The other day, I posted a link to a video of TV cooking expert Alton Brown lecturing us, as he tends to do, about the right way to run one's kitchen. As I said, he always convinces me I have no business even trying to prepare a meal. I suspect if I watched him on a more regular basis, I'd even feel unqualified to phone to have a pizza delivered. A few readers challenged that or want to know why I feel as I do.
I enjoy watching Mr. Brown. He's clever, he's informed and I'm sure he's generally right about the "right" way to do things. I'm also sure that I will never in my life have a kitchen as well-stocked as his or that I will have nine hours to spend making a blintz. He can have that kind of kitchen and devote that kind of time because he makes his living as a chef and cooking teacher.
He can say things like, "Add a spritz of Worcestershire sauce" because he has cooked so much, he knows how much a "spritz" is. He also has a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. If I wanted to attempt a recipe that required it, I'd have to go out and buy one and over the next few years, I'd probably use up about three spritzes from it and wind up throwing 95% of it away.
He complains that people clutter their kitchens with "unitaskers" (devices that do only one thing) but he presumes we have every known spice and ingredient available and that it's practical to have them there because we use them often. In my kitchen, a bottle of Worcestershire sauce would be a unitasker.
I want to make clear: I admire Mr. Brown's skill. But I don't watch him to learn how to make what he makes because I'll never be able to replicate any of that. I watch him the way I watch champion athletes do other stuff I can't accomplish. Seeing him make spaghetti sauce is like watching that guy from Italy who did the Boston Marathon in 2:24:37. I ain't about to attempt that, either.
Consider: I used to make one of the simplest things to make in this world…a grilled cheese sandwich. I melted some butter in a pan. I buttered both sides of two slices of whatever bread I had on hand. I inserted whatever kind of cheese I had around. I put it in the pan, flipped it now and then and within about five minutes, I had what I thought was a pretty decent grilled cheese sandwich.
It tasted great and I was proud I made it myself. Then I watched the Alton Brown video that told me I did it all wrong. In fact, let's watch it together and see what I should have done…
Sounding very much like a college prof who thinks his students are lunkheads, he starts by telling me my grilled cheese sandwich is not a grilled cheese sandwich.
Apparently, my stove is of no use in this process. I have to go out in my backyard and light charcoal in my barbecue which I don't have. Years ago when I did have one, that took a little while to do and I never thought to go to all that trouble just to make two grilled cheese sandwiches. Then again, I didn't have my own cooking show.
So let's say I buy a barbecue and charcoal and all the things you need to get a proper fire going like a chimney starter and mitts and tongs. I mean, I sure don't want to disappoint Alton or attract his scorn.
He doesn't approve of my bread so I'm going to have to buy a whole loaf of "a good, hearty country-style bread" which I probably won't use in full before it goes stale on me. I do have butter and olive oil, even if I don't have a sprayer for the oil. He doesn't approve of my cheese or even that I use but one kind. I need to buy two kinds that I probably also won't use all of, and I don't dare buy it already-grated so I either need to find my grater or buy one of them, too.
I need a teaspoon of dry mustard. I don't have any so I'll need to buy a jar of it and use one teaspoon full. I need half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. Again, I don't have any so I'll need to buy a jar of it and use even less of it. I do have black pepper and a grinder so at least there, I'm equipped.
But I don't have two grill spatulas so I'll need to buy them. Then I'll need to take foil (I have that) and shape it around the spatulas to make little shallow trays with just a little bit of lip and…well, I've taken this far enough. I've made my point. What I haven't made since I watched that video is a grilled or even a griddled cheese sandwich. I can't do it his way and now I'm ashamed to do it my way. I take slight consolation in the fact that my method might be better than his when it's raining.
Let me say one last time that I like Alton Brown. He actually gets out there and demonstrates the art of food preparation, whereas most cooking shows now seem to be contests where they get a bunch of chefs together, give each one a hamhock, a bay leaf, a jar of Maraschino cherries and a live squirrel and tell them they have six minutes to whip it all up into a souflé that the judges will love. That doesn't relate to anything I might ever do in my kitchen either.
From now on, I may try nothing in my kitchen more complicated than Campbell's Soups. I sure hope he doesn't do a show about the proper way to do that. I'll probably have to buy a backhoe to open the can, import the water from Zurich and let the whole thing simmer over a smoldering volcano. And he'll tell me it isn't even Bean with Bacon like I thought.