Peternell - A recipe for cooking

A RECIPE FOR COOKING

For Kathleeneverything I cook,
everything I do, is more delicious with you

CONTENTS

Hello, Fellow Lover of Food. My name is Chris, and I do not know how to cook.

During what would otherwise have been my college/getting-so-sick-of-Top-Ramen-that-you-start-doing-something-about-it years, I was on tour with a band I cofounded called Nickel Creek. Days off and hotel rooms with kitchenettes almost never coincided. Days off and restaurants owned by buddies of concert promoters, on the other hand...

So I never learned how to cook, but boy did I ever learn how to eat! I would spend every minute that wasnt earmarked for music-making figuring out how to put my bandmates and myself in the way of the absolute best dinners possible, and those dinners ended up sustaining us in ways that went far beyond physical nourishment. They gave us a chance to catch our breath, to relate to each other as people (not just musicians), and to develop a strong sense of community despite our nomadic existence... and they were fun as hell.

But when I arrived back home after a month or two of that, rather than boldly head for the kitchen to see if I could stumble into a passable re-creation of any of the incredible food Id just eaten, I would go right back out my front door to see how my local restaurants were stacking up to the cream of the past tours crop. That was my relationship with food: a long series of lovely one-night stands. Until I started hanging out with a fellow named Mike Marshall.

Mike knows how to play and cook. I spent a week making a record with him at his place in Oakland, California, and it changed my entire outlook on the nature of eating. Id been using food as a means of escape from/reward for withstanding the cares of the day, whereas Mike saw it and those very same cares as mutually beautifying strands to be woven into the fabric of a good day. As I look back, its impossible to say exactly when or how the meals and music would begin or end. Id wake up, drag my mandolin out to the kitchen (perhaps to make sure I could remember something wed come up with the night before and not properly documented... ah, wine!), and find Mike pouring old-school stovetop espresso, cutting biscotti fresh out of the oven, and grabbing his mandolin to join in on the hunt for last nights idea. And as if by magic, fresh fruit and an omelet would appearbut we would also find the missing idea, and wait, whoa, theres that song written, and are we actually having the best smoked chicken salad on earth for lunch now? Hard to tell because were also about to finish recording that song on the wings of the last round of espresso and a square of dark chocolate while rolling pasta dough, washing the chanterelles we foraged earlier (?!?), and discussing each others relationships over an early evening glass of hot damn, Mikey, this is the life!!! To which he would invariably reply, Dude, this is nothing. You gotta hang with my buddy Cal.

And hang with his buddy, Cal Peternell, I did. I suspect if youve gotten this far, Fellow Lover of Food, you know at least a little about Cals subtle but rampant badassery. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was listening. Listening in a rare, wonderful way to everyone and everything: his guests (in this case, Mike and me), his beautiful family, the pans on the stove, the vegetables under his knife, the record playing in the background... listening as if every sound were part of a recipe for a beautiful evening with which the universe had entrusted us. The next thing I noticed was his selfless virtuosity. Virtuosity for its own sake (I think of the last tower of molecular gastronomy I dared raise my fork against, or Paganinis twenty-four death-defying caprices) can be thrilling, but only rarely transcendent. True virtuosi place their technical accomplishment at the service of their imaginations and the imaginations of their collaborators and audience. If youve ever listened to Glenn Gould play Bachs Goldberg Variations, or dined at Chez Panisse during Cals tenure as head chef, you know exactly what Im talking about. That inaugural feast was a brilliant, unhurried, graceful fantasia, both composed and improvised, for kitchen, living room, dining room, and seven people.

I mean, I still heartily disagree with Mikes humble assessment of his own formidable cooking and hospitality chops, but can confirm just as heartily that Cal is a bona fide master. All subsequent meals over the last ten-plus years, whether at Chez Panisse or Chez Someone We Know, have been equally revelatory. A multi-part exploration/celebration of the good things life has to offer, and of the fact that though human beings are the absolute worst in myriad ways, were also uniquely capable of extracting beauty and meaning from just about anything.

And so, Fellow Lover of Food, I wish you great joy in your pursuit of the most beautiful mornings, afternoons, and evenings imaginable, with this book as a guide. Actually, you know what? Im gonna join you. I may not know how to cook, but my buddy Cal just gave me the recipe!

Chris Thile

Portland, Oregon (but probably somewhere else when you read this)

2016

I remember the day my professional cooking life changed, the day it started to make sense with the rest of my life and not seem like it was time for a new career. We were out food shopping, and my wife, Kathleen, had parked across from the cheese shop and right in front of Chez Panisse.

You cant park here, I told her. Its a yellow curb.

Im not parking, Im dropping you off. You should work here; this is the right place for you. Go in, theyll hire you, youre great.

But I already have a job, and... me? At Chez Panisse!? I said to the back of the car as my pregnant wife and our three-year-old son pulled away. Then, I turned and went in and got myself hired at an amazing restaurant, the kind that keeps cooks around and allows them to mature both in and out of the kitchen.

Kathleen was right that day, and twenty years and two sons later, the place still inspires me and encourages me to inspire othersnot just guests and cooks, but my sons as well. Ive taught them a lot, and though they know the basics of eating and cooking well, lately I was sensing that they seemed ready for more. Or some of the time they did. My second son, Milo, born the year I started working at Chez Panisse, will still throw down like lots of other kids, cooking up bagel melts or quesadillas, bean dip or poached eggs for his little brother, Liam. But theres also interest in some serious cooking, real sauces, homemade pasta or pizza, exotic ingredients and complex preparations. Henderson, my eldest, cooked his way through art school in New York, spending mornings stretching canvases and mixing colors and evenings rolling pasta, composing salads, and stirring sauces at some first-class restaurants. He, and Milo, have done stints in the kitchens and dining rooms at Chez Panisse, and even young Liam helps pop favas from their skins after school, wondering aloud who came up with a bean that has to be peeled twice.