Hamilton Melissa - Canal house: cook something

Christopher, left, and Melissa, right, in the Canal House kitchen

Good cooking begins with good shopping. Fresh, wholesome food is the starting point for any recipe, so find a really good grocery store. You want helpful service, fair prices for quality goods, and management that is willing to bring in what shoppers want to buy. After all, its the place we rely on when the garden has gone to sleep and its too cold for farmers markets. We keep things very simple and return to flavors that feel familiar. Our kitchens are stocked with a good supply of olive oil and Irish butter; parsley, chives, and other fresh herbs; bacon and pancetta; Parmigiano-Reggiano; good anchovies; canned tomatoes and tomato paste. We follow the seasons and look forward to their flavors as the year rotates: slicing, tossing, and grilling in the summer and braising and roasting in the winter. We anticipate asparagus and strawberries in spring, tomatoes in the summer, beets and squash in the fall.

There is good thrift in shopping once or twice a week. Then use what you have in your pantry of provisions to make what you want. Shopping every day can break the bank. Some weeks we might buy a big fat chicken. We cut it up, then use the parts to make weeknight meals like chicken soup (legs, back, and wings), chicken breasts poached in cream, and chicken thighs with kale and golden raisins. Or we cook pots of beans on Sunday to use in different ways throughout the week. Remember, leftovers are often the basis for the next nights dinner.

We learned to cook first by watching, then doing. If you grow up in a house where someone is cooking, the kitchen is filled with indelible sights, sounds, and smells. These early experiences remain in our memories and become a collection of maps that help us navigate through our culinary lives. Real recipes are usually attached to stories of people and place. They can reawaken a memory or create something youve never experienced. If a recipe is good, it will keep the story and the people associated with it alive for a long time. We rely on recipes as they hold the nuts and bolts of cooking. But there is no such thing as a foolproof one, there are just too many variables in the whole process of cooking. Thats where your senses come in.