Cabbages. Did you know there’s a variety of cabbage called “Danish Ballhead”? Me neither. Yesterday I was going through the online encyclopaedia as my knowledge about this green leaf kugel was limited to the sauerkraut, to the red cabbage they serve you with the wiener schnitzel -which i love to mix with mashed potatoes- and, of course, cole slaw salad. And if I go a bit further away, do you remember the Cabbage Patch Kids and their arch-nemesis the Garbage Pail Kids? I remember at school trading cards of the latter were banned. The privileges of British education.

My first experience at ‘cooking’ was atrocious. I ended up with a breaded fish in flames! The fire alarm went crazy. Water started to sparkle from the ceiling. After that my cooking courage was reduced to only making pasta. Boil some water, throw the pasta in there, and after, vodka sauce -usually- from a jar. Suddenly, a pleasure of trying different pastas grew up on me, from the ordinary fettucini to the playful bucatinis, I had to try them all. Still it puzzles me how I didn’t grow up fat with that much starch!

Soon after, as I started working, my Italian cuisine days were over. Now it was all about eating out. Restaurants became my second home. Day after day, typical fast food joints to exclusive gourmet ethnic kitchens, trying to find something new and exciting to eat, a DIY epicure. I wonder why I haven’t been offered a food review column in the newspaper by now.

At my apartments, I never bothered to connect the gas supply to the kitchen, even though the service is quite cheap. But there has been some periods of time were food was cooked at my place. That’s when I was living with these impetuous cooking masters as flatmates: Rafael and Felix. Sadly we didn’t all live together at the same time because I could imagine fantastic banquets happening. It was at two different points of life where I shared apartments with them. But both Rafael and Felix would come after a long day at work, smelling to ‘kitchen’ mixed with Miami’s humidity, to keep on cooking. They wouldn’t stop. I remember Rafael calling me before getting out of work asking me, what do you want to eat later? Then he would show up at home with his pockets full of smuggled food -in a plastic bag- from the restaurant to prepare the best homemade food in Miami.

But I’ve had Chefs dreams even though I seem not suitable for any kitchen. One of my “dream releases” was to do a full retrospective of The Chefs one day. We were quite close to make it happen until I stopped hearing from Helen McCookerybook. She was excited, we were excited, I was giggling. She even sent me a couple of unreleased songs that are fantastic! We were going to also include the recordings by Skat. Don’t know what went wrong. Back in 2006 and 2007, she even wrote a couple of times on her blog about it:

– A Peruvian record company called Plastilina contacted me a while ago asking to bring out a Chefs compilation. I’m now back in touch with Carl and James (guitarists). Russ, the drummer, died a few years ago.

– Well, Plastilina have been in touch: the surviving Chefs will have to meet up and talk, I think. I’ve always wanted to go to South America- first, Venezuela (there was a girl at school from there) then my friend Marek Kohn went to Peru and I wanted to go there, then Argentina after I read about Hank Wangford going there,then Chile out of curiosity.

– Meanwhile, Plastilina have been in touch again, and I hope that somehow we can sort ot a Chefs release some time soon. But I think that’s a bit of a don’t-hold-your-breath situation.

Reading her lines again, she doesn’t sound that positive, right? But then, she did send me some ’secret tracks’. Hard to figure out. In any case, I believe this compilation has to be released someday! Perhaps Cherry Red wants to do it? That would be sweet because I love The Chefs but also maybe that’s what will give me a kick start to try to cook. Perhaps one day I’ll be at least half of a chef, or a fifth. I’d be happy being a fifth of a chef. At least be able to make some tasty cabbage rolls. I’m up for the challenge, I’ll bring an apron.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Chefs – 24 Hours