Take Home Chef. Curtis Stone.

Everyone, meet Curtis Stone. He may be familiar to you from the popular TLC show, Take Home Chef. Well if not, let me tell you a little bit about him and his cooking styles. Stone hails from Melbourne, Australia where he began his cooking career at the age of 18 at The Savoy Hotel. After developing his qualifications as Chef in Australia, he ventured out into Europe to seek cooking advice from the world renowned Chef Marco Pierre White. It was with White that Curtis Stone gained most of his expertise and popularity in the culinary world. Stone started at The Grill Room with White himself. From The Grill Room, Stone became Sous-Chef at Mirabelle restaurant. While Stone was cooking here, the restaurant was awarded a Michelin Star (fyi...the Michelin Guide sparingly awards restaurants 1, 2, or 3 Michelin Stars: 1 being a very good restaurant, 2 being excellent cooking, and 3 being exceptional cuisine). After gaining White's respect as a Chef, Stone became Head Chef of White's critically acclaimed restaurant Quo Vadis. After 4 years at Quo Vadis, Curtis Stone gained his celebrity through a book offering which led to television shows, books, and of course loooong waiting lists at his restaurants.

Although I don't know very much about cooking, I do know that I value fresh ingredients being used in my foods. One of Stone's trademark cooking principles is that "If you get your hands on good ingredients and treat them properly, you don’t need to do much." This principle is present in many of his recipes. Just by grazing through a few of his recipes, I noticed that he likes to make everything fresh--ranging from croutons, to raspberry puree, and even horseradish. There is no overload of preservatives or seasonings in any of his dishes because the ingredients themselves should provide the taste for the meal.

So I decided to try and make one of Stone's salad recipes. If I could only eat one dish for the rest of my life, I would definitely choose salad. There are so many possibilities for a salad it's just crazy. Anyways... I chose to make Stone's Salad of Baby Spinach, Crispy Bacon, and Cheese Croutons (you can find the recipe and method here!) At first, it seemed so simple...honestly how hard is it to rip up some lettuce or whatever it is you do to the lettuce. With the exception of the grape seed oil and specified sour-dough bread, I had all of the ingredients for my salad. I begin reading the instructions, "Preheat the oven to 400F/250C." Crap. I know how to use the oven, I think, but it's telling me to "ensure [the bread pieces] are evenly cooked" and I don't think I'll know when they are "evenly cooked".

I decide that I've started to run before I could even crawl, so instead, I mixed that baby spinach with some French dressing. Mmm Mmm, not so good.