I remember standing with Mr. Bers one afternoon in an appliance store downtown, arguing about whether I should buy a Viking range or a more modest looking cook top with a built-in oven by Thermador.
Cook, cook, cook, cook, cook.
I'm reluctant to mention him because that's exactly what he wants, but HE... IS... A... PIG.' Roux likes modest, quiet cooks - men like Shaun Hill, proprietor of the Merchant House in Ludlow, and Heston Blumenthal, who is the chef at the Fat Duck just down the road (like the Waterside Inn, the Fat Duck now has three Michelin stars).
I long for a sociological survey of those who take up the current Waitrose offer of a Valentine Day's dinner to take home, for a modest sum, to cook for yourself and your loved one.
Instead, these often modest but impeccably cooked and deeply satisfying little dishes come back to haunt you a week later when you urgently want some more.
While most of us make do with simply hanging in there, cookery schools across the country are noticing a rush to learn kitchen skills from modest dinner party cooks to those in search of a cordon bleu career.
My function was modest; I came to cook and drive.
Nobuko Miyamoto – the late Itami's wife – plays the eponymous noodle cook whose modest attempts at keeping her ramen cafe going after her husband's death are met with disdain when long-distance trucker Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki), pure John Wayne swagger in his cowboy hat, sits down one night and tries a bowl.
In Argentina, he is known as a man of the people who shunned the limousines and palaces enjoyed by past cardinals and, instead, rode public transit and lived in a modest apartment where he cooked his own meals.
Sometimes an egg pasta will sneak into the mix, like the wide pappardelle in a lamb sauce or the narrow tagliatelle with a rich Bolognese, but his aesthetic is basically the same: modest portions of noodles cooked to a point just past al dente, and sauces fortified with a bit of butter, a touch of sharp cheese and a healthy pinch of salt.
