Non Negotiables

To me...

As I was making a lamb shoulder that ultimately enveloped my apartment in the smell of blistered fat and became my entire personality for three days, I pulled out my phone to dictate a note.

“To me, the essence of cooking is taking a spitting piece of meat out of a cast-iron pan, and then proceeding to cook vegetables, aromatics, and preferably onions and garlic in it’s fat.”

This is a dumb and pretentious quote, but the idea is there. There’s something thrilling and intoxicating about instinctual cooking. While your first thought might be to discard a layer of moderately burnt animal fat, keeping it, and bringing it to the next step of the recipe, is what will intensify flavor, texture, and overall well-being of the dish.

Similarly, there are some items, habits, and methods that have become a reflex to me, but would perhaps be good to write out and share for anyone interested.

Let me know if this was more helpful than it was painful, and I’ll continue as a series.

xx

R