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My most successful story, at least in terms of pleasing the people who read it, is "The Raw and the Cooked." I got a note from a reader asking where the "recipes" in the story come from, and of course there are no recipes, but I did have the following to say:
Most of the food in the story is a combination of mashups and invention. I do, for example, cook with California Bay Laurel, and it does taste different from commercial bay leaves, and you really should use a fraction of the amount. And I do make wild blackberry jam. And I do treat the weird little round wild plums as if they were cherries, though lately not the purple-leaf ones, as they have gotten too large lately and I can't reach the fruit befopre the birds and squirrels. But, for example, the St. Patrick's feast -- I've never done anything like that on a scale like that (using wild herbs as salad greens gets frustrating if you do more than add a sprinkle to your regular garden or store-bought salad greens, in my experience, but I continue to daydream). Clafoutis is a real dish: it's French, and they usually use strawberries or cherries. I've never made cioppino or bouillabaisse (actually at this very moment I can't recall which they made!) but a friend of my parents used to do it just like that, at a beach north of San Francisco, at least once a year, and a cousin of my husband's still does, as far as I know (I can't stand being around him for other reasons, unrelated to his cooking or his generous and friendly personality), though he doesn't do it at the beach.
I forget at the moment what all else Marek cooks.
The answer to the implied question: if you want to cook like Marek, you need to (1)absorb Mediterranean, Latin American and Asian cooking methods and (2)learn your local wild and farm-raised produce and (3) play with your food a lot so that you develop what I call "sympathy for the food." -- I don't know why, you're not feeling sorry for it. But you get a feel for which novel combinations are comfortable innovations rather than horrifying nouvelle grandstanding.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked the story.
Most of the food in the story is a combination of mashups and invention. I do, for example, cook with California Bay Laurel, and it does taste different from commercial bay leaves, and you really should use a fraction of the amount. And I do make wild blackberry jam. And I do treat the weird little round wild plums as if they were cherries, though lately not the purple-leaf ones, as they have gotten too large lately and I can't reach the fruit befopre the birds and squirrels. But, for example, the St. Patrick's feast -- I've never done anything like that on a scale like that (using wild herbs as salad greens gets frustrating if you do more than add a sprinkle to your regular garden or store-bought salad greens, in my experience, but I continue to daydream). Clafoutis is a real dish: it's French, and they usually use strawberries or cherries. I've never made cioppino or bouillabaisse (actually at this very moment I can't recall which they made!) but a friend of my parents used to do it just like that, at a beach north of San Francisco, at least once a year, and a cousin of my husband's still does, as far as I know (I can't stand being around him for other reasons, unrelated to his cooking or his generous and friendly personality), though he doesn't do it at the beach.
I forget at the moment what all else Marek cooks.
The answer to the implied question: if you want to cook like Marek, you need to (1)absorb Mediterranean, Latin American and Asian cooking methods and (2)learn your local wild and farm-raised produce and (3) play with your food a lot so that you develop what I call "sympathy for the food." -- I don't know why, you're not feeling sorry for it. But you get a feel for which novel combinations are comfortable innovations rather than horrifying nouvelle grandstanding.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked the story.