Guest Post: Paige Orloff, When I Became a Cook
Jul 28th, 2009 by Marilyn
I’m out of town, and lucky to bring you a guest post from wonderful writer Paige Orloff, food editor of The Sister Project. When Paige isn’t writing, cooking, or thinking about cooking, this city-turned-country girl cares for family, friends, horses and fowl. I asked Paige to share a food memory, and did she ever; clearly, her roast chicken will take care of (just about) everyone.
When I Became A Cook, by Paige Orloff
For at least the last twenty years, maybe longer, I’ve considered myself a passionate cook. It’s not a hobby, exactly, or an interest, though it is also both of those things, mostly, it’s just what I do. Mind you, I’m a writer and a mother and a wife and a (well-intentioned if inconsistent) friend and a volunteer and a (bad) gardener and I live on a farm with chickens and horses and….you get the idea. My life is full. But the place it most often feels full, and fulfilling, is the kitchen, and much of my passion for cooking is rooted in my relationship with my mom, whose cooking was always the best of any mom I knew.
My mother lives with me now, and she revealed to a friend visiting earlier this summer that one of the reasons she learned to cook (when she was a 19 year old bride living with my dad in Boulder, Colorado) was for the attention it gained her, from my dad and his crew of friends. I suppose that motivation has been mine, too: in college, I remember cooking a meal for a guy on whom I had an absurd, and unrequited, crush. My attempt at seduction failed utterly (though I did end up dating his roommate), but the coq au vin, made for the first time, was really, really good. (Is it a coincidence that the object of my crush is now a successful restauranteur? Hmmm.)
I often try to pinpoint the place in my story when “cook” started to describe me: in graduate school when I threw huge “orphans” dinners ever Thanksgiving? In college, when I baked fresh bread for the half dozen or so guys who shared an off-campus apartment building with me and my roommates? In high school, when I baked care packages of Christmas cookies for classmates who’d returned to their far-flung homes (I went to boarding school) for the holiday? None of those feel right. There’s no B.C., “before cook”, in my timeline, though there are plenty of other stark divides.
When I was four, my mother had a stroke. We were sitting at dinner, the three of us, eating chicken curry. I loved curry nights, because of the delicious, mellow stew and fluffy (never sticky) rice, but also because of the condiments my mother always served alongside: peanuts, shredded coconut, chopped tomato, chopped apple. These were always presented in a tiered Japanese porcelain box, with square compartments stacked one on top of the other, decorated with gold leaf and painted flowers. It was a wedding gift to my parents from my father’s older brother. The whole preparation now feels a little hokey, a very 1970s American interpretation of Indian, but even a fancy foodie would find it delicious. One night over curry, my mother collapsed into her plate, and for years thereafter, my world was much changed.
By the time I was six, Mama was home, but not yet healed. Bedridden much of the time, it was hard for her to care for me and my dad. She did everything she could: I have vivid memories of sitting at her bedside in the morning before school while she brushed my long hair. My other most vivid memory from that hazy time is the afternoon she taught me, step by step, as I ran back and forth between her bedside and her pride-and-joy kitchen (way ahead of its time in 1972, with a restaurant stove and stainless steel countertops) how to roast a chicken.
I’ve never really asked her why she did this. Did she just really crave chicken for dinner? Did she think it would help me to have some control in an out-of-control time if I could put dinner on our table? Maybe both. While the exact recipe from that afternoon is lost (at least to me–she may well remember!), the feeling of pride I felt is still vivid. Maybe that’s why I still relish serving this absolute simplest meal to family and friends, no matter the occasion or time of year. I’ve tried many different versions, tinkering with recipes, rubs and seasonings along the way, but this is my tried and true method. It won’t fail you, and it will comfort you. If it could help heal a scared six year old and a 36 year old stroke victim, roast chicken can do anything.
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Roast Chicken
Serves 4
This method is adapted from Julia Child. I find it easiest to do this in my well-seasoned cast iron skillet (I like having the handle to grab when taking the pan in and out of the oven) but you could certainly use a roasting pan. If you don’t have fresh herbs on hand, the chicken will be perfectly good with just the lemon, or even just a bit of salt and pepper. If you are lucky enough to find a local, small farm chicken – try it. The flavor really is different, and better.
1 chicken, around 4 lbs. (If possible, allow the chicken to air dry in the refrigerator for several hours before roasting: just unwrap it, pat it dry, and place it in the skillet or roasting pan, and shove into the fridge. Drying out the skin makes it crisper when cooked.)
coarse salt (I prefer Maldon)
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped mixed herbs–I usually use a handful of Italian parsley, a few springs each of thyme and rosemary, and perhaps a bit of tarragon
2 lemons
2 T extra virgin olive oil plus extra for oiling the pan
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Rub your pan with a couple of teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle the dried chicken with about 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper, inside the cavity and all over the outside.
Grate the zest off the lemons. Combine zest, chopped herbs, garlic and olive and olive oil in a small bowl. Add another pinch each of salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Stuff some of this mixture (about a tablespoon per side) under the skin of the breast. Smear the rest all over the inside and outside of the chicken. Stuff the zested lemons inside the chicken’s cavity.
Place the chicken on its side in the pan. (This can be a balancing challenge; just do your and the chicken’s best.) Roast for 25 minutes on that side, then remove from oven, and place the other side up. Return to oven for another 25 minutes.
Turn the chicken breast up (lying on its back) and roast for another 25 minutes. Finally, turn the chicken breast down, and roast for the last 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and serve hot or cold. The juice of the roasted lemons is delicious squeezed over the sliced meat.
I love this, Paige. It’s as fragrant as it is real. Thank you for sharing it at Simmer!
What a beautiful essay, Paige. I tell people I learned to cook as kid because my mother was awful at it, but the truth is more complicated. She was awful at it, she was also too busy. My father left when I was a kid and my mom supported us entirely and cooking dinner was the one way I could help; she was always so tired.
Sending a big hug to that scared little six-year-old, and your mom as well.
I got a little teary reading this. Cooking really is so much more than just cooking, isn’t it? A way of exerting control in a chaotic world, a way of showing love.
My family ate curry that way too — with toasted coconut and dry roasted peanuts and raisins and sliced bananas. My favorite curry recipe is still from my 1960′s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and it’s made with apples and milk.
I roasted a chicken on Sunday…upside down. Oops.
What a beautiful story, and loving tribute to a mom. Thank you for sharing, Paige.
Beautiful post, Paige. I love reading stories that testify to the power of food. Food is more than sustenance. It can bridge gaps. It can function as a time machine. It is therapy.
I’m currently visiting my in-laws in southwest Nebraska. Even though I’ve been married for nine years, I always feel a bit out of place when I’m here. However, this morning I helped my mother-in-law make Kolache and horn rolls. When I’m in the kitchen with my mother-in-law I feel like I’m a true member of the family.
Paige: just noting that I’d probably be all over the tiered Japanese porcelain box. What a serving piece!
Thank you! Nicely written and well put. It IS more than just cooking.
Yo, sister Paige. I’d travel high low and under the wire to read you and here you are with this lovely essay about your cooking self. A delicious, piquant read. I’m savoring it.
Oh, Paige. You know, even though you have told me this before, of the years between ages 4 and 6 and your mother’s illness, I cannot keep it registered. To meet her now, who would know? But you knew, then, and I am sorry for all the fear it must have caused, even though it yielded a fierce woman (that would be you) who is capable in the kitchen and in so many other realms. xoxo
Why hello, Margaret & Marion! You must be very proud of your “sister” Paige. What a pleasure to have her (and you both) at Simmer.
Wow, thanks ALL OF YOU for these lovely comments! Feedback like this is why we all keep reaching out with pen and plate into the strange digital family that is the ‘net.
Tea: I’m sending that hug right back to your six year old self!
Kate; For me, sadly, cooking is totally a control thing, though I try and try to let go a bit. And I love that you remember that version of curry. I have to ask my mom which recipe she used.
Renovation Therapy: Upside down or rightside up, roast chicken is just as good. It can be totally homely and totally delicious, which is one of the reasons I love it.
Chef Gwen, let’s hope my mom agrees! She doesn’t always like it when I write about her, and doesn’t like to think/talk about those sick days (who can blame her?)
muddywaters: Nebraska is so on my list of places to visit–lots of my mom’s family is from there! Thanks for the vision of you in the kitchen. What is kolache?
Nella:Thank you for the kind, kind words.
And you M sisters–all three of you are the absolute best. Marilyn, if you roadtrip to US, I promise to use the Japanese box to serve–something!
Hi, Paige–
Thanks for sharing your first roast chicken experience with your Mother’s “long distance” directions from her bed. I too experienced a bedridden Mother at that age and think the sense of helplessness would have been helped with a little cooking! Also enjoyed your July Berkshire Living article on Margaret Roach and her lush gardens. I hope you keep fitting the writing into your busy life.
Thank you for sharing that amazing story.
Wow… that was beautiful and even though I knew about this I never really knew. The thing I love most about your writing is how you find a way to bring the reader right into the middle of a situation and to feel part of it.