Front Porch: Son polishes cooking skills in quarantine

The other night my son prepared steak, salad and a new recipe for squashed potatoes for dinner – all homemade and plated with a sense of design. That was in Seattle.

Here in Spokane his father and I had leftover enchilada casserole I pulled from the freezer and reheated in the microwave. My, my, how things have changed.

During this time of long sequestration in Seattle, where Sam and his husband Ryan have been self-isolating at home since the first week of March, my son has blossomed as a cook. This from a man who, until his late 30s, existed on boxed mac ’n’ cheese, cereal, frozen burritos and either a pan-fried chicken breast or occasional piece of fish (using the exact same shaker-can seasoning for each, naturally).

I hate to dust off that old trope, but I didn’t raise him to eat like that.

In his late 30s it occurred to him that steak could be grilled well at home, but he didn’t know how. Enter YouTube. He watched about six videos and learned to master a good steak. But the real learning experience here, for him, was YouTube as a live-action cookbook, perfect for a hands-on learner like him.

And learn he did. He mastered how to make good scrambled eggs (low and slow), how to get a good crust on meat, what a glaze is and what kinds to make for what kind of food, and the science behind a lot of cooking, such as the chemistry in caramelizing and what happens with butter when it’s browned.

Along the way he discovered he has some talent for all this. Although, during pre-coronavirus mediation times, he and Ryan ate out a lot, he had begun doing some proper cooking and baking at home, even customizing one of Texas-native Ryan’s favorites, chili, of which a pot is often in the refrigerator now for eating on during the week.

“It used to be regular bean chili, but now I vary things with, sometimes, bacon, turkey, chipotle powder or other ingredients, usually starting with mirepoix,” he said – words which about knocked me over. “Mirepoix?” From his mouth? Surely not, as this is the person who, as a child, would pick through the meatloaf his mother made to locate and remove any onions he could identify.

I figured out why this is working when he told me why he likes cooking better than baking, though he is experimenting there, too. He equates baking with math. Baking necessitates precise measurements that need to be followed to get the right answer. But cooking is more artistic, where opinion factors in, where you can substitute, add to and amend.

Sam works in the arts – directing, choreographing, acting, dancing, singing, teaching and freelancing as a cartoonist. So, I get it, though why it took so long to realize artistic expression in preparing food, I still don’t know.

“I guess you’re really never too old to start anything,” said my now-in-his-40s son.

I love how during this time of forced isolation, he’s improvising ingredients and sometimes just looking at his properly stocked pantry and refrigerator and coming up with something to make from whatever’s there. A spare zucchini turned into zucchini cheesy tots. He bought a large salmon fillet some weeks ago, but hadn’t used it all. Hence, fresh salmon cakes emerged, which are now a favorite at home.

A neighbor of his goes crabbing and often shares. That resulted in fresh crab cakes. And he’s using fresh veggies and fruits, too. My heart is bursting.

A lot of time is going into cooking right now because he has a lot of time. Ryan can work from the house, and is doing so, but most of Sam’s work requires his physical presence. Hence, his latent cooking gene has had time to grow, improve and thrive. To marinate, if you will.

Please don’t think cooking a la Sam is all gourmet all the time. Or even always successful. Still lots of grilled cheese and 1,000-things-you-can-do-with-chicken dinners, though Sam has discovered you can make most things taste or look gourmet with a little effort. As for failures, he cites the disaster of forgetting to squeeze fluid out of a heap of grated cucumbers before proceeding with that particular recipe.

Sometimes a shopping error creates the day’s kitchen activities. Like when he found an excess of peanut butter in the cupboard. They buy peanut butter in 64-oz. tubs because it is used daily as a pill delivery device for their dog, who has many environmental allergies. And when there were two full 64-oz. tubs discovered in the pantry, it seemed prudent to reduce the inventory.

And so, peanut butter chocolate eggs were created the week before Easter. But here’s where his neighborhood’s informal mutual lend-lease network kicked in. Trying to limit trips to the store and not having an appropriate substitute for the recipe’s required coconut oil, his next-door neighbor provided. She was rewarded with half the chocolate treats. There’s a lot of sharing that takes place among neighbors where he lives.

He reduced the peanut butter stores further by making peanut butter cookies, and gave half to another neighbor, who happens to have a plum tree. Some of the upcoming season’s plums have been promised to Sam.

He’s already checking out recipes for what he can do with those.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.

The photo caption has been corrected. Sam Pettit made the chocolate treats. In a previous version, Pettit’s first name was stated incorrectly due to a copy editor’s error.