Dinner with the Naked Chef
Posted on July 27th, 2007 – 10:26 AMBy May Chen
On days when we’ve had one too many meals of mac-and-cheese, I like to turn to the Naked Chef for some sheer escapism.
Jamie Oliver - aka the Naked Chef - is the British boy wonder (okay, he’s in his thirties, but still baby-faced and tousle-haired) with award-winning restaurants and his own cooking show, who learned how to cook growing up in his parent’s pub. And now he’s all grown up, he’s written a book for people like you and me: “Jamie’s Dinners: The essential family cookbook.” As the jacket proclaims, with typical Jamie exuberance: “Real life. Proper Food. It’s dinnertime!”
That’s long as you can accept that “Five Minute Wonders” actually take thirty, and that his idea of a simple jacket potato involves ”freshly picked white crabmeat” and “finely chopped mint and chili.”
But that’s not the point. The book is filled with pictures of Jamie, his gorgeous wife Jools and their adorable daughters, Poppy and Daisy, at the dinner table; Jamie picking greens at the local farmer’s market; Jamie stirring a pot on the stove with a toddler on his knee….you can almost smell the tang of the star anise in the dish of sweet duck legs. Just as well, since I don’t often get further than flipping dreamily through the pages.
Except for one brief, glorious afternoon last weekend. For once, I was organized enough to shop for ingredients for one of the less daunting concoctions - The Real Mushroom Soup. Let’s just say this is not Campbell’s.
As the baby napped and my husband took a break from his job as stay-at-home Dad at the neighborhood Dunn Brothers, the three-year-old sat on the kitchen counter and ”helped.” Together we learned the difference between porcini and shiitake and oyster mushrooms (okay, I added button mushrooms for bulk…do you know how much porcini COSTS??). And at the end, she helped me sprinkle chopped parsley in and a big dollop of mascarpone. Maybe I wouldn’t have made the pages of Jamie’s Dinners with my pink swim goggles on to survive chopping an entire red onion, but oh, how gourmet I felt. As the book advised, we even made a little bowl of zest of lemon and lemon juice to spoon in the middle of our bowls upon serving.
That was when the spell broke. The three-year-old made a face at the lemon juice in her soup and pushed the bowl away. The baby tasted a few wary spoonfuls then gagged and spat out a porcini morsel. But it was good while it lasted and my husband proclaimed it delicious.
Cribsheeters, what’s dinner like at your house? How do you reconcile your own gourmet yearnings with what the littlest and pickiest eaters will swallow? Any recipe book recommendations?
6 Responses to "Dinner with the Naked Chef"
Why the hell has no one ever told me to wear swim goggles to make chopping onions bearable? Do they actually work?
Also, I recently read somewhere that it is tacitly acknowledged in cookbook publishing that those time guidelines (especially when included in titles) are a crock. I think they’re accurate if you: are a professional chef, have made the dish before, have all your ingredients prepared for you, only count actual cooking time and have a time machine.
Yes, swim goggles work. You look absolutely ridiculous but it is a great trick. I actually just saw “onion goggles” on sale at Williams Sonoma for $9.99. They looked a little cooler than the standard swim goggles.
Freezer cooking. I precook HUGE batches and vaccum seal everything in nice 2+lunch serving sizes. (Get everything pretty much ready to finish cooking in the oven or skillet.) My husband is not terribly adventurous, so we keep with the tried and true and only branch out once in a while. Even if the only thing we have is raw chicken breast packaged in two or three serving bags, it still helps because I can thaw it out quickly and just have what we need. The baby is still in jarred food, so we haven’t had to work in toddler eating yet! Can’t be that much worse than trying to feed a meat and potatoes man, right?!?!? The best used cookbooks (other than Betty Crocker) have been 30 day gourmet (plus website) and Rachel Ray. (Love Paula Deen too…but she’s too rich for every day!!)
Well, first of all, I can’t cook (I never learned and didn’t ever have the time on my own to learn), so I get a lot of inspiration from blogs like veganlunchbox.blogspot.com. The author of that blog has come out with a book that I’m sure is great, but I haven’t gotten yet. She is very creative in making really healthy foods fun for her son.
Besides that we’re vegetarian (not vegan), I really like to feed my son a lot of foods that are minimally cooked and retain their natural flavors and nutrients. He’s the kid that will pick peas over candy, and I don’t have a problem getting him to eat what I make. He’s 4, though, and it’s pretty easy to get him to try new things.
Paula Deen drives me crazy with how unhealthy her foods are. I like her as a host, but would never feed that food to my kid (or myself)! I wish I could cook as well as she can, but just with different foods. 
For gourmet, I just go out. 
I am a Jamie O. lovah! Luckily, I also have a husband who loves him too and is unafraid of his recipes, which can feel a little fancy to the regular cooking joe. Every Jamie O. recipe we have taken on has been a winner. And to tell you the truth, if my kids don’t like these delightful meals, it’s their loss. They’re few and far between around here and a great joy when we can make them happen. Mama and dad are going to indulge and enjoy real food and fresh ingredients whenever we can. My dear boys can join in or go hungry.
We typically make a gourmet meal 1 to 2 times a week and stick to simpler things or leftovers the rest of the time. The first time the kids try the different foods, they generally don’t like them, but we make them try them each time and they are actually pretty good at eating most things now. If they don’t like something, they need to try a couple bites and then can finish up with whatever other part of the meal they like (there is usually some plain rice, noodles, broccoli, or something that they enjoy).
