Good Golly, Miss Molly!

18 June 2007

There are just certain things you don’t forget: your first kiss (second grade), the title of your favorite book of all time (The Palace Thief), the date of your commitment cocktail party (5 May 2002). And braising class with Molly Stevens (yesterday).

Michael and Molly had been talking for over a year about the possibility, and they finally found a date to make it happen. So off I went to Woodstock this past weekend for an afternoon-long class and reception and the added bonus of getting to spend some time catching up with Michael and Denise.

Molly prepared three dishes: butter-glazed radishes, red pine chicken over wilted spinach, and shortribs braised in porter ale with maple-rosemary glaze, all from her book All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking. She also brought party potatoes from her book The 150 Best American Recipes. Woodstock Farmer’s Market provided a barley salad and a couscous salad, Caleb and Deidre from Pane and Salute created the appetizers, and Jason from The Inn at Wethersfield made the desserts. All proceeds from the dinner went to the support of the Vermont Fresh Network.

Roughly 15 of us gathered in Denise and Michael’s kitchen for the lesson. During that time I learned so much, it’s hard to even begin to get everything onscreen. Here, in a glorious sprawl:

• Regarding salt, Molly uses coarse kosher salt primarily. It’s easier to work with than table salt, has less sodium, and doesn’t stick to your fingers. She salts throughout the cooking, not just at the end.
• Regarding oil, Molly uses two types: peanut oil for high-temperature cooking and extra virgin olive oil (two grades).
• Molly keeps a fresh bay leaf tree at home: bring it out in the summer, in in the winter.
• The best way to peel ginger is with a teaspoon. The spoon can reach into all of the crevices of the root more efficiently than a knife or peeler.
• White, black, and green peppercorns all come from the same, well, pepper. Green peppercorns are underripe and white peppercorns are cultivated past ripening and stripped of their exterior. White pepper is more intense but less complex in flavor.
• When you’re using parchment in the braising stage, crumple it before you lay it over the pot. The crumpling will help the paper to sit low and close to the food for a wonderful braise.
• Silicone, good. Run, don’t walk, to Sur La Table for that basting brush you’ve been thinking about buying.
• Wood cutting boards, good–you can feel the blade bite when you’re cutting. Melamine, bad. Epicurean boards go into the dishwasher, don’t warp, and are pretty enough to present food on.
• Try to put as few miles on your food as possible. Buy local when you can, and learn about the people who grow the produce and raise the poultry and livestock.

I was thrilled to find that Molly relied on the same commercial sheet pans that get serious use in my own kitchen, that I had been browning my ribs to the proper color, and that it was OK for the meat to fall off the bone, that she too on more leisurely days will brown all six sides of the ribs (perhaps like me, sipping wine and listening to NPR?) and that butter is indeed your friend. But most of all, learned that it was good to have fun in the kitchen, that it was OK to make mistakes when you cook, and that a good meal, shared, can transform a room of perfect strangers into happy acquaintances and new friends.

And what can I say about Molly herself, other than she was charming, gracious, and an absolute delight. I’d asked her whether she’d ever considered starting her own restaurant—she replied that she had thought of it and of the possibility of doing food TV … and thought better of it. In teaching people to cook and in preparing meals for them, she was doing exactly what she loved. I thought to myself, me too. And thanks to Molly, I can do it a little better.