The Making of a DIY Foodie

By Luci

I love to “play” with food, to cook creatively and to sample whatever food may come my way. As a kid and tomboy I was NOT! interested in cooking but cared about taste and was tuned in to texture. Later, I had some dynamite dining experiences that did two things. They lit up my foodie fires and gave me lessons not only about food but also about how to live a good life. I became one who loves food, who loves to explore the culinary landscape, who is fasciated by the complexity of food and the wonderful things you can create with it. Eventually, this love led to the two cookbooks, Dazzling Dinners and, coming soon, The Dish on Dazzling Dinners, that I and my foodie friends, Billa and Michele, authored.

Here are those experiences and the lessons I took from them.

1: Getting it - food is glorious: 

Still savoring a super summer in 1957 waitressing at the Guy Lombardo restaurant in Jones Beach, naive me and sophisticated Josie from Monsey, NY stayed a few days in a gloomy Midtown hotel before returning to Pittsburgh for our junior year. “Let’s have lunch at the Algonquin,” said Josie. With no clue to its fame, I was charmed by its atmosphere and its live-in cat. And totally blown away by the food. Chicken Soraya was glorious. Its apricot sauce, strange to me, delighted my taste buds with spicy sweetness, a bit of tart and luscious sweetness. I hesitantly tasted the peculiar looking but beautiful rice. Crunchy on the bottom, the white rice was crowned with a glistening raw (!) egg yolk and garnished with an improbable black something. The three together exploded gloriously in my mouth. Timidly, given my view of New Yorkers as cold and unhelpful, I asked the server: What is all this wonderful food?. Graciously, he told us about Queen Soraya of Iran, the place of apricots in Iranian cuisine and that black something, sumac, a condiment that I still cherish. 

The takeaway: There is a wonderful world of new and strange food and, surely, other things too. Explore it.

2. Learning that cooking can be creative and satisfying:

When a graduate student in experimental psychology, my adviser, Trevor Peirce, would occasionally invite several of us students to his apartment for dinner. The dishes were always experimental, never taken from recipes, but sometimes guided by them. Dinner started with questions, as does research, my life-long love. What can we cook tonight? - as Dr. Peirce checked his refrigerator and cupboards. Do you think this will go with that? And so the meal would be put together with usually great results, occasional duds, and lots of fun. Did the duds detract from the experience? Not at all; indeed, as in research and life, a failed idea  can be a lesson that leads to better ideas. As the great trumpeter, Miles Davis, remarked: Don’t fear mistakes. There are none … as long as you learn from them.

The takeaway: Creating new dishes or otherwise inventing is a splendid adventure that leads to satisfying fulfillment when successful and new insights when not. 

3. Knowing principles that characterize particular cuisines  facilitates creative cooking.

It’s 1970, an age of culinary dreariness. Imagine being a guest at a dinner that started with mushrooms marinated in soy sauce and that featured ham, anathema to any Hindu or Muslim, sauced with a classic hot Indian curry. Strange back then, but not so now, thanks to the culinary world’s acceptance of the idea of “flavor principles.” 

The cook at that dinner was Elisabeth Rozin, who was developing her cookbook based on her new and exciting idea that reorganized and revolutionized ideas about flavoring. The book: The Flavor Principle Cookbook was later followed by Ethnic Cuisine. Her idea was that each of the world’s cuisines uses a particular combination of ingredients that characterizes, defines and sets apart one culture from others. For example, you sample two eggplant dishes. Both use olive oil and tomato. But one adds cinnamon and lemon, the other garlic and oregano. One mouthful and you say “Greek” to the first and “Italian” to the other.

Greece and Italy are geographically close with highly similar agriculture, yet most of us immediately recognize a dish as Greek or Italian because of the combination of flavors each cuisine typically uses. Most Asian countries use soy sauce as a basic ingredient, but Korean cuisine typically adds sesame seeds and Indonesians employ peanuts. Many cuisines have more complex flavor principles, but you get the idea. 

Thus, you can use a flavor principle of one cuisine to create dishes that would not ordinarily be part of a different cuisine. For example, a pork roast could be given any number of different tastes by marinating with different flavor principles: Italian with olive oil, garlic, rosemary: Chinese with soy sauce, garlic, ginger; Mexican with olive oil, garlic, chili, lime; Middle Eastern with olive oil, lemon, cumin, garlic.

The takeaway: Principles guide and give one freedom to confidently explore and create the new. In cooking, these principles let you make every meal a fascinating novelty or, when in some moods, a meal that is traditional and comforting.  

4. Learning to eat and enjoy weird foods.

I was in magnificent Naples for the day, a hellishly hot one. Worse - it was a local holiday with shops and restaurants everywhere closed - SHUT! This is not good for visitors who are traipsing the city, desperately looking for an open restaurant because they are hungry, thirsty and weary. Finally! We found one. With sighs of relief we entered and were seated at a nicely laid table. The menu was in Italian and the server did not speak English. Not to worry, I said to myself and my companion. I’ve got a year of Italian 101 and I read the librettos of Italian operas. I can translate the menu! HAH! I thought I had ordered something which I had not. Out came a wide, shallow bowl with black olives in a large amount of red sauce where, floating prettily, were (YIKES!) whole - WHOLE! - baby octopus. So cute: round baby body, little arms stretched out, eyes staring upward at me. 

Squeamish me thought - OMG, these dear little creatures; I can’t eat them. Hungry me said - EAT! Hungry me won. Gingerly, I forked one, closed my eyes and brought it to my mouth. I chewed. It was delicious - really, really tasty. That Naples meal, happily, entirely changed my view of food. I got over my foolish rejection of foods that were jiggly and jello-like, or of odd color, or quite fibrous or of whole creatures or food with recognizable body parts. 

Grateful doesn’t do justice to that change. Over the years, I’ve traveled to different parts of the world where I was able to experience and truly enjoy exotic foods like highly spiced dishes in India and Sri Lanka (they do take getting used to), chicken feet and lamb cheek in China, internal organs of squid in Japan, curried buffalo balls in Sumatra, curried bat in Sulawesi, pigs’ ears in Spain and fried ants in Brazil. Except for the bland ants, the others were delicious delights. Thank you, baby octopus! 

The takeaway: Toss your taboos and expand your experiences. 

In sum, I, and I hope you, find enormous pleasure in eating good food, with openness and without proscription, whether it is your cooking or someone else’s.