western food + the labor of love

today carrie, v and i made a pot pie. we started with the thought of corn on zephyr, then headed to star after we got home from our respective workplaces, where corn blossomed into a summer pot pie. "summer pot pie," i know, is a vaguely odd phrase, since pot pies are hot and staying for wintertime, and it's...well, summer. we started with sausage: i browned whole sausages (sweet italian sausage, divested of the casing), then broke them up and browned those bits. a nice fond developed on the skillet (p.s. you cannot develop fond in a nonstick skillet. do not use nonstick skillets.) and i dumped the rendered grease in our second-best skillet, then browned the chicken in the fond-covered skillet. we had decided that the sausage fond might not turn into a full-bodied gravy on its own, so we added some chicken breast, though what chicken breast can do for fond is beyond me, since real chicken flavor comes from the dark meat or the bones. anyway, once the chicken was out, we added some onions and deglazed the pan with a little port wine, tossing the remaining onions into the other skillet to caramelize them a little for the pot pie. going back to the gravy pan: we added some water and the corn cobs for more flavor. carrie had gone to the supermarket for thyme and chicken stock, and when she got back we added some stock. after finishing the caramelized onions, we sauteed some zucchini, dumped it into a bowl with the meat and some sliced grape tomatoes, and used that pan to make a roux for the gravy. for once, i made the right amount of roux for the gravy, and didn't add too much flour for the volume of butter i had melted. however, i must be doing something wrong because my roux always cook really fast when i do them in a stainless steel (read: not nonstick) skillet, which makes it difficult to cook evenly.

so everything went into our rounded square (ha! square candies that look round...ok, i'll stop with the random references) pyrex dishes, and we topped them with pastry dough we'd made while prepping the other stuff. i made sure i seasoned them correctly - the one v and i did over the weekend was sadly unseasoned - and we popped them into the oven. and waited - for a long time! those thing took at least forty-five minutes before the pastry crust browned. they were, however, quite lovely, if i do say so myself.

and there you have it: food that's a labor of love. it occurred to me that chinese food is not a labor of love - the general philosophy of food is one of speed, production, technical prowess, eating the food, but not so much on enjoyment of the process of making food. the western philosophy is so different: people become chefs because they love feeding people, but when you work in a restaurant i imagine that you start realizing that the important thing is a love for the process of making food. think about the love that goes into a chicken broth, for example - no love, no broth. "labor of love" is a phrase i associate with thomas keller and the way he cooks, so in a way, i am channeling thomas keller when i cook. at least, i like to think of it that way...i like to think that food as a labor of love is also a rather flexible one, so that it changes as you change. so someone like grant achatz does a stage at the french laundry, but then moves on to do something fantastic that's all his own - but you can clearly see the thomas keller influence. it's so satisfying to see the world operate in the way it should.