{"id":676,"date":"2010-01-31T21:12:41","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T21:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/?p=676"},"modified":"2017-10-04T16:48:45","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T16:48:45","slug":"using-fresh-herbs-at-11000-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/using-fresh-herbs-at-11000-feet\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Good to Better Cooking Continuum” at 11,000 Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’d think cooking might fall off the priority scale in a bare bones hut, at 11,400 feet above sea level, in the middle of winter.\u00a0 Actually, cooking, meals\u00a0 and food conversation were a good 50 percent of the fun on a recent altitude adventure.\u00a0 In fact, it was a deep discussion about the proper use of fresh cilantro that prompted this blog.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Barnard Hut above Aspen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, however, some background.\u00a0 A friend and I accepted a challenge to ski in seven miles with some outdoor pros to a backwoods hut above Aspen, Colorado.\u00a0 While it was a cakewalk for them, my friend and I view the trip one of the crowning physical achievements of our entire lives.\u00a0 Things might have been easier, of course, if we hadn’t hauled in two pounds of hashed brown potatoes, one pound of cheese, 18 eggs and the fixings for a dried apple crisp.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, however, cooking was a big part of the trip, which is how we came to be discussing the proper use of fresh cilantro when the world outside was frozen solid.\u00a0 One of the dinner chefs was planning to make Thai Coconut Soup.\u00a0 To conserve space, he had mixed the fresh chopped cilantro with the peppers and onions, meaning the cilantro would have to be saut\u00e9ed with the peppers and onions.\u00a0 Would this be a bad thing for his soup, he wondered?<\/p>\n

The Standard Answer:\u00a0 How to Use Fresh Herbs<\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"The standard answer is that fresh herbs should be cut as close to serving time as possible and added at the end of the cooking time, to prevent their flavor from cooking out (The Professional Chef<\/em>, 7th<\/sup> ed., p. 183.)\u00a0 So technically, my hut companion did a “bad thing” for his soup by mushing the fresh cilantro with the vegetables that had to be sauteed.<\/p>\n

Although this conclusion is “right,” I’m not sure it is helpful.\u00a0 Assessing things as simply good or bad only seems to contribute to the cooking fear the paralyzes a lot of everyday cooks<\/a>.\u00a0 “Am I doing this exactly right?” is a question that plagues us amidst on overload of cooking info in magazines, on TV and all over the Internet.<\/p>\n

An Alternative View<\/span><\/h4>\n

Here’s an alternative view:\u00a0 Maybe cooking was never meant to be an exact science, subject to one-dimensional assessment on a good\/bad scale.\u00a0 Instead, cooking is first and foremost an avenue for making food edible and then, pleasurable.\u00a0 The object is to simply do the best job possible, with the food gifted us, to make meals that nourish and nurture.<\/p>\n

Taking this perspective eliminates the pressure to achieve absolute “rightness” in the kitchen, replacing it with a no-pressure opportunity to just make things better, as we have the time and wherewithal.\u00a0 Hence the “Good to Better Cooking Continuum,”\u00a0 where the inquiry is longer judging good vs. bad, but exploring what might make a good thing better.<\/p>\n

\"\"In this view, cooking becomes something like a treasure hunt.\u00a0 All along our journey we find nuggets of information to make our meals ever more enjoyable.\u00a0 Step-by-small-step, we utilize these finds and keep nudging our “good” baseline a little to the right, towards “better.”<\/p>\n

My hut companion’s Thai Coconut Soup was a perfect example.\u00a0 It was magnificent!\u00a0 Could it have been better if the cilantro had been freshly chopped and sprinkled on at the end?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 But that’s just a trick for making it even a little better than magnificent on the next go round!<\/p>\n

Tomorrow’s post:\u00a0 A Thai Coconut Soup recipe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe cooking was never meant to be an exact science, subject to one-dimensional assessment on a good\/bad scale. Taking this perspective eliminates the pressure to achieve absolute “rightness” in the kitchen, replacing it with a no-pressure opportunity to just make things better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,20,17,1],"tags":[118,133,228,229,256,328,577,605],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supportive-thinking-for-healthy-cooking","category-healthy-cooking-basics","category-recipes","category-opinion-and-editorial","category-uncategorized","tag-cilantro","tag-cooking-fear","tag-fresh-cilantro","tag-fresh-herbs","tag-good-to-better-cooking-continuum","tag-hut-cooking","tag-thai-coconut-soup","tag-using-fresh-herbs","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2554,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}