The Co-op Cookbook: Tools

A brief look at the tools for good cooking and the tools for good food...
 
When we sat down to think about our cookbook, we had to think about what would make ours
different.  There was not a set of recipes that we wanted to get down on paper, of course but we wanted a book that was a lot like we are, inclusive and one that builds.  We wanted something that started from the basics and not just the basics but the basic basics.
When I first started working in kitchens, back when I was taking out trash and sweeping at the end
of shifts, I noticed that everyone who came in to work with their gleaming white coats and checkered pants had sets of shiny knives that shone like the stainless steel tables they were readying themselves to work at.  A chef and friend pulled me aside one day because he knew I wanted to be a chef like him one day and told me that the first thing that I would need if I wanted to be a chef was a good chef's knife.
Over the years, he encouraged me and taught me and he showed me how to use other tools in the kitchen and how to use the other knives in my bag.  And these lessons never went away.  Then, the other day, when I told him that I was working on this cookbook he told me where I should start; with how to choose a good knife.
It was then that I knew that he was not wrong (I would never tell him that...to his face) but he was just inaccurate. When I was looking at how when and where to open Winnie Mae's I thought long and hard about the kitchen. It has been our tradition to look at the roots of things and how deep we can go with the things that we are growing and creating.  When we look at the things on our table, we look at the things that got those things to our tables and how much we should know about what got them there,
When you look at it that way, the choices of things that you need to make a good meal become a little broad.   We are looking at the cook book in a whole new way; a deeper way. If I had to recommend something that people would need when they start looking at our cookbook, it is not a chef's knife, or something special that you can pick up at some specialty culinary store, or even a cast iron skillet.  Nope, my first thought is a shovel, or a hammer, or a good set of power tools.  If you know where your food comes from, you will know how to cook it and how to cook it better.  On a given day as a chef, I use a bunch of different tools that lead to good food before I even pick up my knife.
The Life Cooperative Cookbook is going to be a massive tome that we are going to make as informative as possible.  Even if you don't get it (though you really should get it) think about those other things that you just might miss with other cookbooks.  When you open a cookbook and are excited by all of the contents and little projects that will come from it and an afternoon or evening spent in the kitchen, think about how that first bite got there.  Thin about how much better that first bite would taste if you knew.

Basic copies will be available for pre-order on August 15, 2016.
The Heirloom Copy will be available for pre-order on September 1, 2016  each to be delivered in December (right around Christmas...hmmm, go figure!)
If you want a chance to win one of the Heirloom copies or more from The Life, join our mailing list for weekly giveaways!

 The Heirloom Edition is a handmade edition made with wooden covers and comes with seeds and more from The Floating Farm.

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