When I took on my one-month unpaid culinary apprenticeship in Mendocino, CA, I was working with chefs Margaret Fox and Chris Kump (son of the cooking school owner). I’d spent all my savings on cooking school and renting a car and luckily a waiter had a sublet for me for the month. It was very cold at night and my cabin had no heat, broken windows and a privy lock (hook and eye) for security. My funds were spent on $5 a day for wood for the stove that burned out around 2-3 a.m.

My solace was one book I bought at a used bookstore in Ft. Bragg for $8, Simone Beck’s “Simca’s Cuisine.” That’s what I read when it was light enough to read. Now it’s in storage but I looked it up for a reader who commented on Cassoulet (because that’s in the book) and new, it’s going for $817.19 on Amazon!

Let’s all try to make a version of cassoulet before Spring. How about it? I’m willing if you are. There’s a site that provides all the traditional ingredients online, or make up your own. As for me, Simca’s Cuisine is in storage a half a country away so I’ll have to punt. Happy cooking, Dee

Chowhound.com has a link to cassoulet afficionados. I made it once, 20 years ago, and my Dad loved it! And now that we have online ordering, the tarbais beans and duck fat are only a click away. Not to mention the duck confit and saussice de Toulouse.

Cassoulet is a French dish made of beans and meat in a savory broth topped with a bread crumb crust. It only gets better as it’s re-baked and the crust hardens once again, just to be broken. I wrote this simple description because it’s probably the only one that passes muster with all three French towns and other cassoulet lovers. There are many schools of cassoulet.

Twenty years ago I quit my job as a lobbyist in NYC and spent my life savings going to cooking school. Alongside our lessons, many of the dishes we prepared were written by Simone “Simca” Beck, of Mastering the Art of French Cooking fame. Our teacher worked with Simca and Julia Child during the summer months. Given a choice of a beach or the South of France, I’d choose France!

My apprenticeship of four weeks was held at Cafe Beaujolais, a beautiful small restaurant in Mendocino CA. I lived in a cabin with little light and no heat and when the little supermarket bundle of wood was done at 3:00 a.m. I froze my butt off. I was making nothing and had spent my savings on cooking school and a rental car to drive up there and had no TV or radio so my sole “just for fun” purchase was Simca’s Cuisine, from a used bookstore in Fort Bragg.

I am looking at it and its’ cassoulet recipe now. She calls for Great Northern beans, bacon, 2 ducks, hot Italian or Spanish sausage, and aromatics. She calls it “Un diner canaille pour joyeux amis.” That means an earthy dinner for high-spirited friends. She serves the cassoulet with Coquilles St. Jacques, a cold asparagus vinaigrette, a strong cheese and cherries in custard with meringue, flambee.

The entire meal sounds too heavy for me, but I may just try the cassoulet when we’re flush again. Our President spoke, stocks went up, then they revealed the bank solvency test and it went right back down again. Every day seems to be a crap shoot.

Tonight, we have roasted chicken breast, baked potatoes and a choice of vegetable. Red cabbage cole slaw (finishing that up, finally), fresh tomato in balsamico, olive oil, salt, pepper and basil. We also have a newly-made cucumber slaw from the Smoked Butts… cookbook I have on the site.

When I do try cassoulet again, I’ll check recipes and ponder my choices, taste and give you my results. The thing about especially French country cooking, this time from the area around Languedoc, is that people had this stuff made. There was no refrigeration so duck or goose legs were cooked in their own fat and kept covered completely in that fat in a crock in the pantry. Doing this culinary marathon is somewhat pointless for urban dwellers as we have to re-create everything, whether from scratch or from an online catalogue.

This entire one-sided conversation ends with me saying that we should cook local food, in season, the best produce and meats we can find. Don’t mess them up with complications. Serve your family a terrific meal. If you’re in Georgia, how can you use peaches in an entree? Texas, sweet onions, our family usually has tons of pears. Plus BEEF. Jim’s favorite. Support your local farmer, no-one else does.

The EPA wants to put a methane tax of $87.50 per beef cow. Some cows worth 1K to 1.5K are selling for $500. Losing most of their investment plus adding a tax of 20% of the sale price puts the rancher even more in the hole. ‘Nuff said. Cheers, Dee

In no order of importance, they include:

- A perfectly roasted chicken with sausage/apple/sage stuffing and mashed garlic potatoes and veg and Mom’s gravy with a beef consomme base;
- Bistecca Fiorentina aka steak Florentine made from Italian Chianina beef, with chips (french fries) that are thinly cut and fried in olive oil;
- Concord or green grapes, fresh off the vine or any fresh fruit like marionberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, cantaloupe warm and just brought home from the farm stand;
- a good deli platter of Nova smoked salmon, a perfect NY sesame bagel with cream cheese, capers, onion and tomato, washed down with cranberry-raspberry juice;
- My own fresh salmon filet or steak either en papilotte on a bed of braised leeks and topped with lemon and butter, or on the grill with salt and pepper, and grainy mustard on top;
-Jacque Pepin’s Lamb Robert, boned and butterflied and grilled with his signature marinade;
- Cassoulet a la “Simca” Beck;
- Scottish mussels from Loch Etive mariniere with toasts to get all the juice;
- the pear I ate 15 years ago for breakfast from a market in Florence, that my dad bought as they don’t sell ripe pears in the US; and
- my mother’s Viennese Chocolate Torte, that she made for birthdays with a nut biscuit, milk chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate glaze. That’s something I will miss as I do not have the recipe and Mom is gone now.

That’s the best I can do for 15 minutes of thinking. Think about your top ten – Dee