Beginnings

To the best of my recollection, I took my first cooking class at the age of five.  I was the youngest in the class.  I remember there being teenage boys attempting to learn how to cook before heading off to college.  Honestly, I can't remember what we made, but I want to say rice crispy treats and English muffin pizzas.  English muffin pizza may not have been invented at that point, but you get what I mean:  we were not REALLY cooking.

I still have my very first cookbook:  Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook (1970).  It is worn from use and love.  I was very proud of this book; I still am today.  Occasionally, I make the potato salad from this book.  It calls for homemade French Dressing to flavor the potatoes, celery, relish, onions and eggs.  Just before serving, you toss in some mayonnaise.  I love it, but my boys prefer basic potato salad, consisting of nothing more than potatoes, eggs, mayonnaise and a splash of dill pickle juice, plus salt and pepper to taste.  My grandmother makes their favorite version, so who am I to argue?

My Very First Cookbook                        

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Even as a young child, I knew that making Betty Crocker's "Bunny Salad" consisted little more of playing with your food and was not really cooking.  Imagine canned pear halves arranged on a bed of lettuce as bunnies.  Add raisin eyes, blanched almond ears, Red Hot noses and cottage cheese tails.  Voila, "Bunny Salad"!  I don't recall my mother telling me not to play with my food as a child, but for some reason, playing with food seemed like entering "naughty" territory.  Even today, it can still feel that way, but oh, it can be so worth it.

I am of the belief that fresh Haricot Verts (or in a pinch fresh Blue Lake beans) taste best when lightly steamed (they must still have a crunch), tossed with a little butter and seasoned with salt and pepper and (HERE IS THE TRICK) eaten with your fingers.  My kids can attest to this and even agree.  I don't know what it is.  I thought it might be some chemical reaction with the metal of the fork and knife, but I have experimented with plastic utensils, and they still don't taste right.  This has to be one of the most basic dishes, but it tastes 1000 times better when eaten with your fingers.  Go on, try it!

I may have caused a divorce, or at the very least I've made a man's life hell over this issue.  I was with a chef, heading out to sample a new restaurant's dishes when we bumped into an old friend of the chef's.  Lo and behold, this man and his wife were eating a side dish of steamed green beans.  My heart skipped a beat, and then I looked the gentleman squarely in the eyes and said, "Those will taste better if you eat them with your fingers," so he tried it.  If looks could kill, that man would have fallen face down in his Coq au Vin before swallowing his first green bean.  His wife was disgusted and shocked.  How could her husband of 50+ years suddenly be so savage, have so few manners and take dinning advise from a strange woman less than half his age?  She may never forgive him.  She may have brought it up every family Thanksgiving dinner since.  How could her husband have intentionally embarrassed her to death like that in public?

You might think I feel bad for what I have done to this man.  I do not.  Even if he has never eaten a green bean with his fingers again, he, for one cool autumn night, had the best damn green bean experience of his life.  I do, however, feel bad for his wife.  "She don't know what she's missin'!"

 

HARICOT VERTS

1 pound fresh Haricot Verts

2 Tablespoons butter

sea salt

fresh ground pepper

Rinse and stem beans.  Steam beans until tender crisp.  Toss with butter; add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot and eat with your fingers.  Seriously, I'm not kidding about this.