Professor Bakken's expertise

Today I visited Professor Bakken at his home on Grove St, where he hosted me for some expert local food cooking lessons. I am very appreciative of his kindess - and especially of the results of my visit!

I brought with me a variety of vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, onions, green onion, eggplant, and squash. I also brought my chicken from the Market House yesterday and my homemade butter. We started by talking for a while and I told him that I didn't care for eggplant. He certainly had a remedy for that. He cooked my eggplant on the grill until the skins were almost black and the inside was very mushy. Then we removed the skins, and chopped up the eggplant with garlic, green onion, tomato, habanero pepper, and a variety of herbs that were grown on his back porch. The end result was a puree type salad, and it is absolutely phenomenal - more flavorful by far than any of my own concoctions.

The next task was chicken stock. Professor Bakken removed the backbone of my chicken, as well as the "innerds", and began cooking them in a pan with green onion, carrots, garlic and onion skins, and many of our other cooking scraps - virtually all of them could be used for stock-making. This we allowed to cook for the duration of my visit, and I continued to cook it for a few more hours when I got home. I ended up with 7 medium sized tupperwares full of delicious broth.

My chicken's organs certainly didn't go to waste. The liver is cooking in the picture above with green onions, butter, tomatoes, and garlic. This he used to make another puree type mixture that makes a delicious spread (cornbread will have to do for now!).

Our final project was roasted vegetables. Squash was so easy to make - simply cut it in half and roast it in the oven. When I eat it for lunch this week I'll drizzle it with maple syrup. We also made roasted onions, potatoes, and carrots with butter and herbs that turned out beautifully.

My visit with Professor Bakken was fun and highly beneficial for me - I probably won't have to cook again for the rest of the week!! I learned some delicious new recipes as well as some of the properties of food (ex. eggplant skin is very bitter, so will be less bitter if removed). I am extremely pleased with everything I accomplished today and am very grateful for Professor Bakken's assistance. The food he made with me is fabulous; although he said salt and olive oil would have made a load of difference, I don't think I could be any happier!