. I've been wanting to cook for my friends T & L for a long time, but it's difficult since they have kids and are allergic to cats. Opportunity presented itself last Sunday and I seized it - they became my guinea pigs for a Caribbean night. I cooked for many hours and was excited in my own little world in their kitchen. This meal was quite educational for me as it used vegetables and spices that I have never used before.

First, I made an appetizer of plantains, yams and sweet potato chips. This involved deep frying - something that I have never done! By the end of the cooking spree, I felt covered in oil! But it was definitely worth it!

If you are like me, you would have thought that yams and sweet potatoes are the same thing and buy the same vegetable for recipes that require either. I now stand corrected. The typical "sweet potato" that you see in the supermarket is most likely a "yam". Yams are orange inside with an orangey-brown skin. However, yams have red skins and white flesh (much like red potatoes). They have a slightly sweeter taste. While they are not from the same plant family, they are both good sources of the difficult nutrient to obtain: beta-carotene (the precurser to vitamin A).

Plantains are a type of banana that are grown as a vegetable. They must be cooked before eating and have a slightly bitter taste. In the plantain chips, they had a nice hint of sweetness making them very enjoyable and perhaps my new favourite vegetable (or is it a fruit?). They are cooked like potatoes - they can be fried, mashed, baked or boiled.

Corn is a major component of Caribbean cuisine. It is considered a sacred food and has a lot of significance in their culture. My cookbook has this note: "Not only was it a vital source of sustenance, but it also provided shelter, fencing and even clothing. Every part of the plant was used, even the silks surrounding the kernels, which became ties for tamales. When corn was cooked, whoever added it to the pot had first to breathe on it to rid of its fear and dying and accustom it to the heat." So I made this really yummy corn soup with tomato topping on it! After watching a girl on Master Chef use canned tomatoes and having the judges make a frown, I could not cut corners - I used fresh corn on the cobs :-) The soup was very sweet as a result!

The Salad had red onions, mangos, tomatoes and cucumbers with a light garlic and spice dressing. Very nice complement to the meal with a nice combination of sweet, salty, acidic and tang. Click here for recipe.

The main course was a thyme chicken and lime dish. It actually had quite a kick even though none of us could figure out what made it so spicy! Even I coughed on the spice! The chicken was sliced open and the spring onions and thyme dressing poured inside. It was very tasty, but unfortunately quite dry as I overcooked it. I learned the hard way that when substituting chicken thighs for chicken breasts, you need to adjust the amount of time to cook.

The rice had soy sauce, a bit of coriander and a couple of other ingredients that matched the rest of the seasoning for the meal. All in all, I think it was a good meal and I'm excited to add Caribbean to my cooking repertoire.

Stay tuned....

Chef de Cuisine has discovered "super foods".

If you are what you eat, will super foods make CdC2010 super? Stay tuned for the adventures of the superfoods.