Inside the Mind of an Instinctive Cook

I keep coming back to the idea of what it means to be an instinctive cook rather than one who simply follows a recipe. I have many friends who produce very good food by scrupulously following recipes, but they actually have no idea what they're doing other than being good technicians. Very often, when I'm part of a larger crowd than my immediate group of friends, someone will praise a dish and ask for the recipe. But instinctive cooks have a general idea just from having tasted something of how it was made, and can then try it at home and make it their own. I urge you to try to break out of recipe dependence and instead to get in touch with your ingredients and your mood and the season of the year, and just cook.

I am fortunate to have among my close circle of friends many excellent cooks, but the most instinctive cook I know is my friend Yaakov. His late mother was reputed to be the best cook in the neighborhood, and this instinct was passed along to Yaakov and his sister Rivka, who makes the most incredible food I've ever eaten. Fortunately, she doesn't live in our neighborhood, or despite all the running I do, I'd be a chronic overeater.

Some of the best times I've ever had in the kitchen have been when Yaakov and I cook together, and it's typically this impromptu session where we unload the prodigious amount of food he always has on hand, set it out on the counter and decide what to make out of what's there. These meals are created purely from instinct. Odd bits of vegetable are mixed with beaten egg and cheese for a frittata. Leftover cooked fish fillets are diced with some celery, garlic and ginger and re-heated with a leftover grain, and seasoned with soy sauce or Vietnamese fish sauce or that Thai sweet chili sauce I wrote about earlier. Almost anything cooked in broth (there should always be homemade broth in your freezer - never that awful sodium-soaked canned stuff) and pureed becomes soup. Stale bread is cubed, tossed on a baking sheet, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned (I am a big fan of Penzey's Sandwich Sprinkle - it makes the best croutons. Find it at http://www.penzeys.com/ and while you're there, buy a bottle of their Double Strength Vanilla extract and a small container of Vietnamese Cinnamon. Your baking will never be the same and the hefty price is justified by its aromatheraputic side benefit). Back to the stale bread - bake it in a 350 oven until golden brown. You could saute it instead of baking, but my mandate is to be as healthy as I am parsimonious.

One late afternoon, Yaakov and I turned leftover garden salad into a soup, a rice and vegetable dish, a chicken salad made without mayo, but instead with some red seedless grapes, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, and a frittata. Dessert was some less than perfect fruit that we poached in the microwave in a Ziploc steamer bagand poured over some reheated pound cake that just happened to be in the freezer. Debbie made a fresh salad. There was more food than the three of us could eat, so we called over some friends, opened a bottle of wine and feasted for hours.