Take Stock
Begin with this photo gallery
There are many ways to begin the journey in the kitchen, and during my 16 years at Penn State in the Nutrition Department we spent weeks on what seemed like very elemental exercises in taste perception. Really I was getting the students grounded in the protocol of the Foods Lab. Having 36 students at a time going full tilt at 12 kitchens with knives and fire requires a system of order and responsibility. Cooking is messy; there must be a system to deal with the compost and clean up—two concepts that many college kids know nothing about. Most of them were there because it was a required course before they went on to one course in quantity foods in the School of Hospitality Management. Over the years I constructed the Basic Food Preparation course to assume the apparent and disastrous fact that most of these kids had no idea how to behave in a kitchen.
I directed a cooking camp for 13 years and it was easier. The campers all wanted to be there and they were younger—11 to 13 years old—and didn’t know everything already. They listened while I explained and hung on every word, eager to please and eager to sample.
When I give private cooking lessons I start with a chicken. A whole chicken. A chicken from a farmer or one that is raised without antibiotics or hormones, who had the blessing of some sunshine and fresh air. Ideally, a chicken that foraged for itself, exercising its legs, stretching its wings and eating bugs. The flavor of the meat, the strength of the bones, and lack of fat are quite remarkable compared to the standard factory-farmed chickens, bred to be obese.
So track down a chicken, remove the giblets, if they are inside the bird, give it a rinse and pat it dry with paper towels and place it on a cutting board.
