Lessons from My Son

My 16-year-old son wanted to be a chef. So I asked a friend who owns a restaurant if he could possibily work for him. My son was 15 at the time. He put him to work in the kitchen. He does prep, he works on the line, in almost two years now, he's picked up a lot of skills.

While he no longer wants to be a chef, realizing how hard the job is and how difficult it is to have a real life when you spend your nights in the kitchen, he does know what to do. Unfortunately he rarely cooks at home. I still do most of the cooking.

But for Christmas, he insisted on having his Uncle Giles' potatoes. These are scalloped potatoes baked in about 2 1/2 cups of heavy cream. The pan is buttered and rubbed with garlic then the potatoes are mixed with the cream and baked for about 2 hours. I insisted if he wanted this unbelieveably rich dish, he could make it. He used the Mandolin, sliced the potatoes and proceeded to put them in a big bowl he filled with water. Then he put the bowl in the sink and ran the water for about two minutes over the bowl until the water ran clear. He said this was how you get rid of the starch. In my zillions of years of baking, I'd never learned that trick.

The potatoes were undeniably, the best potatoes I have ever eaten. And they will only be made one time a year.

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