Afterword

The changes were, at first, subtle. In April, I went to the

farmer’s market and bought broccoli rabe because it was in season.

I brought it home and displayed it on my kitchen counter. When

dinnertime came, I sautéed it with garlic and crushed red pepper

flakes, loosely inspired by Lidia Bastianich’s ziti recipe. Only I

served it on Anson Mills corn grits that I’d purchased along with

the rice grits that I bought for Hugh Acheson’s pork belly dish and

topped it with pickled red jalapeños I’ve been making ever since I

made them for Brandon Pettit’s pizza. The end result looked a bit

like Linton Hopkins’s greens, but this was something entirely

different, something I had improvised based on everything I had

learned writing this cookbook.

Pretty soon I was using all the various techniques I learned

cooking with all these incredible chefs—toasting tortillas over an

open flame, slicing vegetables with a mandoline, juicing fruits and

vegetables by blending them with a little water and pressing them

through a sieve—to make up dishes of my own: breakfast tacos

(with eggs, jalapeños, sour cream, and cilantro), spring radish

crostini (broiling the bread as I learned to because I don’t have a

grill), and a raw rhubarb daiquiri (“juiced” rhubarb heated with just

a little sugar until it dissolves, then cooled and shaken with white

rum). I went into this cooking journey a pretty strict recipe

follower and emerged a confident recipe creator of my own. Not

only that; before, I was slightly fearful at the stove, and now I’m