Cal Peternell - Burnt Toast and Other Disasters

Of course Ive learned a lot about cooking over the years, so let me tell you not to worry that you dont have time to cook something good. It doesnt have to take all day, but you have to concentrate. You have to love that pot and love what you are doing.

LEAH CHASE, THE DOOKY CHASE COOKBOOK

It is very calming, this thinking about, inventing, preparing, and eating food. Anything to do with food sets off reveries and memories and brilliant conceits while releasing floods of endorphins to take away pain.

JAMES HAMILTON-PATERSON, COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA

A mistake is a bad thing only until it is fixed, at which point it becomes not only good, but magic: mistakes are the swept-up stardust that success sparkles with. This, then, is a cookbook full of just such success stories, of bad food made good. Its a book about moving the dial, about meeting food where it is and bringing it someplace better, regardless of the why of it. Maybe the thing you bought isnt as good as youd hoped and it needs help. Or the thing is fine, but you messed it up! Maybe you have limited things, limited time, limited budget. Did you get the same old thing and are hungry to sauce it up? Are you going broke ordering takeout, and anyway, you feel like you could make it better yourself, or at least youd like to try? Did you burn the figurative toast? The actual toast? Success is at hand.

When my parents were more mobile, and my young family was younger, they used to visit us in California. We never had a house big enough for them to stay with us, which was probably a good thing, but they would come for dinners, proud of their chef son if sometimes confused by the things he would cook, the enthusiastic friends hed invite, the tumbledown state of his house and kitchen. Now, traveling is too difficult for them, so I make dinners in their kitchen when I visit them in South Carolina. They always ask what I would like to cook, and I always give my standard response: Lets find what looks good at the market and I will plan around that. But what, I wondered one day as we drove from Walmart to Piggly Wiggly to Publix, if nothing looks particularly good? Despair soon turned to inspiration as I grabbed butter and beans and broccoli, and Burnt Toast and Other Disasters was born.

It was during that visit, and other trips outside the bubble I admittedly live in, that I began to realize a major flaw in the way I have always approached cooking. Though it is indisputable that the very best ingredients make the very best food, access to those ingredients is not shared by all. Which I knew. My mistake: not well enough. Ive been a lucky one, with a career full of cooking fantastic ingredients, confident that, with a steady seasoning hand and stream of good olive oil, success was all but assured. When asked, What did you do to that... salmon... green bean... tomato... to make it sooo delicious?! Id tell the truth, that Id simply brought together the trinity of good olive oil, a little salt, and great... salmon or green bean or tomato. Id marvel at the surprise bordering on indignant disbelief Id be met with. Why was that so hard to understand? Id think, growing indignant myself. Of course, I was the one who didnt understand. Heres why: Within a hundred miles of where I live are some of the best farms, ranches, fishing grounds, vineyards, artisan bakers, and cheesemakers in the world! Id be one foolish chef to not bring these local ingredients together without getting too much in their way, especially with the access that running a restaurant like Chez Panisse affords.

My former boss and mentor, Alice Waters, likes to tell the story of a time when she was one of several chefs contributing dishes to a large fundraising event. Upon seeing the colorful, simple, perfect salad Alice had made, a fellow chef commented, Thats not cooking, thats shopping! He thought he was dishing, but Alice took it as high praise, acknowledgment of the importance that she, and so many of her acolytes, places on the careful sourcing of ingredients.

But too often the shoppings not so good: the measly side-strip of factory-farmed produce at the giant grocery chain, the slim pickings at the convenience store. Weve all been there, and its where good recipes come ina kind of cooking that, despite decades of kitchen experience, I had to teach myself. The resulting shifts in perspective revealed that there was a lot I didnt know in, and out of, the kitchen. Grateful to the many whove taught me so generously, I hope here to pass on the favor.

If this is starting to sound like a Sullivans Culinary Travels, Mr. Cheffy-Pants Goes to Walmart sort of thing, I promise that is not what lies ahead. I know Im not the person to write a cookbook about what its like to have bad access to good food, but I believe I am the guy to write about how to take what youve got and make it taste, look, and feel good. I know that every level of cooking can be improved, that the humblest can be delicious, the good made great. So, if some overcooked rice, an onion, and the condiment shelf are all weve got for dinner... or if the vegetables drawer is full, but full of the perfectly fine but same old stuff that youre bored with... or if you, or she, or he, or they missed lunch and now you are all in a hurry and hangry... lets see what we can do! Naturally, youre not going to try for bad situations or bad ingredientsthese recipes will also work with ingredients of the best qualitybut things happen, and heres this cookbook for when you need a fixer. I am not presuming to be any kind of savior, other than the kind that anyone is when they bring good, tasty food to the table at the end of a hard day.

That said, I do think we should all be eating better foods, and I know that its possiblewe have the farmland that can produce the nutritious and beautiful foods that everyone needs and loves. But just as important is that we eat good-tasting food, recognizing that theres value in the pleasure we get from cooking and eating delicious meals, whether they come straight from the farm or from a convenience store shelf. Its reality cooking, not aspirational but always tasty.

These recipes are going to pull you out of the Wednesday weeds and into the Saturday sunshine. Theyll make your bad into good and your good into better. Taking inspiration from disappointment,