Mission: Cook! (13 page)

Once this is done, the bottom of the potato should be browned nicely and ready to be turned. Take a large plate and, lifting the pan off the heat, turn the plate upside down over the top of the pan and in one motion, flip it over and slide the “potato cake” back into the pan so both sides will be golden brown.

At this point you can finish in the oven at 375 degrees for 6 to 8 minutes, or continue to finish on the range. Top with caviar if you like.

Preheat
the oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the butter and both sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla.

In a blender, blend the oatmeal until it resembles a powder and put it into a mixing bowl. (If you like chunkier cookies, don't blend as much.)

Into the mixing bowl containing the oatmeal, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder, and mix. Then add the chocolate chips and nuts. (If you don't like nuts, just omit them.)

Roll the dough into golf ball—size spheres and place them 2 inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake until done, approximately 6 minutes.

In
a saucepot, melt the butter. Add the corn, onions, and celery, and sauté until the vegetables are translucent.

Stir in the flour to make a roux. (It will thicken the soup.) Add the clam broth and bring to a simmer, then add the potatoes and cook until done (but do not overcook them or they will turn mushy).

Add the heavy cream, Old Bay seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, and fresh thyme. Let simmer for ½ hour more. Stir in the crabmeat and warm until it is heated through. Serve with or without sherry.

To
make the tomatoes, set up your breading station. In a medium bowl, season the flour with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning. Put the beaten eggs into a second bowl. Toss the bread crumbs with the Parmesan cheese in a third bowl. Dredge the tomatoes in the flour mixture, then coat them in the egg, letting any excess drip back into the bowl. Coat in the bread crumb mixture, pressing to help them adhere.

In a large, nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil, add the breaded tomatoes in a single layer, and cook them over moderately high heat, turning once until deeply golden and crisp: 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer the tomato slices to a paper towel to drain.

Soak the greens in a bowl of cool water and agitate them with your hand to shake the sand out. The sand will fall to the bottom of the bowl. Lift out the greens and briefly set aside whilst you thoroughly rinse out the bowl and refill it with fresh water to repeat the process. You will have to do this a number of times to ensure that all the sand has been removed (particularly with arugula). Do the final rinse in a colander, then spin the greens in a salad spinner and pat dry with a towel. Cut the greens into manageable sizes. In a mixing bowl, toss them with the lemon juice, oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the zest of the lemon in 1-inch wide strips with a vegetable peeler.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot over moderate heat. Place the zest in the oil and cook until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and discard the zest. Place the oil in a mason jar and let cool.

PRESENTATION

Lay the hot tomatoes, 3 slices each, on round plates. Place one slice at 2 o'clock, another at 6 o'clock, and the last one at 10 o'clock. Cut a 2-ounce cylinder of goat cheese and place in the middle of the tomatoes. Divide the greens, place on top of the goat cheese, then drizzle the lemon oil on top, and serve immediately. (See the photograph for an alternative presentation.)

I
HAD A LOT OF FREEDOM TO MOVE ABOUT WHEN I WAS A KID. TIMES WERE
different then (though it doesn't seem
that
long ago), and our parents trusted that, for the most part, we were highly unlikely to get lost or kidnapped once they'd showed us the ropes and taught us to navigate from point A to point B and home again.

I have previously established in our tale a certain predilection for truant behavior, a freewheeling nature, and a taste for beer that developed early on. When I was about twelve, I had a good neighborhood pal, Nick Weston. We liked to have a good time and go parading about whenever possible, and as we crisscrossed the vicinity looking for fun, we soon chanced on a place on Fisherton Street called the Fisherton Arms.

I was always tall for my age, and Nick and I made it our practice to at least try to get served a pint if ever the opportunity presented itself. At the good old Fisherton Arms, two pints of lager were immediately forthcoming. It was a sort of biker bar, not a dangerous one by any means, more of a funny British one. There were lots of folks in leathers, older and younger, and some friendly biker ladies, who were actually all very polite and liberal-minded about two young lads throwing back a few in their midst. Drinking practices in Britain were always much easier and more open than in the States, so we weren't really even that out of place. We grabbed a couple of billiard cues and made a great night of it.

Soon, it became our regular hangout. We would set off from our houses with towels and trunks in hand for swimming practice in the evening and make straight for the Fisherton Arms. We would spend our allowance knocking back a few beers, then grab a bag of fish and chips on the way home to mask the drink, and wet our towels under the hose tap outside the house to simulate recent immersion in water. It was the perfect plan.

One Saturday afternoon, Nick and I were shooting pool and drinking our usual. We were bantering casually with one of the biker chicks; golden bits of sunshine filtered through the windows as the sun was lowering in the sky, and all was right with the world. I sauntered…yes, sauntered up to the bar for another round.

As the glasses were filling I glanced at a friendly-faced fellow to my left.

“Hi, Dad.” I swallowed.

He smiled. My dad was a pretty successful pro soccer player and a bit of a
local legend for it. There are ninety-six pubs in Salisbury, and my father knows at least somebody in every single one of them. This is why I make my living today as a cook and not as a chess grandmaster. Outflanking me was child's play for a guy like him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Sadly, I had nothing left but the truth.

“Havin' a beer.”

“Well. If you're going to have a drink, you drink with me.”

Now, my dad can be a very genial fellow, and there are few men in Wiltshire who can resist his invitation to a friendly drink. I was pulled in easily, happy to find myself potentially, miraculously, walking away from this unpunished, happy to be having a beer with my dad—in short, happy to be alive. I pulled up a stool and we had a drink.

Many drinks. Somewhere in the course of the next couple of hours, Nick melted away into the night. I foggily remember hearing the phrase, more than once, that has led to the downfall of many a drinking man: “Come on. Let's
have just one more.”

With great care and gentleness, my dad drank me under the table, then delivered me home to my mother's warm embrace.

I remember her saying something like, “Oh, Patrick. What did you do to him?”

He replied something about how I would be fine in the morning and about a “lesson” having been learned. I distinctly heard a satisfied chuckle. I nodded off and they put me to bed.

I promise you, that hangover lasted for a full three days. My head felt like a bingo tumbler filled with hot broken glass. My father, bless him, was always responsible for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and I never even looked at a beer again until I was well into my service in the Navy.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Years later, I decided to pay him back.

By this time, I was in the employ of the Royals, still in the Navy, and had taken a leave to be home for my father's birthday. I brought home a good friend of mine, a fellow cook and sailor whom I'd met in cookery school, named Kenny. He was and is a pretty cocky Scotsman. I am fairly sure he thinks he is a better cook than I am to this day, but we have remained good friends. He's actually such a friendly guy, I let him marry my sister Colleen.

Kenny and I hatched a plan to put together the surprise party of all surprise parties for my dad. It was going to be big and the food was going to be great,
not only because our brains were full of food and we were going to be trying to outdo and show off for each other but because Kenny was going to be showing off for my sister whilst trying to get my dad to like him (which he does,
now,
since we're all one big happy family!).

Invitations went out and family members started to trickle into town, from as far as Manchester. We stashed them at local pubs and guesthouses, and in the houses of neighbors who would be coming to the party. I had concocted a brilliant cover story, somewhat based on my recent exploits aboard the
Britannia.
I told my parents that Kenny and I were responsible for putting on an affair for Lord Pembroke, whose ancestral estate, called Wilton House, just happened to be down the road in Salisbury and that we would have to do all of the preparations in our home kitchen. Wilton House is a huge, rambling stone manor house that goes on forever, can probably be seen from outer space, and is familiar to everyone in the neighborhood as a national monument. I was hoping that they would just assume, “Oh, Bob's cooking for Lord Pembroke…must be a friend of the Queen's…” and leave it at that, and it worked.