Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Roux the day...

roux [ruː]
n pl roux
(Cookery) a mixture of equal amounts of fat and flour, heated, blended, and used as a basis for sauces

Recently I was dining with some friends at a neighborhood joint in West Seattle. As usual our conversation drifted to food, not just what we were eating but the love of food that we all shared in so many ways. We talked about dishes we were planning to make, restaurants that some had just visited, a recipe that sounded so exciting I couldn’t wait to get home to try it. Somewhere along the way the idea of creating a food blog came up and someone asked me why I wasn’t writing about food! My mind suddenly drifted back to the beginning of my adventurous life with food and how it all really began.

My dearest friend Julie would often call to ask about some culinary delight she wanted to cook to impress the new or current man in her life. One of our conversations led to sauces and specifically a cheese sauce followed by none other than…”how do you make a cheese sauce, she asked?” “Start with a roux, I said.” “What’s a roux she asked?” I had to stop and think, she is just a couple of years younger than me, and we both grew up on farms and at our grandmother’s apron strings – so, what, what, what? I thought a roux was basic home grown, farm girl staple cooking. So without much more thought my reply was; “maybe you should take a basic Betty Crocker cooking class!” “If I do, you do, she shot back.” Thirty minutes later we were enrolled in a cooking class at Blue Ribbon Cooking School.

Dear Betty Crocker, no disrespect meant, but our first class was a bit beyond the basics. Julie had enrolled us in an Italian class making Gnocchi, those succulent little potato dumplings slathered in a rich nutty brown sage butter. Oh yummmm!

Something inside me came alive. We talked about this class for days. In fact weeks! The excitement barometer was on the rise. I started pulling my cookbooks off the shelf and reading with a new interest. Special trips were made to the grocery store to find new food treasures. Did my grocery store really carry that item before? My shelves were filling with bottles of this and shakers of that. Who cared if I was going to use them or not I was just excited at a new food find!

I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. In real life I am very animated, my hands are always moving and my face tells its own story. So writing a blog about my adventurous food world is a challenge that I am genuinely excited about. I think my excitement will spill onto the page and you will hopefully enjoy the world of food as much as I do. My love of food covers a wide spectrum, from shopping for food, cooking for my friends, being a private chef and having the opportunity to work with some the most well regarded chefs in Seattle and throughout the country. Not to mention just dining out! So until our next meal…roux the day!

1 Sassy Tomato