Like mother, like son -- in the kitchen

I am not a cook. I am, in fact, the only person I know who’s as passionate about food as I am who doesn’t cook. Oh, I can broil a piece of meat or fish or chicken and -- like any red-blooded American male -- I can grill on the barbecue. Because I’m the first one up in the morning, I’m also the de facto Mr. Breakfast in our household. But I’ve never baked, roasted, stuffed or sauteed anything, never made a sauce, never followed a recipe.

So when my wife decided that instead of going to a restaurant for her birthday, she wanted a home-cooked meal, she didn’t have much choice in the chef department.

She turned to Lucas, our 13-year-old son, and said, “How would you like to cook my birthday dinner?”

Undaunted -- well, maybe a little daunted -- Lucas immediately smiled and said, “OK, Mom.”

I realize that stories and personal columns about kids cooking can be a bit precious. In some high-end homes, the Cuisinart has replaced the Xbox as the adolescent toy of choice. Lucas even has a 14-year-old male friend who’s going to France with his mother this summer to spend a week studying French in the morning and taking cooking lessons in the afternoon.

Lucas? He’ll probably spend a good part of his summer playing tennis and basketball -- and Xbox and War Hammer (if you don’t know, don’t ask) -- and when I told him I was writing this column, he said, “All I did was make dinner for Mom on her birthday. Don’t make it seem like I’m a serious chef.”

OK. But great enthusiasm for food -- at home, in a restaurant, on a picnic, wherever -- has always been a big part of our family’s daily life. Both Lucy and I thoroughly enjoy the dining experience -- I’ve even been accused of being a bit obsessive about it -- and Lucy is a superb cook.

Not surprisingly, we introduced Lucas to the pleasures of the table (gastronomic and social) at a very early age.

He was on the floor -- in a baby seat, adjacent to the dinner table -- while we ate dinner on his very first night home from the hospital as a newborn, and we’ve eaten dinner together when we’re all home virtually every night since, no matter how late Lucy and I work.

Lucas had his first serious restaurant meal -- complete with seafood sausage and foie gras -- at the now-defunct Citrus when he was 9 months old, and he’s since eaten in the best restaurants here and wherever we’ve traveled, from Napa to New York to Europe.

But being a kid, Lucas also likes hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza -- not to mention candy, ice cream and doughnuts -- and for his own birthday, he’s more likely to pick a Dodger game or an amusement park than a nice restaurant.

Over the last year or so, though, he’s shown a growing interest in cooking; he’s baked cookies and brownies for various school and sports events -- both alone and with his mother’s help -- and for our last several grown-up dinner parties, he’s made the desserts and helped with a few other dishes, at his request.

So Lucy’s suggestion that he cook her entire birthday dinner didn’t come completely out of left field. On the other hand, he’d never actually made anything all by himself other than dessert, salad dressing (balsamic vinegar and oil) and a few simple pastas.

The day before his mother’s birthday, Lucas started poring through her cookbooks, much as Lucy does before a dinner party.

“How does this sound?” he’d suddenly ask me while I was reading or writing or paying bills. Again, it was much like his mother’s questions when she’s narrowing the field of choices for our about-to-be guests.

“Just don’t pick anything too complicated,” I said, repeatedly. “You want to have fun with this, not turn it into an ordeal.”

I also reminded him that, on the big night, he would be on his own.

“That’s OK, Dad,” he said. “You can be my sous-chef.”

After several hours of cookbook exploration, Lucas settled on his menu:

* Asparagus, beet and new potato salad, with mustard vinaigrette, from Alfred Portale’s “Gotham Bar and Grill Cookbook.”

* Garlic-caper grilled pork chops, with a Sicilian sauce and a side dish of polenta, from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s “The Italian Country Table.”

* Warm chocolate almond cake from “La Maison du Chocolat.”

Because he’d never attempted anything so ambitious, Lucas decided on a few ground rules: “I can ask Mom a question and she can tell me how to do something, but she can’t actually do anything herself.”

As it turned out, except for “How do you mince an onion?” and “How do you know when the potatoes are done?” his only questions were more along the lines of “Do we have any red wine vinegar?” and “Where are the canned whole tomatoes?”

The night before Lucy’s birthday, Lucas made the garlic and caper marinade for the pork chops.

On the afternoon of her birthday, he went shopping with her for the other ingredients, except for the pork chops, which I was dispatched to the butcher shop to pick up. Lucas did most of the preparation and cooking in the late afternoon and early evening of her birthday.

The pork chops took a little longer to cook than he’d expected -- my fault, no doubt, since I bought slightly thicker chops than the recipe called for -- and Lucas had a little trouble getting the chocolate cake out of the pan. But he didn’t panic when his announced dinner hour of 7 came and went. In fact, when we sat down to eat at 7:30, he seemed a lot more relaxed than several dinner party hostesses of my acquaintance.

That’s probably osmosis. Friends have often commented on how calm Lucy always seems, even while in the final stages of preparing a multi-course dinner for demanding guests.

Lucas’ dinner was delicious -- and I think Lucy enjoyed it a lot more than she would have if we’d gone to yet another fancy restaurant. Smiling happily, she toasted Lucas with her first glass of wine and again with her last -- at which point it was Lucas’ turn to smile.

His daily chores include washing the dishes, but on this night, he told me, “Since I did the cooking, you have to do the dishes.”

Deal.

So last week, I asked if he’d like to make Mother’s Day dinner.

“Sure,” he said.

On Saturday, he’ll probably start looking through Lucy’s cookbooks again. And on Sunday, I’ll probably have to do the dishes. Again.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Rich chocolate-almond cake

Total time: 1 hour

Servings: 4 to 6

Note: From “La Maison du Chocolat” by Robert Linxe with Michele Carles (Rizzoli). For the chocolate, use the best you can find; at least half of it should be 70% cocoa. Use blanched almonds, then grind them in a food processor.

2 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup ground almonds

2 whole eggs

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided

1/3 cup cocoa powder

4 egg whites

Dash salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting, optional

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch round cake pan.

2. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over, but not touching, simmering water. Add the butter and stir. When the mixture is thoroughly melted, add the ground almonds, pouring in a thin stream. Stir to blend. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3. Place the eggs and yolks in a mixing bowl with 3/4 cup of the sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk until blended, then stir into the almond-chocolate mixture. Set aside.

4. Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the salt and beat until they hold stiff peaks, about 4 minutes. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and the vanilla and beat to combine. Gently fold the beaten whites into the chocolate mixture.

5. Transfer the batter to the pan. Bake until the tip of a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 28 minutes.

6. Prepare a large plate with a clean dish towel on top. Remove the cake from the oven and unmold onto the towel-covered plate. Let cool. Transfer to a serving platter and dust with cocoa, if desired.

Each of 6 servings: 427 calories; 93 mg. sodium; 309 mg. cholesterol; 28 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 39 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 4 grams fiber.

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Garlic-caper grilled pork chops with Sicilian sauce

Total time: 50 minutes, plus 8 hours chilling

Servings: 4

Note: From “The Italian Country Table” by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (Scribner, 1999)

Pork chops

3 tablespoons salted capers, soaked 10 minutes in cold water, or capers in vinegar

3 large cloves garlic

1 tablespoon tightly packed, fresh rosemary leaves

1 tablespoon fruity extra-virgin olive oil

About 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

4 (1-inch-thick) rib or loin pork chops

Salt

1. Drain the capers. Mince together, in a food processor or by hand, the capers, garlic and rosemary. Blend in the oil and pepper. Coat both sides of the chops, set on a plate, cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. The next day, heat an outdoor grill to medium-high and grill the chops, or cook on a grill pan or in a 12-inch skillet, lightly filmed with oil, over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the chops with salt, and grill or cook until the chops are barely firm when pressed and lightly blushed with pink inside (150 degrees on an instant-read thermometer), about 6 to 8 minutes per side. Serve hot, with a large spoonful of sauce.

Sicilian sauce

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 onion, minced

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

3 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

Grated zest from 1 large orange

1 large clove garlic, minced

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 cup whole canned tomatoes, drained

1. Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, rosemary and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Cook until the onion begins to color, then add the sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon as the sugar melts and bubbles (taking care not to burn), then finally turns pale amber, while the onions remain light-colored.

2. Immediately add the oregano, basil, zest and garlic. Standing back to avoid splatters, quickly add the vinegar. Stir and boil down until the vinegar is a glaze, coating the onion and barely covering the bottom of the pan, 8 to 10 minutes. Continue to scrape down the pan’s sides, to bring the developing glaze back into the sauce; watch for burning.

3. Stir in the tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as they go into the pan. Boil, scraping down the sides and stirring, until the sauce is almost sizzling in its own juices. It should be a thick jam that almost mounds on a spoon. Finish seasoning with a few grinds of pepper, turn out of the pan and cool. Serve at room temperature or warm. Store covered in the refrigerator. (Makes about 1 cup.)

Each serving: 442 calories; 309 mg. sodium; 123 mg. cholesterol; 21 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 10 grams carbohydrates; 50 grams protein; 1 gram fiber.