The pleasure 
of mastering
the mundane

It seems wise to enjoy the 
actions I have to 
do everyday of my life. 

Breathing comes first, as
I can't survive for very 
long without it. Then comes
the drinking, and then the
sleeping. Finally comes food. 

My mind has always enjoy
the puzzle of cooking. What 
do you cook first? How to
chop things in a way that 
cook easily and add taste
to the meal. What is the use
of oils and fat, salt and 
spice. 

The there are the tool. A proper
knife, a good chopping board
and a cast iron pan are my basics

I got my knife as an import
from japan trough Knife Wear. 
The chopping board is locallyy
made from mapple and cherry trees. 
And I've colected many cast
iron pan over the years, but
I mostly use a japanes brand one
with rounded side (so I can flip
easily the cooking vegetable). 
I also use a maple wood spoon, 
handmade in Quebec which has 
a flat top to help with moving
the food around when cooking.
The spatualla I use although
quite generic, is a metal one,
with a wooden handle, the end of
the spatuall is quite sharp too
which makes it perfect to flip
crepes and can be used to chop
piecs of food that are too big 
in the pan. 

I normally start by checking 
is my knife is sharp enough
and sometime give it a quick
sharpening. I use a fairly light
grit, mostly to maintain the balde
sharpness. I do get my knife
properlly sharpen when I go 
in a big city. 

There are a hundred ways
to chop an oninon, and this
is just the begining. When
you take all the ingredients
in a simple meal, the number
of possibilies are infinite. 

Last night I started with
the onions. Chop too thin 
and you loose the flavor. 
Don't cook it enough, and 
you don't get the sweetness 
out of them. 

First I chop the top and
the bottom of the onion. 
It makes it easier to peal. 
For a while I would leave the
base so that when you chop you can
hold on to it, but by keeping
the base, the pealing is
quite longer. I like to
take time to cook, but I also
like to save some time for 
activities like peeling. 

Choped in 2 halves, from the 
top to the bottom and not
sideways. This create the
perfect cut to chop the onions
in a most uniform way. I lay the
onion the flat side on the board
chopping from top to bottom,
turn them and chop them sideways. 

Often the 2 parts at each ends
aren't as small so I cut these
a few time to match the same  
size as the rest. 

I like to prepare the garlic
at the same time, although I 
never cook them at the same time. 
The onions needs a lot more 
cooking time. 

The garlic benefit from being
crushed. I use the side of 
my knife and press on a garlic
clove. It also makes it simper
to peel after that. Once the
clovce is out of the skin, 
I chop in really small pieces. 

As garlic create antibiotics
as it comes in contact with
oxygen, I often keep a pile
of garlic that I would eat 
before a meal. 

I warm up my cast iron pan, 
and add the oil. I try to only
put oil once in the pan. 

Some days I use multiple pans
for cooking. The mushrooms and
bell pepper often benefit to
be cooked alone, as it's easier
to monitor. 

But I decided to cook
everything in the same pan
today. I'm making food for
my wife and I so a full pan
of food should be good. 

Smoked locally made tofu,
onion, garlic, carrots, 
bell pepper, bok choy. 

Once the pan and oil is warm
enough, (I flick a drop of water
in the pan to test if it will 
sizzle)I put the onions in. 
The begining of the cooking 
of the onions is quite important. 
If you cook them too slowly they 
tend to not reach that crispy
sweet state. So the oil has to 
be warm enough for the oinons 
to sizzle, and you have to 
move them around quickly so
the vapour from the water coming
out of the onions aren't
steam cooking each other. 

It takes a bit of time to 
stabilize the cooking, the
reduction of the onions to
reach that sweetness. I normally
add salt during the cooking, 
and I wonder if the salt act
as a ,,,, and help with the
cooking. 

When the color of the onions 
starts to change to a brownis 
color, I lower the heat and 
add the garlic at the center. 
Garlic will brun faster
than onions but you also 
want to cook them enough, to 
reach that sweetness the garlic 
can reach. 

While these 2 are cooking I 
take the time to chop the rest 
of the ingredients. Tofu first
as I wanted it to spend a lot
of time cooking. I used a locally
made tofu which is smooked with
Tamari and apple tree woodchip. 

When I deep fry my tofu I tend
to cut it in bigger part, but
now as they are the third 
ingredient in the pan I went for
smaller pieces. The smoky taste
will spread to the other ingredients. 

Chopping the carrots and peppers, 
I decided to cut the bokchoy in
2 parts, the stem, added after
the peppers, then the leaves, 
added later in the mix. 

Carrots first, the pepper and
bokchoy, finally the leafy green. 
Giving each ingredient the time
to relase enough water and cook. 

In order to create a sauce, I like
to cook some rice vinegar, and recduce
it, then add soy sauce in the mix. 
The soy sauce seems to interact
with the oil in the pan, and can
only be added at the end.

I let the mix rest for a while
and prepare the bowls with 
fermented kimchi and fresh 
sprouts. I like the mix of
ferment and sprouts, representing
the 2 stage of life in food. 

The resting is always important
when cooking food, there is
a unification which happens 
as it cool down. 

I realized that I don't
write much about cooking
although I enjoy it so much.