October 16, 2006
Home Cooking Day Wrap-Up
I excitedly pulled out my Home Cooking Day Ingredient list; I'd just walked into a fantastic Italian store in Munich that caters to restaurants and also the public. The smell of espresso reaches your nose as you barely have half a foot inside the door. They grill faintingly well-stocked panini at the bar.
I gathered my ingredients, finally finding the "jars of best-quality tuna" that had me circling the aisles. Jars of tuna from Italy are nothing like cans of tuna. It's special stuff, and tastes so much better, therefore it's pricey. But since this was the first Home Cooking Day, I thought let's go all out, hey.
By the way, the recipes, ingredients, and equipment lists were carefully compiled for us in printer-friendly format, by Jamie's team. There was nothing more one could ask for.
Because the webcast wasn't supposed to start until 8 pm in Germany, I added a pre-app to the menu. A simple bruschetta made with the ciabatta, garlic, tomatoes, and basil I bought at the Italian store earlier, dressed with the pressed-to-order Sicilian olive oil sent to me by my cousins (grazie, cugini!). I think this is a perfectly light starter for this menu, especially when you use the best fresh ingredients you can get your mitts on.
The actual webcast began late and for 20 minutes I mistakenly thought that so many people had logged on in england that other countries had been blocked out. I think the total number of people was over 150 thousand. But, as I refreshed the screen for the 1000th time that minute, the webcast began with an outside shot of Jamie's house and all the people milling about. I shreeeed.
Seeing Jamie live on the web, along with people all over the world, was the most amazing Internet experience of my life (Other than realizing that I could watch "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, online). But live is LIVE, and there he was, Jamie Oliver, in my kitchen, talking to me, and we were cooking together. It felt like conversation; the "t.v" feel was completely understated, and he kept it simple and personal. Jamie and just a couple hundred thousand mates doing a little cooking together in his kitchen. Or rather, I was cooking with a couple hundred thousand total strangers and my mate, Jamie.
In fact, the quality of the webcast was just incredible. No glitches, no crap.
So how did the cooking work out? It was a bit challenging, but fun, to keep up with the webcast. I had every ingredient prepped so I could enjoy the actual cooking ... but as you know, if you've ever tried to watch TV and cook at the same time, it can be hard to split your attention at key moments without burning an appendage. The timing was pretty good though....I often was doing the same task as him at the same time. I thought at any minute, my phone will start ringing for dinner reservations.
The three recipes consisted of a salad, main pasta dish, and an up-scaled brownie dessert. Practically, once I'd finished making the salad, it sat there while I made the pasta dish. And afterwards, the pasta sat there while we enjoyed our salad, so it became a little overcooked. But under a normal cooking-with-friends situation, I think this would be a great and relaxing general menu timing-wise. The brownie dessert is easily customizable with seasonal ingredients (I used dried cranberries) ....and although I would personally make a lighter pasta dish with such a rich brownie dessert, I liked this menu a lot.
My favorite dish, though, was the salad. Once you are down with the basics of mixing flavors (sweet, salty, bitter), textures (crunchy, creamy), and colors, the possibilities of the Fifteen Christmas Salad are endless.
(The night after the broadcast, I made my own salad and very cheekily named it Mia's Christmas Salad - inspired by a gorgeous head of frisee and Jamie's salad from HCD.)
The recipes he used in the broadcast were from his new book, Cook with Jamie, which becomes a fun, easy-to-grasp, but serious professional resource for the every day cook. I ordered the book months ago so I received it when it came out last week. From the classy no-jacket binding, to the techniques and range of recipes, to the photography, it's all beautifully done. I hug it every day.
Here are more pics from Home Cooking Day!
P.S: I'm still meaning to post about recipes I've made from his Jamie's Italy book ... but the boy writes too fast! So I'll be posting about the recipes from both books. Hopefully. You know me.
