Brian Boitano - What Would Brian Boitano Make?: Fresh and Fun Recipes for Sharing with Family and Friends

INTRODUCTION

I really like entertaining. Maybe that's why I was attracted to both my passions, cooking and skating. Both build on a basic structure of skills, knowledge and rules, and have interesting layers on top of that foundation. Skating has your performance, costume, and the music; while cooking has flavor, texture, and appearance. In both cases, those layers are chances to crank up your creativity. Its kind of amazing where passion can lead you. My love for figure skating took me around the world and to the top of an Olympic medal podium. I never thought of it as work because passion has a way of making thingseven 5:00 a.m. workouts, in a dark, refrigerated skating rinkseem exciting, fun, and full of potential. Theres a certain type of thrill and deep satisfaction in developing new skills and constantly improving.

Nowadays, I find that same fulfillment in all things cooking and entertaining.

It might be because the cooking gene is a dialed-in part of my DNA. I come from a big Italian family and, as with most big Italian families, great food is pretty much always front and center. It doesnt matter if its a wedding, a funeral, or a favorite holiday; delicious, filling food is a key part of the event. As a matter of fact, some of my favorite food memories revolve around family gatherings. My great-aunt Tree had a cabin that we called The Shack. It sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and as far back as I can remember, wed regularly gather there as a family. Aunt Tree put out amazing spreads that introduced me to new and exotic foods. Smoked oysters? Check. Cactus in adobo sauce? You bet. A medley of exotic chocolates? Her rocky road was everybodys favorite and she served it by the bushel. She made the idea of trying new foods seem like an adventure. And it wasnt just the food. Meals at Aunt Trees Shack meant casual daylong affairs of eating, hanging out with people you love, and then eating some more. Those days marked the beginning of my fascination with entertaining.

In a funny way, my career probably has almost as much to do with my passion for food as my family does. Compete as an athlete on the international level and youre forever watching what you eat. Ive been on more restrictive diets than I can count (I cant eat beets to this daydont ask). As a young skater in training I would watch fast food commercials on TV and dream of the day I could claim a Whopper or a bucket of KFC for my very own, guilt free.

Fast-forward to about the time I turned twenty-five, when I began cooking for myself and my friends. It was at the end of 12 months of nonstop traveling in the year after I won the Olympic gold medal in figure skating. Theres nothing like a hectic world tour to make you want to be home in every sense of the word, and for me that was San Francisco. I was lucky enough to find a great house in my favorite neighborhood. I unpacked, set up my kitchen, and settled in. I was home!

In my down time, I was hanging out with a group of six close friends who, like me, had big appetites and loved good food. I was the only one who owned a houseso my kitchen became the designated gathering spot. It didnt take long for us to fall into a regular routine of cooking dinner together almost every night. One person would make the main course, someone else would bring the wine, and another person would handle dessert. Wed decide on the fly what we were going to cook. One night it might be grilled salmon with saffron risotto; the next night it might be braised pork shoulder with green beans amandine (Im getting hungry just writing this). No matter what it was, preparing the meal was every bit as social and fun as eating it. Taking what Id learned from Aunt Tree about mixing people and interesting food, those first meals were spontaneous and casual, and some of my favorite meals ever.