Cook Like a Rock Star - Anne Burrell [3]
Cooking is not a genetically inherited skill—people forget this. Just because your mom or your grandma is a good cook doesn’t mean you will be. Cooking is something that you need to learn how to do—just like everything else. The purpose of this book is to teach you how, in a fun way, to cook—or to help you expand your skills and your repertoire if you’re already comfy in the kitchen.
When I was in grade school, high school, even college, I just wasn’t interested in school; I did as little as I could to get by. But when I went to culinary school, it was all about doing and using my hands—not just listening. I was like a sponge. Finally, I was in the right place at the right time in my life; I actually enjoyed school and wanted to learn. And that’s my goal with this book: to get you cooking and tasting things and having so much fun you don’t even realize how much you’re learning.
I went to culinary school to learn how to cook and I’ve been working for years to know all that I do today—but I’m going to leapfrog you ahead. I’m giving you the benefit of my blood, sweat, tears, and even my mistakes in this book. But I’m also giving you my happiness and joy—my triumphs!
As a girl who has spent most of her career in restaurant kitchens and as a culinary teacher, cooking is part of my soul. For years I’ve been internalizing cooking techniques, losing sleep over them, and forever fantasizing about food. I’ve learned how to coax the most out of a dish, how to combine ingredients to get the best flavor, and how to time everything so it all comes together at the moment it should. I’ve worked hard to become the cook that I am, and I’m proud to call myself a chef. But chefs aren’t rocket scientists, and most of what we do is not all that difficult. It’s stuff you can do at home once you know how—which is what I want to teach you with this book … and we’re going to have A LOT of fun along the way.
The recipes in this book are very near and dear to me, and they get me excited every time I look at them. (Even while I was writing this book, I’d sometimes stop and think, “This sounds SOOOOO good, I want to make this now!”) This collection tells the story of who I am as a chef, and if you take these recipes and make them your own, they’ll help you develop your inner chef too (a.k.a. your inner rock star).
So here’s the dealio: I want you to have fun making dinner tonight, and then I want you to sit down with your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids, closest friends, first date, neighbors down the hall, anyone, and eat the delicious meal that you made—from scratch—yourself. I want you to know what it feels like to create lovely food for people you care about and feel confident that you can do it over and over again. I want you to rock out and be the chef of your own kitchen! And I want to help you do it.
THE MAKING OF A GIRL CHEF
Apparently I started on my journey toward becoming a chef at a very early age. According to my mother, when I was three years old I came to her and said, “I have a friend named Julie,” and she asked, “You do? Julie who?” And I said, “Julie Child! I watch her every day on TV.” It was another twenty years before I had the epiphany that led me to make cooking my career, but even as a kid I knew that dinner—making dinner—could be fun.
When I started out in the food world, there weren’t many women in restaurant kitchens, and the Food Network was in its infancy. I started cooking because I was totally passionate about food—the concept of celebrity chefs didn’t even exist yet! I went to culinary school because I wanted to know everything I could about food and become a badass cook. All I wanted to do was work in a restaurant.
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, I did a second stint at a culinary school in Italy to learn how to cook Italian food. My time in Italy opened my eyes to a whole other world of food, cooking, and a way of life that I didn’t even know existed. When I got back to the States, I headed straight to New York City—where I’d always wanted to end up—and I was immediately