Mme. Pépin: The Why

Why would the most undomestic of my parent's three children want to face the challenge of cooking through "Chez Jacques", Jacques Pépin's 100 favorite recipes? This is the person whose friends run in fear if she ever mentions that she made a pesto, the person whose kitchen has one piece of counter space, the person who is still scared of her gas oven after living in that small kitchened apartment for over a year now.

The why is that my God-mother is about to die. I only knew her well enough to know how amazing she is for a short time. One of her passions in life is cooking, and on one of my visits to Pittsburg, TX (yes, such a place exists) she insisted on showing me how to make Gratin Dauphinois from Jacques Pépin's "Chez Jacques". A month or so later she sent that cookbook to me with the inscription:

"To live outside oneself – to make others happy is a great joy – try it with cooking. Love Beck"

Now, as we count down the days until her departure from this earth, I've decided to do something with that cookbook, that inscription. I wrote to her a promise, that I'd cook through "Chez Jacques". Is it going to be painful, quite possibly. Expensive, most definitely. Scary, yes.

Thankfully, one of my best friends has decided to join me for this culinary adventure. Together we're going where few 20-somethings who aren't already chefs have gone before. Into a world where people eat things like sweet breads (and no I'm not talking about the rolls, look it up).

My mother was pleased when she heard my quest, she also thumbed through the book and veto-ed a few things: fois-gras, tripe, and headcheese. My boyfriend offered up "You're not a bad cook, it just takes you 3x as long to complete a recipe". Armed with my friend, some less than adequate cooking utensils and Jacques' thoughts and recipes I set out.