Ode to my friend T.K. (who out-cheffed me)

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February 21, 2010

T.K., you are one of those really energetic people. A do-er. The kind of person who cycles 30 minutes to and from work in the pouring rain, only to spend his evenings making wooden cabinets for his family’s hand-built home, all before heading out for a 5 km run. And so…what does a person like you make for a shared meal on a ski vacation? I should have guessed it, but I didn’t.

Yes, T.K., you managed to shock even the extreme foodie in me. As I was helping you haul up from the parking lot, not only skis and mittens, but also a standing mixer, an ice-cream maker, and a wheat grinder, I started to get weak in the knees. Was I actually about to be out-cheffed? And in a really good way?
“Cooking is my hobby,” says you. “I find it relaxing.”

T.K. on vacation

Yes, indeedy. Stopping in for lunch on that fateful day, I saw you “relaxing” while laboriously grinding wheat for flour, rolling and cutting fresh pasta, kneading bread, whipping together sorbet base, and cooking a number of other things to fill in the chinks. Who does that? Seriously. WHO?

It’s not often that I get treated to such delights in a home kitchen. (Being a chef has this big downside: everyone is afraid to cook for me). Even less frequently do I expect to experience a meal like this in a little ski chalet on a family vacation that includes five children under 7 years old. Actually, never is how often I expect this.

All I can say is “kudos” and “wow”! (And suggest perhaps a meeting with Over-Achievers Anonymous?)

Although I think you are at least a bit insane, I am so glad to have been there, to have feasted on that most homemade of homemade foods, to have enjoyed this special meal with friends: pasta hand made from freshly-ground flour, wild mushroom sauce, rustic bread, chocolate sorbet. What a treat for once to have been perfectly and happily out-cheffed!

(This post must also necessarily serve as an ode to T.K.’s wife, R.B., who not only has to live with this psycho energy-machine, but who also does most of the cooking in their house. I have enjoyed her delicious food and hospitality many times!)