Traverse City Record-Eagle

Sally Ketchum: In The Kitchen

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August 10, 2008

In the Kitchen: Good, bad & pretend cooks

BY SALLY KETCHUM

I got to thinking about home cooks the other day. It occurred to me that there are good cooks who know they cook well and good cooks that don't know it. Likewise, there are bad cooks who think they cook well, but also bad cooks that admit they can't cook well. Further, some folks don't cook at all! As I thought about this, I found that there were extenuating circumstances and often some irony in many some cases.

He-Who-Must-Be-Fed had an Aunt Jean who was an imperious woman, but a marvelous cook. (She also had a husband who snored. When traveling, she took along a device that muted sound. Thus, as we drove across town to visit, my kids used to sing-songed, "Mean Aunt Jean and her snoring machine..." and during the ride, home, too.) Jean could do a roast fit for royalty and made mouth-watering, thick juicy burgers that were always served with her delicious homemade relish. The irony is that Jean had a not-so-modest fortune and employed help, including a cook.

My dear friend Nora is also a good cook who makes healthy, trendy food and can also masters the old favorites. But I don't think Nora realizes what an exceptionally good cook she is. You see Nora is a scientist, a sharp-as-a-tack, well-educated woman. Her scientific background results in modesty. She thinks, "Well, here's the cookbook, there are the measuring aids (spoons and cups, thermometers, and timers), here are the ingredients, so what's the big deal? Of all the cooks I know, she is the best at teaching her children to eat in a healthy way. "It's just nutrition," she says. Yet, I think Nora has an unconscious grace; she can cook outside the book. I recall her suddenly deciding to add scalloped apples to a pork tenderloin.

When looking at these types, there is one particular case that troubles me. Oh, we all know women who think they can cook, but turn out questionable food, if not awful stuff. But perhaps we are too quick to judge.

One woman I know, and will call Betty, lives with her family in great poverty. In fact, Betty's garden work and bartering skills feed the family. Her garden feeds them during the summer months and also supplies Betty with food to put way for winter.

Since they are rural, but do not hunt, Betty and family accept the venison donations from hunting friends, but they butcher the meat themselves, often working through the night during hunting season. Both Betty and her husband fish.

But is Betty a good cook? Well, it depends on what one considers. She most certainly is frugal and hard working. Her kitchen is neat and she has basic equipment from garage sales and charity stores.

HWMFB and I have eaten at Betty's table. The menu: mashed potatoes, white bread (from a day old bakery), fried fish, a plate of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, and coffee. With matter-of-fact apologies, Betty said the family does eat dessert.

My problems? The potatoes were gray because Betty uses all available seed potatoes together and harvests the mix, white, purple, yellow, etc. Unhappily, they were all in the same gray mash. The fish were suckers, bottom-feeding scavengers. (I think of my kids when they were teens.) But, yes I know bottom-feeding fish. We have schools of 3-foot carp prowling around our Lake Michigan docks. They are ugly, lazy fish with their noses in the lake bottom.

However, I know my Native American neighbors eat carp. But to see carp is not to love them. Yes, I'm biased. I see nature's beauty in a fat yellow-bellied perch (except for the $11-$13 a pound). As a child I caught a large Northern Pike in a lake near Alpena and won a week's worth of groceries. He was very pretty in pattern and colors, I thought.

At Betty's, I managed a few bites of potato (No gravy. I yearned for a scoop of basil butter.) and I mashed a piece of a sucker around my plate. When Betty went for coffee, I slid a glob into my paper napkin, which I pocketed. The cucumbers and tomatoes were delightful -- flavorful and garden fresh. Everyone else at the table ate with relish. HWMBF said the suckers were delicious.

So, is Betty a good cook? An artist needs paint and a canvas, a mason needs brick and mortar, and Betty can set a table for guests with only her garden bounty and gifts from hunters; so, yes, I think Betty is a pretty good cook.

Sally Ketchum is a northern Michigan author and journalist. She says that she is doubling efforts to make better use of her kitchen garden. She has been trading heirloom lettuce to a restaurant in return for a sweet bread, similar to canned Boston Brown Bread. She can be reached at ketchum1985@gmail.com.

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