THE TRAVELING GOURMAND SERIES
1. The Gluten-Free Way: My Way, by William Maltese & Adrienne Z. Milligan
2. Back of the Boat Gourmet Cooking: Afloat—Pool-Side—Backyard, by Bonnie Clark & William Maltese
3. William Maltese’s Wine Taster’s Diary: Spokane/Pullman Washington Wine Region, by William Maltese
4. In Search of the Perfect Pinot G! Australia’s Mornington Peninsula: William Maltese’s Wine Taster’s Guide #2, by A. B. Gayle & William Maltese
5. Whole Wheat for Food Storage: Recipes for Unground Wheat, by Michael R. Collings & Judith Collings
6. Even Gourmands Have to Diet: It’s Just Food, People!, by Bonnie Clark and William Maltese
7. Dinner with Cecile and William: A Cookbook, by Cecile Charles and William Maltese
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2012 by Cecile Charles and William Maltese
Cover art by Cecile Charles
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Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For foodies everywhere,
and YOU know who you are.
And for Cynthia, Cecile’s sister, just because.
INTRODUCTION
WILLIAM MALTESE
Anyone who enjoys gourmet cooking, and who always yearns to experience an adventure when/while eating it, like I do, is exceedingly lucky whenever he finds a kindred spirit, professional or otherwise, who can spice things up with good and unique food, coupled with good wine and good conversation. Otherwise, faced constantly with boors, disinterested in adventurous eating, in eating well, unappreciative of fine wine, and incapable of scintillating conversation, one might just as well stay at home, prepare and eat his or her own food, drink his or her own wine, and talk to him- or herself.
There are many professional chefs who spend their lives on television, and/or in professional kitchens, wowing the public with their cooking artistry. There are those who aren’t professionals but who still cook and, actually, invent their own recipes, and who mainly slip public notice, because they and their food aren’t on display 24/7. This book introduces you to Cecile Charles, once one of the former, now one of the latter: a gourmet-cook extraordinaire who has invented, and still invents, her own recipes and whose culinary creativity always leaves me inspired and astounded whenever she joins me in the kitchen or at the dining table.
INTRODUCTION
CECILE CHARLES
So, hello, readers.
I’m Cecile Charles, lover of good gourmet food that surprises by a use of unusual mixtures of ingredients.
As a younger person, I spent time in several fine establishments, learning to cook food in unexpected ways. Taught to explore flavors and how they blend with each other, I spent copious amounts of time mixing ingredients, to see how the results tasted. Initially, I, more often than not, ended up with horrible-tasting food, but once I got the hang of blending, I more and more often struck culinary gold.
When one works, professionally, as a cook in a good restaurant, or hotel, as I once did, one is inevitably expected to enter food contests. This I did. Through such blue-ribbon winning experiences, I confirmed that I was adept at doing what I do. Combined with an artist’s eye (my other eye “analytical”), I made, and still do, unusual foods that not only taste good, and are good for you, but look beautiful as well.
When I worked as a chef, my unusual menu items kept the customers coming back for more, kept me secure in my job, and saw my list of innovative recipes grow. Yet, it was difficult for me, having learned cooking on-the-job, to compete with the newer chefs coming out of college with their official academic training, certified diplomas, and willingness to work for less pay; so, I began hoarding my unique recipes, thinking I would eventually open my own business.
While I was cooking professionally, I was, also, professionally painting (this book’s cover one of my works). Of those two chief passions, painting began to take precedence, until I found myself painting every day, cooking less often and less inventively, and eventually making the decision to embrace art, not food, full time.
I married and for years devoted myself primarily to being a housewife, and, while not giving up painting and cooking, doing both of those for pleasure instead of for money.
At this time of my life, I own and run, with the assistance of my dedicated team, The Heart of Spokane, an arts and antiques boutique, that sells my artworks and the artwork of others (http://www.theheartofspokane.com), as well as all kinds of up-cycled “green’ things, and everything vintage. Also, I write, dance, sing, am funny (so they say, but who are “they” anyway?), and play musical instruments whenever I can squeeze in some extra time (or, with my return to inventive cooking, do I mean thyme?).
If, over the years, I have resurrected one of my original recipes, or two, for some special event or the other, I seldom, ever, considered giving away any of my secret “babies”, or even writing them down in cookbook format, figuring them safest locked away, from prying eyes, in my head.
Then I met William Maltese, one of those natural gourmands fortunate enough to have travelled a good deal in the world, during the course of his prolific career as a writer that includes authoring a series of cookbooks and a WILLIAM MALTESE WINE TASTER’S DIARY series for the Wildside/Borgo Press’s “The Traveling Gourmand” imprint, in which this book is included. Meeting him, a man who has tasted unique foods from so many different countries, saw me suddenly eager to see what I could do to pique his admittedly experienced (and jaded?) palate; I wanted to know if he could be as wowed as others less “into” food had been. So, I planned a fun evening of surprise tastings for him and Bonnie Clark, his co-author of BACK OF THE BOAT GOURMET COOKING.
I served him mushrooms stuffed with Cucumber Pâté, Simple Butter Croissants, Mushroom Apple Soup, Weed Salad, Bleuet Persil Soup, Red Radish Roast Chunk Vegetable Aperitif, Tomato Shrimp Aspic, Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole, and Golden Rhum Vanille Pudding. I received the best compliment when, in an offhanded way (for that’s William’s nature), he said, “Well, do we have, here, I wonder, another of my cookbooks in the making?” I assumed it was purely complimentary, not an actual invitation to publish with him, but, once I had slept on it, I actually had the epiphany that decided it might be time for me to break down my previous fetish for secrecy and actually share with William, and, more importantly, with others.
And, as it turned out, William, as luck would have it, was more than serious about my joining him in a cookbook, spot-lighting my years of innovative cooking, this book the result.
For those of you who cook a great deal, you know good food does good things for your body. If you want great energy, you need energy-producing foods. If you want, literally, to sweat out the toxins inside of you, that requires yet another type of food. Many of this book’s recipes are good for digestion, and for bringing a balance of nutrients to your system. If you want an increased libido, we recommend dishes for that, too...all in this cookbook. We specifically point out many of these benefits as we go along.
I’m not going to be silly enough to insist that William and I have come up with a food to cure each and every ailment, but we do believe food can, our food can, provide the right answers to all kinds of health questions.
Our recipes are full of fresh, not canned, foods, are best served as three-ounce servings, per http://www.choosemyplate.gov, and need be mixed and matched with other food groups for well-rounded meals. While we’ve sorted through many recipes, to come up with those we’ve picked for inclusion, here, we’ve decided to include, just for the hell of it, some