COOKING WHILE HUNG!

subject:
COOKING WHILE HUNG!
post date:
2007-10-09 18:53:53
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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! BEING HUNG HAS PAID OFF!!! Finally, for the first time EVER, a reality show personna that I wanted to win - DID. The ever energetic HUNG. Proud Vietnamese, cook extrodinaire' - and the bearer of the best name and best quote. I wrote the blog below after the very first episode of this season's "Top Chef". My man pulled through and won the day; also 100k and a feature in Food and Wine magazine. Ahhhh...I am content. Now I must go make a peanut butter sandwich...-----------------On Cooking Well------------(orginally written weeks and weeks ago)For some reason, I really enjoy watching Chef Ramsey turn red and verbally thrash wanna be chefs on Hell's Kitchen.Now I have a NEW chef that I really want to be a winner on Bravo's Top Chef Miami. "Hung", who has a great name -(imagine this: he's waiting for an interviewer, male or female, it doesn't matter - they approach uncertainly and ask, "Are you Hung?" - oh my god, it just hardly gets any better than that). He also has a wonderful way with words. My favorite Hung quote so far is, "My monkey could cook that." I go down on my knees and beg that he really DOES have a monkey. Perfection."...Hung is a 29-year old who hails from Pittsfield, Massachusetts but currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. A product of the Culinary Institute of America, Hung is presently the executive sous chef at Guy Savoy in Las Vegas. He was born in Vietnam and is trained in classic French and Asian cuisine. He has traveled extensively to learn various gastronomic fares and is fluent in four languages. He is a huge fan of using seafood because, according to him, there are a million varieties and flavors to combine with it..."Watching people cook with odd ingrediants brought to mind one of my own most memorable cooking moments. Everybody comfy? It was my first summer in my first house with my first garden. I thought zucchini plants produced one zucchini per plant - so I planted fifteen. Not only did I become an expert on how to cook zucchini (I must have pulled about five a day off the plants all summer long) - I also had lovely green broccoli plants.I watered my garden and tended it with half-assed dedication. I did my own Darwinian experiment - those plants hardy enough to survive the weeds were those good enough to eat. The broccoli was a survivor.The day came that I decided those big, succulent, green orbs of broccoli were ready to cut and be used in a savory vegetable stir fry.I took my basket and shears out to the garden, stomped my way through the weeds and chose the very best of the broccoli. I took it in and washed it. It was such a lovely emerald green. I cut it up and added it to secret ingrediants (a pinch of this, a dash of that). Dinner was served.The family gathered around the table and filled their plates with brown rice and chicken and my wonderful broccoli stir fry. I was SO proud. I felt like Mother Earth, bringing forth nourishment for her charges. My oldest son's fork scrapped discordently against his plate. It scrapped again. I looked over and saw him trying to spear a very particular piece of stir fry. He held it up on his fork."Mom, is this a caterpillar?"I leaned in, maybe swayed dizzily from the sudden urge to up chuck. Yes, there on the end of his fork was a broccoli-green caterpillar. Well, half of one. Suddenly the dinner table harmony was FILLED with the sound of forks scrapping away on plates, digging for caterpillar surprise in what had been a broccoli stir fry. It was full of nicely chopped green caterpillars. I went to a glistening head of still wet broccoli in the sink and pulled the flowerettes apart. There they were, nestled so snuggly that my energetic washing hadn't dislodged them - broccoli colored caterpillars.Dinner ended abruptly. The moral of the story? Dominos delivers...The Cabbage Looper - a common garden critter, unwelcome stirfry ingrediant... *burps*