Learning to Cook : Confessions of a Passionate Cook

I became a cook because my mother went to work and my sister hated me. I started off with frozen dinners and things like that. It used to drive my mother crazy because I would cook the hamburgers right on the stove--on the burner. I wanted the taste of charcoal-broiled hamburgers.

I grew up in Starling Gardens--it was like a Polish village in the middle of the Bronx. There were 19 relatives of mine all living in the same building. My Grandmother used to cook every night for about 40 people. The kids would eat in one shift and the adults in the second shift. Then the kids would be sent off to someone else’s house.

When I was 22, I moved to Brooklyn. I used to hang out at the We Three Cafe, owned by this guy that was making a real minor go of it. He said to me, “Why don’t you buy the restaurant? I want out of here. I want to go to Vermont.”

It was during a very political time. Nixon had just been made President. We were still in Vietnam. Everyone was leaving New York and moving to the country. But I wanted to stay. So a good friend of mine and I borrowed money and started a Brooklyn restaurant called The Machine Cafe. I’ll never forget opening day. The first order came in and I just stood around. I didn’t know what to do. I was the only cook.

I taught myself how to cook in order to vary the menu. I did lots of simple things--lamb chops, pork chops, liver and onions. I also learned by experimentation. I bought cookbooks. I listened to people. The fish man would say, “Here is some fish. When you cook it, cook it this way.” I would try his suggestions and sometimes they would work. He told me, for example, that if you marinate swordfish with milk and a little salt and pepper, you get a less fishy, mellow flavor.

A lot of information I got from the garbage men. Garbage men are some of the best resources in the world for finding things. So are firemen, more so than cops, I think. Garbage men get around town. I asked them where to buy pasta and they told me about this store. Next door to that, they added, was a good Polish bakery and meat market. And next to that was a good greengrocer.

I think there are only two types of food--good and bad. You either cook something correctly or you don’t. It doesn’t matter if it’s a complex dish or a simple one.

I believe that there is an art of cooking, but I’m more involved with the feeding of cooking. The art is too esoteric for my tastes. I’m excited by good cooking that is simple, yet done correctly.

There are three essential things in cooking: the taste, the smell and the look. To me, the taste is the main thing. The smell is of some importance. The presentation is of the least significance to me. I don’t mean that food shouldn’t be pretty to look at, but decoration is only a priority after you have fulfilled the other two requirements. I don’t want to give up taste and smell in order to make something beautiful. I’d rather have someone fed and feeling good, than give them “an experience.”

Restaurants that I like to go to are usually simple. I’m impressed by all the broiler houses. You can go to a place like that and order medium-rare calf’s liver and get wonderful calf’s liver, medium rare! I’ve always enjoyed competence in anything. That’s why I loved Willie Mays. He did what he did better than anybody.

When I make something I usually know whether or not it is good. A painter or a sculptor might work months on a piece--I make my piece every day. It’s there and it’s gone. With luck, it’s a good memory.

Every time I cook I still get a little nervous--particularly if I know the people I am cooking for. Cooking is so involved with wanting to please people. It’s a base human emotion: I want to please you with the most natural things that all species do, which is eat.

When people find out that I am a cook they are never surprised, as if cooking is somehow my natural calling in life. Sometimes they say, “I’m glad to see a chef who eats his own food.” It is not as if I am a one-dimensional person, you know.

In one way I am scared that I will cook for the rest of my life. I would think that I would be able to do other things, that I was more of a renaissance man. On the other hand, it seems that we are living in an age of non-commitment. There are so few people that are willing to learn one thing really well.

A daydream of mine is to cook for Luciano Pavaratti. I would love to be around him when he is singing. I think, in a way, we are all looking for some kind of immortality. If someone I respect can rub their stomach and say, “Hey, that guy made me a pretty good meal,” then that is really great.

I have been cooking on and off for 23 years and if it’s not going right, it’s a fight. But even that the fight is important--at least I know I am alive. And besides, you always know that sooner or later the last order will come in, you will clean up your area and go home. There will always be an end. This experience, you could say, is a metaphor for life. You just keep on fighting, until you win.