Magnets and Soups and Why an Apprenticeship is a Good Thing

I got a big magnet for the car today and hope that will help get the word 

out about Fresh Fun Foods.

 If you see me out on the street, flash you lights a few times.  I'll pull over and give 

you a 10% off coupon.

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I’m a big National Public Radio listener.  It is my main source of news. Since I want long-form discussion and interviews with folks who are on the inside, NPR is my go-to when a story is breaking. Their initial coverage is usually just a sketch.  When all the facts are known, they can be counted on for a comprehensive story. Entertainment and lifestyle stories are the same.  I first heard Trombone Shorty on American Routes. The book features at the end of Fresh Air have turned me on to numerous fiction and nonfictions as the listing stack beside our bed will attest. I look forward to Kathy Gunst’s food features on Here & Now.

Earlier today, I heard a promo for Gunst’s bit where she was to tell everyone that there are soups that could be made and served either hot or cold.  That didn’t seem right to me.  When the story came on, I quickly scribbled notes, angry, contentious notes that would voice my disagreement in a snarky blog.  Needless to say, I don’t want to be that way, so I sat down to write a blog that would show respect for Gunst, who really seems like a fine person and a creative chef, while suggesting that there is a vast difference between cold and hot soups, a substantial difference that goes well beyond temperature. 

As I was organizing my thoughts, a promo for an upcoming program came on where a manufacturing executive said that in order to make high quality goods in the US; we need replicate the German apprenticeship program. Yep, and since today is the first day of school here in most of Pennsylvania and since I am a chef who went through a formal apprenticeship in addition to being a retired high school teacher, I am uniquely qualified to comment. 

But first, let’s get the cold/hot soup out of the way.  Ms. Gunst is correct that during this time of year both hot and cold soups can be appropriate. Weather dictates, along with what is in the market, the kind of soup that should be served. During the hot daytime, it is OK to go with a cold tomato soup. Likewise, as the sun goes down and the nights cool, a hot soup ought to be served.  Those hot soups should not be the hearty thick things we reserve for mid winter.  They should be soups made with the late summer bounty of tomatoes, zucchini, onions, peppers and herbs.  Where I very respectfully disagree with Ms. Gunst (especially since she is a published author with a radio show and I’m a guy typing in his kitchen) is that cold and hot soups require different cooking techniques to produce, since their aims are different.  A hot soup demands an extended period of simmering to marry flavors, while a cold soup often is just blended and served.  The flavors in a cold soup are married by careful selection and pureeing, an entirely different way of arriving at a finished product.  Additionally, the texture and seasonings are different.  You palate perceives flavors differently based on temperature. In my opinion, a chef has to decide what soup they are going to make then choose the proper technique to produce it.  Techniques to make cold and hot soups aren’t interchangeable.  Got that?

Back to the apprenticeship thing.  I spent a long time learning to cook and during that time I am grateful that a bunch of French chefs saw something in me that was worth teaching.  Maybe it was that I am reasonably bright and incredibly good looking or that I was willing to work for minimum wage or that I had a special ability where I was able to bully waiters with deft skill…I don’t know.  What I do know that I would not have invested the time and energy into someone as rough as I was in my early twenties.  I am grateful for the work that they put into me. I had the opportunity to teach other ragged kids in a similar way.

When I was coming up, places like the Restaurant School were just opening.  The C.I.A. was not really on the popular radar.  If you wanted to learn to cook you joined the army or sold your soul to a chef for at least five years.  My deal was that I agreed to work for minimum wage, $3.60/hr at the time. I would be paid for 40 hours, but would work as many hours as the chef decreed.  There was no democracy here. Many labor laws were ignored. If I wanted to learn, I had to do whatever the chef asked for however long he said. It was 10 years before I let anyone call me chef.

Later, when I quit the biz and went back to college, you see I found that I really liked my wife and kids; I got a job teaching high school. Since they knew my background, the guidance counselors always wanted me to talk to the kids who were on the fence about tech school. For some reason, after our talk none of these kids signed up for vo tech, which was the sole objective of the counselors, no matter the student’s needs. The reason the kids ran scared from vo tech was that I told them that there was a different route, one that would actually help them in their dream to be a chef. Instead of insisting that they should essentially become free labor for the tech school and be qualified to work in a cafeteria after graduation, I suggested that they stay in the high school and take every business class they could fit in their schedule. Also, they should get a job in the best local restaurant that they could beg their way into, all the while angling to move up in that kitchen or to move on when they have soaked every bit of knowledge out to that chef. They should get Serve Safe Certification and an AS from someplace like MCCC when they graduated, because you need the paper. In this way, they would have about four years experience, business skills, knife skills, a degree and a clue as to whether they liked restaurant work.  As a bonus, their debt would be minimal, probably none, since the student would be working in better and better places while going to school.

The guidance staff didn’t like this and eventually they stopped sending kids to me.  Enrollment at vo tech went up.

The apprenticeship system worked for me. The only hole was business education, something that could easily be built into a more formal program. Maybe, with the crazy changing job market that we have, a system where people enter into a formal agreement to learn job skills would be a better way to go. Right now, all the jobs with growth don’t require a degree, but also don’t pay a living wage or any kind of benefits that would permit someone to raise a family. Something has to change. The Germans might be onto something. 

A Unusual Snack (Tea Eggs)

You know those marble eggs you see at craft fairs and never buy, because you know that one day the kids will be fighting and they will grab it off the knick-knack shelf and toss it through a window?  You can make the culinary version of marbled eggs by following a simple, although extended method of preparation.  Tea eggs are good things to have hanging around the fridge to snack on.  They can also be included whole into many Chinese style stews.  tea eggs are beautiful to look at and have a rich, vibrant and complex flavor.

This recipe is adapted from Barbara Tropp’s The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, Hearst, 1982.  It is an essential resource, with easily understood recipes.  A revised paperback version is available on Amazon for $3.57.  Tropp argues that this recipe is best made with older eggs, ones that have been in the fridge for a week.  They will peel easier and since this recipe is all about the smooth, marbled appearance of peeled eggs, go with the older ones.  Use fresh, aromatic tea and make them ahead, allowing the eggs to marinate in the broth for an extended period of about 18 hours.

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Tea Eggs

8 large eggs

2 tbs. soy sauce

1/4 tsp. salt

2 whole star anise, broken

2 tbs. fresh, whole black tea leaves

1 cinnamon stick

2 2-inch strips of orange peel, remove white pith

Hard cook the eggs by putting the eggs in a large soup pot and covering them with cold water.  Add 1/2 tbs. salt and bring them to a boil.  Turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes uncovered.  Drain then cool under cold running water.  When the eggs have cooled, using the back of a large serving spoon, tap the eggs while turning, creating a spider web network of cracks in the shell. 

Place the eggs in a slightly smaller pot, one that gives them a little room, but where they fit snugly.  Cover the eggs with about 3 cups cold water.  There should be 1 1/2 inches of water over their top.  Add the seasonings and quickly bring the water to a boil.  Reduce the heat to a low simmer, stir to make sure that the seasonings are submerged and cover the pot, simmer for 3 hours.  Occasionally top off the liquid if has boiled away and swirl it to make sure that the seasonings stay in solution.

After boiling, turn off the heat and allow the eggs to steep for at least 8 hours at room temperature or up to 18 hours.  Discard the liquid.  Refrigerate the eggs tightly covered.  They will keep for at least 4 days in the refrigerator.

The eggs should be peeled before serving, either cold or at room temperature.     

A Soup for James (Cold Peach Soup)

Peaches are just about ready to come in Pennsylvania.  The better ones are available at farmer’s markets.  You should test the peaches before you buy.  They should look and smell like late summer.  Are they warm or cold?  Peaches that have been refrigerated are more likely to have traveled far, maybe from the Carolinas or further south.  If the peaches are warm, it is likely that they have been picked and rushed directly to you.  Secondly, feel the fruit.  As you lift them they should feel heavy in your hand, filled with juice, not mealy.  Lastly, gently with your thumb, press down on the top of the peach.  It should yield slightly and not be firm to the touch.  If it is still hard, put it back.  You want a tree-ripened peach.  If your thumb punches through, it is probably either just perfect or over ripe.  Either way, you have bought that particular fruit.  Don’t try to sneak it back on the table.  You’ll be sticking the farmer, since no one else will want to buy a peach with your thumb print

Make cobbler.  Fannie Farmer has a great recipe.  Make pie using Julia Child’s crust.  A simple tart, made with impeccably fresh peaches and glazed with apricot jelly is just one of those things that let us all know we are loved.  Eat them up, because peaches don’t get any better in the fall.   

The first time I got a compliment from Chef Jean Pierre Petite at the Café Royal in Philly was for a peach soup I made in August of 1984.  Normally, he spit out the food that I cooked and cursed about how much money I was wasting, how much time he would have to spend to fix my stupid mistakes, how my palate was made of tin…you get the picture.  This time was different.  He actually liked my cooking and put it on the daily menu.  Here is the recipe.

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Cold Peach Soup (serves 8)

4 pounds fresh peaches, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped

2 cups dry white wine

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 cup buttermilk

the juice of 1 lemon

4 tsp. fresh mint, chopped

Combine the wine, water and sugar in a medium saucepan.  Bring it to a boil, simmer for five minutes, then remove the liquid from the heat and cool completely.

In a large nonreactive soup pot, mix the peaches, buttermilk and lemon juice.  With a hand blender or food mill, puree the fruit.  Slowly stir in the wine syrup, mixing until it comes to a thick soup consistency.  Taste for sweetness.  You may want to add more sugar, but if the peaches were perfectly ripe that will be unnecessary.  Chill the soup for one hour.

Serve the Cold Peach Soup in chilled bowls garnished with chopped mint.  This recipe also works well with melons and many other soft fruits that puree smoothly. 

The cooks used to add vodka to the leftover peach soup and drink it down.  I can’t endorse that kind of bad behavior.

Tomatoes coming soon, but until then... (Black Bean Salad)

It is the very beginning of tomato season in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They haven’t turned up on most of the farm stands, however the mid size folks, those with a greenhouse to start the plants around March, will have beautiful, large tomatoes for you to enjoy.  Since the large volume, the mother lode of tomatoes isn’t here yet, try using them mixed in with other things, for example as a flavor component in a salad. 

Black Bean Salad is a good example of this.  Fresh tomatoes combine well with the other vegetables, while their juice, mixed in with lime, avocado and olive oil makes a fine dressing.  While I don’t always encourage this kind of thing, canned Goya Black Beans are a good product and will save the hassle of cooking dried.  After all, it is summer, we don’t want to spend these glorious days in the kitchen.  Serve the salad over romaine or with grilled chicken that has been marinated in lime, garlic, chilies and olive oil.

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Mexican Black Bean Salad (serves 6 as a main course)

2 15.5 ounce cans of black beans

2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 red onion, diced

1 bunch scallions, sliced

1 avocado, scooped and roughly chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

4 tbs. olive oil

the juice of 2 limes

2 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, chopped (La Costeña is a good brand)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Open the cans of black beans, place them in a colander and rinse them with cold water to wash off all the juice.  Allow them to drain completely while you assemble the salad.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the tomatoes, red and green peppers, onions, scallions and avocado.  Season them with salt and pepper.   Make the dressing in the same bowl by adding the olive oil, lime juice and chipotle chilies.  Again adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Allow the salad to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes so that the flavors of the vegetables and dressing will marry.

Stir in the black beans.  Mix to combine everything, check the seasoning and make any final adjustments, then cover the salad and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.