What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [64]
Young people who are able to feed themselves are bound to be quite something in the eyes of their friends who don’t know how to cook. They will be admired and sought after. More than once we’ve met a young man who can dazzle his guy friends—and girlfriends—with even a modest amount of kitchen prowess. My twenty-four-year-old nephew cooked his way into a house he wanted to live in by impressing his future roommates sufficiently with a single meal that they agreed immediately he should live there. And Tom Anderson has already shared his new cooking skills.
“I had three friends over for dinner and served a risotto with sausage, artichoke, and peas; a green salad; and a chocolate-peppermint ice cream cake.” And he dressed his own salad with olive oil, vinegar, and salt. “That’s something I knew from living at home,” he said.
His friends were impressed.
Although this menu seems ambitious for one who describes himself as standing on new and shaky kitchen legs, Tom had a theory as to why it wasn’t so hard for him to pull off what is a rather sophisticated meal, one demanding last-minute attention to detail.
“Working in labs, as I have for the last three years, isn’t that different from kitchen work. It’s all recipes. So the multiple things going on at once in the kitchen were never overwhelming. I could make the risotto while prepping the dessert—not a big deal. At one point I was tending all three dishes at once!”
Some of our young acquaintances tell us that they like to go out to eat, preferably with a group of their friends. But even so, there are some dishes that might be good for them to know how to cook, dishes that aren’t too expensive that they can share, like spaghetti, or a perfectly cooked pot of rice to put under a curry, or a roast chicken and a well-dressed salad. Having even a few fundamentals under the belt will make a young person self-reliant. And when his friends discover that he can cook, and should they become serious poachers and pests in the kitchen, they might be asked to chip in some cash for their home-cooked meals. Before you know it, that young man (or woman) might have a supper club going.
For some young people, cooking can become an avenue to friendships and popularity when confidence in other areas isn’t strong. Bread in its many guises was my introduction to the world of cooking and my means to overcoming shyness. It served as a springboard from which I quickly dove into all the other foods that might be cooked as well, starting with soups to go with that bread.
For others, cooking can be a form of self-defense. My niece, writing from Italy, where she is spending her junior year, described pretty much a starch- and cheese-based diet for the first month. Then she wrote, “My roommate and I are cooking vegetable dinners at home to combat the overwhelming, albeit friendly barrage of pasta and pizza. Otherwise it is possible that I may return from Italy in the shape of a large noodle.”
Entertaining is something else a young person might want to take on one day, and there are different ways to go about it. A bachelor I once knew (not a kid but he can be an example to one) was very smart about food and wine. He served beautifully orchestrated dinners that were always flawless because he had just two menus. He made those menus over and over and they were easy for him to produce because he knew just