Knit to This
Knit to This: Jacques Pépin
Dear Ann,
This summer has been the summer of short-form everything. Maybe it’s because I blasted through an entire School of Making Cropped Car Jacket in 5 weeks of non-stop, devotional hand-stitching, but since then it’s been a whole lot of dishcloths, one after the other, each one a small bite of joy.
And it’s been the same for my entertainment. Right now I’m loving short things, one after the other, that keep me engaged without making my brain work too hard, whether to follow an elliptical plot or an actor who talks faster than I can keep up.
Rummaging in the wayback of my PBS Passport account, I came across a series called American Masters At Home. As far as I know they all feature a single (Franco-) American Master: Jacques Pépin.
In a fairly long series of short videos—some just 3 or 4 minutes long—we encounter this elder statesman of chefs, who worked his way up from cooking in the French navy to the Plaza Athenée hotel in Paris and the Kennedy White House, and later produced many cookbooks and cooking shows. We see him in his home kitchen, surrounded by the cheerful clutter of a lifetime at the stove. He is in his home clothes. And he is doing his home cooking.
The dishes are simple, and generally French classics, and he makes them before our eyes, very nearly in real time. There is no mise-en-place of pre-prepped ingredients in matching glass dishes, and it doesn’t seem like he had any help getting ready. His simple ingredients are sitting on the counter just as they would be in my kitchen. Like me, he chops that half onion, which looks like it might have been in the fridge for a couple of days longer than is strictly ideal, while the butter melts in the pan that is heating up on the stove.
As he works, he talks, telling us little tricks as he goes. Here’s the difference between a country omelette and a classic omelette. Here’s how to crack an egg without pushing bits of shell inside. Here’s a recipe for French toast that substitutes melted ice cream for the eggs—yes, really, and he really made this in the 1950s in France, where the people claim that they have nothing whatsoever to do with anything called French toast. He’s here to tell us otherwise. At least at the Plaza Athenée, they had French toast, and it used ice cream.
He complains gently about the price of fresh herbs, almost apologizing for the fact that his are from his garden, so he can be lavish with them. He shares that keeping bananas in the fridge makes them last longer, debunking what the old Chiquita Banana song taught me.
Who knew that making mussels, in a savory, brothy sauce, was so straightforward? It goes on and on like this. Dish after dish. It’s like learning how to cook from your dad, if your dad were a world-class chef with a calm and quietly joyful outlook on his next meal. A man not too full of himself to pretend that perfect food is a big deal—here’s how to do it, I’ll show you.
It’s a little tricky to find all the episodes on the PBS Passport site, but I did it, and you can too. Just poke around the American Masters category, and they start popping up. There are lots of them on YouTube, too, which is a perfect platform, given their brevity.
Jacques Pépin is a treasure, and it’s a gift to spend time with him, up close, in this open, relaxed way.
Love,
Kay
My cooking (and therefore, life) has been vastly improved since watching Jacques’ videos. They are also on Facebook.
As empowering as Elizabeth Zimmermann telling me that I don’t need a pattern!
Jacques Pepin has been a lifeline through this pandemic!
I love watching and listening to Chef Pépin share his recipes, cooking knowledge, and his stories. The melted ice cream French Toast . . . Brilliant!!! His knife skills . . . Amazing!!! Give him a follow on IG too for a daily dose of Chef Pépin.
I still hold onto a tomb of a cookbook of his only for his meringue mushroom recipe. (I’m sure I could find it online.) My local museum, specializing in trompe l’oeil art, loves when I bring the mushrooms for an event, casually gathered into a wooden mushroom basket. I once took a class from him in a grocery store for my birthday, so I can say Jacques Pepin cooked me my birthday dinner!
This is where he used to say Fast food my way! And show that good food can be fast too. Lovely person, lovely food. I liked his rabbit made from an olive, roo. Playing with your food!
YouTube TV turned all the episodes up with a single search.
Thank you!
I watch Jacque regularly on PBS’s Create TV. His cookbooks are also a joy to read.
Jacque has given me joy, comfort and cooking hints through the last several years of chaos. Diane
Thank you for that YouTube tip. So thoughtful!
I watched him with Julia Child on Amazon downloads. Together they were great! I will look for him on YouTube. Thanks Kay!
I love him. I so enjoyed listening to his autobiography, “The Apprentice”, on my Libby app. Absolutely fascinating and delightful, I highly recommend it.
Could not agree more!! Love Jacques Pepin and how he makes so many delicious recipes accessible. A joy to watch. I would also highly recommend his memoir, “The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen”, a delightful read.
I don’t even care if I want to eat what he’s cooking, I just love watching him cook. He loves it so much and so sincerely. It is good for my soul to watch him.
This man is a national treasure for sure! I love watching him create simple, yet extremely attractive and flavorful meals in his low-key, gentle way. He’s a person who loves what he does and is a really, really good teacher.
You can also them via the Jacques Pepin Foundation, which has a searchable database of all the videos and shows he has been in.
Oh my. I love the simplicity, I love his voice and how it all seems to be much easier then I would have thought. Thank you so much for sharing this discovery.
Yes, Jacques! Make fun of us as foodies if you will, but there are classic dishes in every cuisine and they are good. They are approachable, and have more to do with the plain and simple, ingredients-based cooking of my grandparents than many of the product driven messes of the 50’s and early 60’s I grew up with. Thank you also to JP for keeping dear Julia in her happy place for so much longer than she could have managed on her own.
Thank you for this! I may have seen Jacques as I was digging around Passport, but now I’m definitely going to find and watch. What a treat.
These short, non- fussy dishes along with his witty/down to earth instructions are a pleasure. His use of left-overs are fun, ( who would think?), I’ve watched his short vignettes for a few years – how refreshing from the divas, & snarky food shows that are offered to us. The older shows with Julia Child are quietly hilarious, as he gently disagrees with her on fussy ingredients & techniques.
I heard him interviewed and he told about how he’s always kept a journal/diary/notebook of the dinner parties he and his wife held. He records the date, guests and menu and wines, then has all of the dinner guests sign the page of the description of the party they’ve attended!! He has a whole shelf of journals now. Brilliant—just simply brilliant! What a priceless treasure to hand down the line. So now I give a simple journal to newly weds for this purpose.
Thank you so much for this posting. I forgot about cooking with Jacques Pepin. For a master chef, he always presented recipes that are easy made with readily available ingredients but made gourmet.
I also love how devoted he is to not wasting food. His dishes are simple to prepare and delicious.
Jacques is good to follow on Instagram too. Follow @jacquespepinfoundation for lots of short videos and recipes.
Yes, the American Masters is wonderful. Also check out the series of Art in America; clockmakers, ceramics, quilting, and on and on. Also like Craftsman’s Legacy as he explores shoe makers to clock makers to stained glass to —-
Enjoy !!!