throw away your zoodler
eat with your ears // issue 7
out beyond ideas - rumi
“out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. i’ll meet you there.
when the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.”
“i consider my studio as a kitchen garden. here, there are artichokes. there, potatoes. leaves must be cut so that the fruit can grow. at the right moment, i must prune. i work like a gardener… things come slowly… things follow their natural course. they grow, they ripen. i must graft. i must water… ripening goes on in my mind. so i’m always working at a great many things at the same time.” - joan miró, i work like a gardener
pantry.proto is the precursor to every cook’s own pantry. it’s the source code. it’s a curated playlist. tasteful selections of tools, appliances, and staples that work, but don’t overwork. all killer, no filler. these aren’t one-hit-wonders that crowd your counter space, they’re the prime pieces tried, true, and timeless.
we began with the tools that belong in your bain—extensions of the hands, knives, whisks, microplanes—and next, we cover appliances—objects that apply work without the aid of the hand. pots, pans, blenders to blend, food processors to process. pasta machines to noodle…. zoodlers to ~zoodle~ (just kidding, fuck a zoodle. zucchini is not a pasta. make pasta. make salad). it happens that cooking techniques are unbound: every cuisine, every family, every cook has their own variation… and the appliances we’ve invented to avoid technique are unbound too. this list removes the limits of a poorly stocked kitchen, but doesn’t eradicate the difficultly of cooking. good food is trouble. bread tastes better kneaded under the tiring forearm, garlic is sweeter when freshly peeled by hand.
to be a cook, a cook must cook: the burden of creation cannot be left to a cleverly designed machine. it’s the cook’s duty to create something more from something less—a feast from flora and fauna. creative expression meets food through hand, not the machine. true taste, deep flavor comes from that little space between the pan and the plate. use your hands, use your tastebuds, use your nose. more than recipes, more than zoodlers, more than machinery, we need humanity (s/o charlie).
pots & pans
8” + 10” non-stick pans - for cooking eggs, sautéing, low-temp searing. high heat damages the non-stick coating. never buy teflon, always anodized or ceramic coated
10” cast iron pan - for searing meat, stir frying, sautéing, roasting. cast iron is durable, holds consistent heat, and it’s seasoning adds smoky depth in flavor
2.5 qt sauce pod - for reducing sauces, cooking rice / pasta
5 qt dutch oven [staub | le creuset] - for braising, baking bread, reducing stock. must be oven safe
baking pans
sheet trays [cheap durable | quality non-stick] - for baking, roasting. spread food further apart on a sheet tray to help with crisping. overcrowding will just steam
wire cooling racks [1 per sheet tray | 2 per sheet tray] - for cooling baked / fried foods. airflow lets moisture evaporate and crisps up soggy bottoms
baking dish [pyrex glass | metal half-hotel] - for baking, roasting, braising. tall sides will trap moisture (i.e. keeps lasagna moist). baking dishes with lids are perfect for transport to the potluck
loaf pans [5” pan | 3” pan] - for baking breads / cakes. smaller is better, more elegant, and healthier—don’t consume footlong banana breads like me.
mixing bowl set - for mixing (salads, doughs), evenly oiling foods for roasting (don’t just drizzle onto a sheet tray!)
powered appliances
blender [top-tier | budget]- for blending liquids (smoothies, dressings sauces)
food processor [top-tier | budget]- for blending solids (hummus), emulsifying (aioli), mixing doughs (pasta, pie crust). invest in a big one, smaller food processors won’t fit doughs
hand mixer - for mixing batters, whipping cream. buy cheap at a thrift shop, replace with a stand-mixer when you have the budget
stand mixer - for kneading doughs, mixing batters, whipping cream, rolling pasta, even grinding meat!
passive appliances
cutting board [rubber | wood] - rubber cutting boards are sick, ask any chef. easy on knife edge, easy to maintain. wood is sexier, but requires oil maintenance
mandolin - for slicing thin + consistent. this is the best mandolin… and maybe the best weapon on the planet. respect it.
strainer [chinois | mesh strainer] for straining stocks, sauces, purées. the chinois conical shape will not clog like the rounder strainer.
pyrex measuring cups - for measuring out recipes. also for pre-whisking wet ingredients before adding to doughs + batters for even incorporation
12oz squeeze bottles - for olive oil + neutral oil. never ever again risk an oil tsunami from an imprecise bottle pour
mortar + pestle | spice grinder - for grinding whole + toasted spices. pre-ground spices dry out and lose their flavor. buy whole, toast to release aromatics, grind
extras
toaster - for toasting bread. can be done if a pan if you’re not a bread-head
roasting pan + tray - for roasting big meat / turkey + catching drippings in a sea of vegetables. honestly, i hack a baking dish w/ rolled up foil for the holidays
12 qt stock pot - for making bulk stocks + freezing. required for soup + ramen heads
pasta machine - for rolling out fresh pasta. atlas 150 is the only way to go for all you hand-cranked head. nonna style
rice cooker - this is your favorite rice cooker’s favorite rice cooking. behind the counter at your favorite sushi restaurant. go big, or stovetop it w/ this technique
wok - for stir frying (cast iron works too, but requires more oil)
three years ago, just before we all began self-isolating with our own liquor collections, i read a book called “the bar book.” it’s the first book every single one of my bartenders recommended to me for “devloping the fundamentals of cocktail building”. needless to say— my self-isolation was just as drunk as yours, but far more classy.
in an unprecedented over-consumptive times, i discovered that the crux of the home bar wasn’t the base spirits (gins, whiskeys), or the bitter amari, or the vermouths, or the cordials… no, i burned through more decadent cocktail cherries soaked in luxardo faster than any bottle. of course, i ate them as a dessert more than in a cocktail… and $20 per jar made an expensive snack.
for 3 years, my mom and i have schemed of preserving fresh, peak season, washington cherries into our own supply of luxardo cherries. this season, the stars finally aligned—i now have a mini fridge full of luxury. i share my recipe below, so don’t be afraid, make a pound of cocktail cherries, save them for the year, eat them on yogurt, fill your bath with them! every man, woman, and child deserves a cherry or four in their manhattan.
what better to pair with cherries than a chocolate cookie so rich it doesn’t even have space for flour. suspended somewhere between a underbaked cookie and a brownie’s edge, this recipe’s texture is it’s second best feature… more importantly, it’s simple and lightning quick, a recipe for a heavenly cookie to feed the celestial laziness within—not everything sweet should need to be worked for.
always pair your morning brew with a little morning stew— a music station of songs for before the coffee hits. like my grandmother’s winter soup, these songs are full of surprises—who knows you’ll get but god knows you’ll be full as hell by the time it’s over.
this morning stew of psychedelic jazz touts infinite, percussive grooves that ground listeners between crescendos of left-field sax solos, explosive breaks, space-age synthapellas, and oddball vocals. this is for mornings when you aren’t sure what you want to hear but also aren’t sure silence will suffice. it’s music somewhere between a euphoric epiphany and a confused dream—turning corner after corner after corner searching for answers that lie just around the next. four lefts make a straight, but three lefts are just right…
not quite sure where this morning stew will take you, so ride the wave, and remember you’ve got to get lost to get found… man. there’s no “skip track” on the radio.
psych jazz // morning stew playlist
one taste, one aroma, one texture… one bite can resonate— remain—on the tongue for a lifetime. the last bite is the moment when air seems to stand still, a song seems to crystalize in space. the last bite lets a moment last for a little while.
a plain, butter croissant from nick + sons bakery in brooklyn reminded me what it means to be alive last week.
constantly guzzling, gnashing, analyzing rich foods for what makes them great, i forget to taste food often. it’s easy for a cook to forget the whole when its pieces are plated on a petri dish. the trained tongue probes the unknown for every element of flavor, testing to purity—too salty, too bland, not enough, too much. gold too has a carat behind it’s brilliance to the trained eye—to the jeweler, many qualities live within quality. a dish too is just its components forged as one—every food has a carat of its own. a croissant is not a pastry—it’s dough, butter, and bake. like gold, the croissant has become plated with time—flattened into tasteless two dimensioned facade, a flaky shell masking the space where taste used to live.
the croissant at nick + sons bakery felt like holding gold for the first time—it was heavier than expected, as if gravity had a taste for quality too. at first bite, i remembered, in a shock, that true taste is pure, an undiluted union of parts. carats only commodify impurity, useful reminders to the object itself, but always falling short of the ideal they represent. the nick + sons croissant revealed that i had been eating semi-soaked sponges of webbed-wonder-bread for my entire american life.
true croissants take ~3 days to prepare between rising, rolling, laminating into a sheet of butter, folding, rolling, folding again, rolling, folding again, proofing, and fiiinally baking. patience allows their yeast to bloom into flavor, their gluttonous layers to strengthen into a chewy layers. with patience in mind, i ate my croissant like a meal—it took me 45 minutes.
walking down the streets of New York, croissant wrapped in tissue, i paused between bites to bury my nose within it like a respirator. like a flower, the closeness evoked some subtle, yellow sweetness of caramelized sugar and an earthy aliveness bloomed in the space between cultured butter and cultured dough. each whiff and each taste were different spaces, depths of flavor on different dimensional axes. with each bite, this pure taste—its direct, unnameable experience—parted all the silly ideas of flavor floating in my mind like the sea.
every so often, a bite comes around that holds “the pause”—it interrupts time, for just a moment, it pauses thoughts without disruption, allows the air to settles down just an inch. “the pause” is not why we eat food, it is why we seek food.
seek out nick + sons and take a moment to taste without thought—leave the words to fools like me.
if you don’t live in new york, scavenge the french bakeries in your city—taste them all. enjoy the good, forget the bad, but patiently, incessantly, hungrily seek this last bite until judgement dissolve into layer upon layer of butter and dough.
thanks for joining me for dinner. as always, don’t be afraid to send your regards to the chef—and feedback on these flavors are always welcome.