On Cooking Hard Things

In the kitchen, as in life, you can only get better by challenging yourself.

Had some fun writing again for

WARKITCHEN

in their August issue. Check out the whole issue here, which as always, is beautifully laid out and full of knowledge¹.

I wrote about “cooking hard things.” How in the kitchen, as in life, you can only get better when you challenge yourself, pushing against your limits². The entire essay is reproduced below. In the magazine article, Rocky, the editor of War Kitchen, featured some photos I sent him from the lamb roast the Family CWD had earlier this summer.

Despite being of Vlach descent³ and having eaten and cooked plenty of lamb in my day, I’ve never roasted a whole animal over a spit⁴. Having developed a pretty good relationship with a number of folks who could supply a lamb on relatively short notice, it seemed only necessary that we rectified that situation posthaste.

So we did.

I think I can speak for all involved when I saw this cook was a blast. There’s something inherently primitive about skewering a lamb, roasting it over a fire, carving it. But this wasn’t without it’s challenges — it was a hard thing to cook. We had to navigate not only a live fire and associated heat management, a long cook time, and high expectations, but also inclement weather, malfunctioning equipment, and grease burns.

It was a blast.

But it also was a challenge. It forced me out of my typical comfort zone. I had to adapt on the fly to changes outside my control⁵. It was fun and it certainly made me a better cook. Without doubt, I’ll feel more comfortable next time I do a whole animal roast⁶ — and even something like an entire lamb leg or other larger format cut will seem more simple.

Anyway, I’ll leave you the full article from the August issue of War Kitchen, printed there under the title “The Art of Cooking.”

Enjoy!

There’s a Tolstoy quote, from Anna Karenina, often applied out of context: “Every happy family is alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Cooking — to those who cook, who I’ll refer to chefs, for ease, even if the title technically only applies to those who have formally studied cooking — is much the same. Every simple dish is alike; every difficult dish is difficult in its own way. 

An example: I’ve been cooking pasta carbonara in some variation for the last ten years. I love it for its simplicity, its flavors, its ease. I can cook it, nearly, with my eyes closed, by smell and by sound. It’s a simple dish. So is searing a steak, roasting vegetables, making an omelet. These dishes, while different in taste, in texture, in preparation are all simple dishes, all the same. They are go-to dishes; don’t think, just cook dishes — eat and enjoy dishes. Every chef should have them.

But also, there are difficult dishes. There are time-sensitive cooks, that call for precision in heat, in duration. There are large format cuts which require thoughtful technique and an abundance of time, of attention. A soufflé, without the requisite skill — or, care — can collapse, ending it. A brisket, left unattended for too long, can flip from succulent to desiccated in a flash⁷. There are many difficult dishes, infinite difficult dishes, and you should be cooking more of them. That’s how you become a better chef, a more confident chef, a less flappable chef. 

Today, so often, we focus on convenience. How easy it is to order food from your phone, where you can have a multitude of cuisines delivered to your door in an hour. For those of us who rally for more people to cook more often, the first hurdle we must cross is the ease factor. So we spend time describing how you can bring an entirely homecooked meal to the table in less than thirty minutes⁸. How you can, less expensively, make a delicious meal at home rather than order one online. This is doubtlessly important to bring more chefs into the fold — start small, start simply — but shouldn’t be the end of the conversation. 

Since you read

WARKITCHEN

⁹, I assume you also feel comfortable in the home kitchen. I assume you also care about your health, beyond just the nutritional aspect. So I’ll use building strength as a metaphor. As a beginning lifter, it’s easy to make gains in the weight room. Max efforts increase weekly — daily, even — as your body ramps into overdrive, building muscle, learning technique. But, inevitably, this rampant growth slows. No longer is it enough to lift once or twice a week, using the same repetition schemes. In order to push past a plateau, you must do increasingly difficult lifts, varying reps and intensity. Only then do you get stronger, more fit, more powerful.

So, too, it is in the kitchen. The novice chef learns to make a steak, make an omelet, a vinaigrette, a ratatouille. But if he doesn’t continue making more difficult dishes, his prowess will stagnate. He needs the progressive overload of bone broth — simple, but not always easy — of pan sauces, of entire chickens, oxtails, pheasants, whole fish, of whole hogs to become a better chef. He needs to be cooking difficult things. With each victory, with each hard dish, the next becomes easier, more attainable. You start watching videos of how to spatchcock a chicken, you finish by butterflying an entire lamb after cleaving through its pelvis. You need to be getting uncomfortable in the kitchen in order to get more comfortable in the kitchen.

This, you might also realize, applies to everything. 

Each of us starts his or her journey in the kitchen at a different place. For some, the cooking might be easy no matter what the dish — so challenge yourself with your sourcing. Eat and cook only with local produce, meat, dairy. Skip the grocery store and instead buy only things in season at your local farm. That will flex your culinary muscles. Or, go a step further and commit to harvesting your own food — whether by hunting or by gathering. You can plant your own garden, forage for mushrooms, catch your own fish, kill your own deer. You can try cooking with limited utensils, only one pan, only with one source of heat. There are infinite variations to make cooking more difficult. The only person stopping you is you.

You must commit to getting better.

You must cook hard things.

1. Where else can you learn about bee pollen, lab-grown meat, and the importance of potassium in one magazine issue?

2. A frequent topic for me, as written about also in “On Adventureteering.”

3. Another article describes the Vlachs as “mountain pastoralists.” We always said “hillpeople,” but the former also sounds about right.

4. And Grandfather CWD, despite having hand turned numerous spits in his youth, had never been responsible for a lamb roast, either.

5. I think I only had one near meltdown, right Mrs. and Tia CWD?

6. Maybe something like the way Francis Mallmann cooks a lamb…

7. I’ve done this more than my fair share.

8. Wrote a Twitter thread describing how to make a steak dinner in 25 minutes for my friend Justin (@the_dadchef).

9. And, since you’re reading it here, Cow We Doin’.