The following is an excerpt from Akron Beacon Journal food writer Lisa Abraham’s new book, Famous Chefs & Fabulous Recipes — Lessons Learned at One of the Oldest Cooking Schools in America (Ringtaw Books, 2012, $34.95 hardcover).
The book traces the history of the Western Reserve School of Cooking in Hudson from its beginnings as the Zona Spray Cooking School, through the many chefs who have taught there over its 40-year history. The following is taken from Chapter 2.
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With a great-grandmother who ran a restaurant and a mother who edited noted cookbook author Charlotte Turgeon’s work, it’s probably no surprise that Joanne Weir ended up as one of the country’s most prominent cooking teachers.
“It definitely is in my blood and in my soul,” she said of her career in food.
Her teaching has spanned the globe — including nearly a dozen trips to Hudson — and Weir is best known for her work teaching Mediterranean cuisine. She likes to say that she specializes in the cuisine of “any place that grows grapes.”
Food was a strong part of her upbringing. Weir spent her childhood weekends visiting her grandfather’s farm in the Berkshire Mountains in Cummington, Mass., where a Saturday lunch outside under the maple trees might consist of rolls he made, chicken he had raised and butchered, potato chips he had fried and maple walnut ice cream made from syrup from his own trees.
While her career path may seem inevitable considering her lineage, Weir wasn’t planning on a life in food when she studied art education at the University of Massachusetts in the 1970s. She was teaching high school fine arts in the Boston public schools when she felt a pull toward food.
Weir began to take classes from legendary French chef Madeleine Kamman at her Modern Gourmet school in Massachusetts, and later studied with her in France, where she was awarded a master chef’s diploma. From there, Weir decided she needed restaurant experience, so she moved to California and spent five years working at Alice Waters’ acclaimed Chez Panisse restaurant. Having studied with two of the best the food world has to offer, Weir had her choice of careers, but found that returning to the classroom was where she wanted to be.
She finds the need to immerse herself in her subject matter. Her study and travels abroad solidified her in olive oil-based cooking, and she continues to travel extensively in the Mediterranean, taking group trips abroad about six months of the year.
Her first book, From Tapas to Meze, released in 1994, was named by Julia Child as one of her top 12 favorite cookbooks of more than 1,000 published that year. In 1996, she was the first-ever recipient of the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Cooking Teacher of the Year Award.
Weir, who makes her home in northern California, has studied wine and the wine regions of the world. She has hosted her own cooking show on public television, which focused on wine country cuisine, and has written three books on the subject.
Kamman, who was a frequent visitor to the Zona Spray Cooking School, helped Weir get booked there for the first time in 1990. In addition to a longstanding friendship with Spray, Weir said she enjoyed her classes in Hudson, where she said the students were always well-versed on food and the importance of good ingredients.
One of Weir’s fondest memories of teaching at the school was the time she prepared a custard dish and, as the students were sampling it, a woman in the back row proclaimed it the best thing she had ever eaten, actually picked up her plate and licked it clean. “I thought that was so cool,” Weir recalled.
Weir has been able to keep up her enthusiasm in the classroom because she is serious about wanting people to learn. “I want to keep people in the kitchen. Cooking isn’t rocket science and I want people to feel that they can do it and I’m all about giving them the tools to do it,” she said.
VENETIAN TOMATO-RICE “OLIVES”
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup onion, finely minced
1 cup arborio rice
1¼ cups chicken broth
1¼ cups milk
⅔ cup sun-dried tomato paste
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs
½ cup water
4 cups toasted fresh breadcrumbs, finely ground
Mixture of vegetable and olive oil for frying
Place the chicken broth and milk in a saucepan and heat just to a simmer.
Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add the onions and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the rice to the skillet with the oil and continue to cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.
Add the milk and broth to the rice, along with half of the sun-dried tomato paste, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook slowly until the rice is cooked, about 20 minutes. If the rice dries out during the cooking process, add additional hot water. When rice is done, add the remaining sun-dried tomato paste and the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Remove from heat and cool completely.
Form the mixture into small olive-size balls using less than a tablespoon of mixture for each one. Place on a baking sheet. Place the flour in a bowl. Whisk the eggs and water in another bowl. Place the breadcrumbs in a third bowl. Roll the rice olives in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Place on a baking sheet until you are ready to cook them. These can be prepared up to one day in advance up to this point.
In a deep pan, heat 1 inch of a vegetable and olive oil combination to 375 degrees.
Fry the rice olives until golden on all sides, 60 to 90 seconds. Remove and serve immediately.
Makes 60 rice olives.
BAKED STUFFED ARTICHOKES
8 medium artichokes, about 4 lbs.
14 salt-packed anchovy filets
3 cups fresh sourdough breadcrumbs
½ cup plus 3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
8 cloves garlic (2 whole and 6 sliced)
4 tbsp. chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 lbs. (about 3 large) onions, thinly sliced
1¼ lbs. mixed colored peppers, seeded and cut into small strips
Small bunch fresh thyme
3 bay leaves
¾ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground pepper
3 tbsp. red wine vinegar
Garlic mayonnaise (recipe follows)
½ cup water
⅓ cup niçoise olives
Choose artichokes that have about an inch of the stem attached. With a serrated knife, cut through the leaves of the artichokes crosswise, removing about half of the top part of the choke. Using a small knife, trim the stems down to the tender core and pare away the tough leaves around the bottom of the artichoke.
Scoop and scrape out the hairy chokes and set in a bowl of water that has had some lemon juice added to it.
Soak the anchovies in several changes of cold water for 15 minutes. Drain and pat dry.
Toss the breadcrumbs in 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and toast them for 15 minutes on a sheet pan until golden brown and crisp. Pound the 2 reserved garlic cloves and 6 of the anchovies to a paste in a mortar and combine them with the breadcrumbs and 2 tablespoons of the parsley.
Warm the ½ cup of olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add onions, peppers, thyme, bay leaves, sliced garlic, salt, pepper and vinegar. Stew mixture for 15 minutes, stirring often, until vegetables have softened. Turn onions and peppers into a large enamel baking pan. Pack breadcrumb mixture into the artichoke bottoms and invert them stem up onto the bed of vegetables. Season artichokes and pour water over them.
Cover with parchment and then tightly with foil.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the artichokes can be easily skewered. While the artichokes are cooking, make the garlic mayonnaise.
Allow the artichokes to cool until just warm. Serve the artichokes directly from the baking pan on individual plates with some of the onions and peppers. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons of parsley and drape with the remaining anchovies, cut lengthwise into thin strips. Strew olives around the plate and pass the garlic mayonnaise separately.
Makes eight servings.
GARLIC MAYONNAISE
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup unflavored oil: sunflower, safflower, canola, vegetable or corn
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 to 3 tbsp. lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a liquid measuring cup with a spout, combine the olive and unflavored oils. In a medium size bowl, whisk the egg yolk, mustard and 1 tablespoon of the combined oil together until an emulsion is formed. Drop by drop, add the olive oil to the emulsion, whisking constantly. Continue to do this, drop by drop, in a steady stream, whisking, until all of the oil has been added. Do not add the oil too quickly and be sure that the emulsion is homogeneous before adding more oil. Add the garlic and lemon juice to taste. Season with salt and pepper. Add 2 to 4 tablespoons warm water to the mayonnaise, whisking constantly.
This should be used the same day that it is made.
Makes about 1¼ cups.
