Hi, I’m Jen and I’m an apprentice at Cuisine en Locale in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We work with beautiful fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy from Massachusetts and Vermont-area farms, and change our menus according to the season. Or the ingredient, depending on what looks wonderful to us on a given day. On this blog, I will not only tell you what it’s like to work in a kitchen and cook for a living, I’ll also pass on some recipes for you to use as inspiration when you make your next trip to the farmer’s market.
I want to dedicate another part of this blog to what I call “do-it-yourselfedness”. Or “do-it-yourselfmanship”. Whatever, I know they’re not words, but they describe a lot of what I do and what I’d like to teach you to do. I used to think that preserving fruits and vegetables was too difficult and too much work. In the last week, I’ve pickled all sorts of vegetables and made jam of two different fruits. With no prior experience. You can too. I used to think that brewing was this magical process by which the nectar of the gods, BEER, was generated. It’s not magic, it’s totally doable. You just have to try. Same goes for baking, cooking, or anything else in the culinary realm – it works for me because I’m never afraid of fucking up. You shouldn’t be either. Fearlessness in the kitchen, my friends, yields greatness.
My background: I’m a Milwaukee girl, which means beer and cheese flow through my veins. I’ve been watching cooking shows since I was a little girl and have always had an active interest in cooking. I’ve never cooked professionally, though, so it’s really exciting for me to learn proper knife technique and kitchen etiquette. I’m really stoked to hear your feedback on recipes I post, and also to hear what you’d like to know about any given subject. Ask a question – if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find it for you.
So I’m off to the farmer’s market today at Union Square in Cambridge to grab ingredients for the upcoming few days, and some fruits and vegetables for preservation for what I understand to be a very long, brutal New England winter (my first).
Recipes, anecdotes, and tips to come! Thanks for reading.
Eat well,
Jen
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