A good friend of mine who is a ski instructor here at Okemo is also a very gifted chef. He and his wife run a restaurant not far from Ludlow, Vermont that is an oasis of great food in an area that isn't exactly known for being the center of alpine gastronomy. Every Wednesday, my friends close their restaurant and hold cooking classes in its kitchen. The mis en place is moved out of the way, eight or so stools are set up on one side of the large prep area, and place settings and cutting boards are set in front of each place. After telling me last week how excited he was for Bistro Night and that there was still a seat available, I took up my friend's invitation and attended for the first time.
Before the cooking began, my friend passed to each of the guests a handout. On its pages were lists of ingredients for each dish to be prepared and one long list of items everyone should have in their pantry if they intend to prepare restaurant quality meals. The guests, myself included, all perused the pages and were surprised to find no instructions for the dishes, no recipes per se. Rather, the document contained only ingredients listed with approximate measurements and the pantry list. To the disappointment of a couple of the guests, the chef explained that he didn't like to follow recipes to the letter and that if we wanted to be able to prepare great meals, truly gourmet meals, we'd have to free ourselves from slavish recipe following as well. With the right ingredients found in a well-stocked pantry, an understanding of how each affected the 'flavor profile' of a dish, and some knowledge of how each is best cooked, great dishes are crafted with a little trial and error, constantly testing and modifying, and sometimes simply making it up as you go. My friend took great pains to tell us that cooking is not science and that if he had wanted to prepare dishes scientifically, he'd have been a baker.
It was a pleasure to watch him work. The chef walked us through the creation of some traditional bistro dishes and some less traditional ones, explaining as he went, providing some helpful tips about the cooking process, the ingredients he likes to use, and other details. All the while he tasted, adjusted, seasoned, told stories, fed us a little at a time to keep us from getting hungry or impatient, and in the end convinced us that great food is achievable by ordinary chefs. It dawned on me, in my duck breast and onion soup induced reverie, that what we were experiencing had all the same ingredients of a great ski lesson. Seriously.
The day that followed the bistro cooking class, after awakening to find that I was still in Vermont and not in the Haute Savoie, I conducted some training clinics for children's instructors at Stratton, something I do from time to time. The clinics were intended to help these mostly young instructors become better at creating activities in their lessons that would be technically valid, that would help develop the skiing skills of the children in their lessons, and that would be fun and engaging (that fun thing is pretty big). The title I created for the clinic was "Skills Focused Kids Activities". Informally, some people refer to these sorts of clinics as "bag of tricks" training. I really dislike the idea of "bag of tricks", and much prefer my own subtitle for this clinic. I refer to this clinic informally as "how to make stuff up", only I don't always use the word "stuff".
My point here is simple, if not verbose. In many ways, becoming a gifted children's instructor is far more difficult, far more nuanced, and requires far more attention than becoming a good adult instructor. With kids one has to understand the movements of skiing and be able to explain them in laymen's terms, one has to be able to identify and focus on one aspect of skiing in particular that will assist all of the students in a group. One must keep the class moving, keep it interesting, engaging, and fun. Yes, all this is true of adult lessons as well, but in the case of kids, instructors have to do all of this in a language and with an energy appropriate for their charges. It's a lot of work and it's a challenge, but it's a ton of fun.
So, like the class in my friend's kitchen, having a properly stocked pantry with fresh ingredients and a few interesting tricks up one's sleeve (Yuzu juice? Really?) is the start of a great lesson, but it's only the start. The process of creating a ski or snowboard lesson is far more craft than science, and the instructor's interaction with the students and awareness of their needs, their feelings, their movements, and their comprehension is the most important guide to how to put the final dish together.
For dessert, we're all going to learn how to ski in deep powder. It'll be the icing on the cake.
My friends John and Leslie own and operate Leslie's Tavern in Rockingham, Vermont. Their website is http://www.lesliestavern.com/, and information about their cooking classes, retail shop and other tidbits is available there. John cooks and Leslie bakes and runs the front of the house. If you go, make sure you arrive hungry.
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