Read Online Man With a Pan by John Donahue - Free Book Online Page B

at his disposal is a single Broil King burner and an old convection oven.
    Cooking is like building a house. It’s a manual process. But unlike a house, which might take months to build, cooking takes one night, and that gives me a great sense of satisfaction. I’ve read stories that the kitchen staff in restaurants is full of excons. There’s definitely something about cooking that appeals to the masculine side of things.
    I really started cooking when I joined the fire department. Somebody in the station has to do it. You don’t want to be a bully, but I tend to always be involved. I’ll tell a new guy not to stir the rice, or I’ll keep someone from cutting his finger off while chopping an onion. Some guys have no clue. I guess I was that way when I started out.
    I learned by trial and error. Friends who were serious about cooking would have us over for dinner. I’d sit in the kitchen, watching, getting enthused about it, and then go off and try something on my own. I throw myself into things. I have seven carbon-steel knives I bought on eBay over two or three months. It goes in cycles. Lately I’m into air-drying steak for a week in the refrigerator. I guess I just threw myself into the kitchen and never came out of it.
    My parents divorced when I was young, and I was raised by my dad. We lived in a place that didn’t have hot water. This was the seventies, and there were still cold-water flats. The kitchen was barely equipped. It had a toaster oven and at one point a camping stove. I cooked for myself a fair amount, but it wasn’t cooking. It was making egg noodles or opening a Campbell’s soup can. Swanson Hungry-Man dinners were a big part of growing up. I met my wife in high school. We’re basically both type B personalities, though when I’m cooking I can be type A.
    My Farberware convection oven is a pretty serious gizmo. It is not a homeowner’s model. It’s professional. I got it from a friend, the former headmaster of my high school, who is a serious baker. It cooks faster than a normal oven and sometimes drier, which is not always a convenience. My equipment may be primitive, but it goes to show that you don’t need to be too sophisticated to do a fairly good job. We’ve had Thanksgiving for nine here.
    Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach. I’ll go to the butcher, to Fairway, and to some other stores and end up with four different types of meat. And then I get jammed up, with life or with work or with something, and I don’t get the time in the kitchen. I find a chicken I was supposed to cook five days ago, sitting there. I hate to throw out a whole chicken. If I am too busy, my wife will do the whole spaghetti and jar-sauce thing. Or we’ll eat egg noodles. I always have about four bags of egg noodles on hand, ready to go, just in case.
    With both parents working, there’s been a whole generation of neglect in the kitchen. Guys are going to have to learn what fifties housewives must all have known—how to plan a menu and feed a family week by week.
    Recipe File
    Milk-Braised Pork
    I first learned of this dish in Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. It is unbelievably simple and good. Anthony Bourdain also has a nice variation in his cookbook. I prefer to use the Boston butt as Hazan recommends (she likes the vein of fat that runs through it), but I often use a pork loin. This dish always goes over well with roasted potatoes, and if you prefer not to simply reheat leftovers, combining the pork and the potatoes and frying them up in a hash with the gravy on top is terrific.
    1 3- to 4-pound rib roast of pork, Boston butt, or pork loin
Salt and pepper
3 cups milk
½ cup water
    Season the meat with salt and pepper and brown in a heavy roasting pan over medium heat on the stove top.
    Brown the meat as much as possible without burning it.
    Turn the heat down to medium low, add 1 cup of milk, and braise on the stove top, flipping the meat occasionally, until the milk