The best meal that I ever made

I really love food. I love to eat, and I love to cook (which probably stems from my love of eating). When we get married, Mike is looking forward to me making meals for him, rather than going through his weekly rotation of take-out restaurants.

A couple of years ago, my brother gave me Think Like A Chef by Tom Colcchio (you might know him as the head judge on Top Chef). It's a neat book because instead of just throwing out recipes, it discusses some basic French cooking techniques and uses recipes to demonstrate how those techniques work. The later portions of the book show you how a single ingredient can be prepared in different ways and how you can combine them with other ingredients to make a variety of dishes. It's just a really informative and well-organized book.

Every Valentine's Day, I make dinner because the restaurants are packed and the meals are overpriced. I decided to make braised short ribs one year because it's a staple in every nice French restaurant and I was interested to make it for myself. So I deferred to Tom Colcchio to make the braised short ribs, and the final result was superb. To this day Mike still says it's the single best thing I ever cooked. I paired the short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans that were blanched and then sauteed in garlic and butter.

One warning ... the recipe for braised short ribs on p56 calls for Brown Chicken Stock (p70), and the recipe for Brown Chicken Stock calls for White Chicken Stock (p69). So, if you don't make the stocks in advance, this dish could take days to make. For me, I made the Brown Chicken Stock two nights ahead and I made the braised short ribs the night before Valentine's Day. Apparently, the meat should sit in the broth overnight and soak up the moisture. Then, I did the cooking for the sides the night of. I didn't make the White Chicken Stock because I cheated a little and just used canned chicken stock instead, which worked well enough. Even without the white chicken stock, there was a lot of cooking involved.

About a year later, Mike and I went to Tom Colchhio's Craft in NYC, and we tasted the braised short ribs there. Unfortunately, mine couldn't compare. I guess I still have a lot to learn. By the way, the food at Craft was pretty awesome; we had the best gnocchi I have ever tasted there, so I would highly recommend having a meal there if you can.