My dad taught me how to drive a stick shift in a cemetary. I guess his thought was (albeit a bit morbid) that no one would be harmed by my novice stop-go-screech-stall, changing from first to second and weaving through the gravestone-lined path. (The ghosts of Faulkner and O’Connor reveled in the scene, I’m sure.) It was safe ground, and until I could brake on an incline, ease off the clutch, and slowly accelerate without threatening to roll backward into someone’s eternal resting place, I could make mistakes, feel my way, try again.
The kitchen’s a bit like that, and I’ve never realized it more fully than when we started this blog. Our stop-go-screech-stop is a little more like a stir-guess-cook-eat, taking new ingredients and methods for a test drive and learning from the results. Here are two lessons we’ve picked up so far on our cookblog journey, the first involving a delicious chicken salad sandwich.
