Whenever I watch the investigative crime show CSI, I always stop and think, “This is nothing! If that team wants to solve a REAL mystery, they ought to try cooking with my Grandmother!” Hey Grissom, what’s the difference between a smidgen and a pinch? And you guys are pretty liberal with that Fingerprint Dust. You ever heard the term, “Waste not, want not”?
In his cooking books, Paul Prudomme lovingly describes how as a child he worked at his mother’s side, learning her methods and techniques, while proclaiming his gratitude and love for her guidance and patience. My grandmother on the other hand, graduated with honors from the chain smoking, martini drinking, ‘No Measuring’ school of cooking, where the term “A little bit of this and a little bit of that” was the universal code for “I don’t know how much I used, so stop asking!” My earliest cooking memories involved my grandmother’s instruction on how to work the wheel of her Zippo in order to light the next filter-less Chesterfield. These little, white fire sticks, I learned, are essential time-monitoring devices, and were relied heavily upon during the preparation of a dish. “Two more smokes and that bread will be done rising!” she’d tell me.
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