Taste the Capers

As a teen, I used to love to watch Jeff Smith's Frugal Gourmet on public television. I learned so much from him. Yes, I was the teen who thought nothing of spending part of her Saturday afternoon watching a cooking show twenty years before the Food Network made cooking shows cool. Luis would say I was a nerd, but I prefer to think of it as a food lover in training.

When I was growing up, our household was very meat and potatoes. Rice was so foreign to me that I felt like a gourmand whenever I made it as a side dish for a meal. So, you can imagine that the mere thought of the some of the foods that the Frugal Gourmet made were the ultimate in cuisine in my mind.

I remember one show in which he cooked a dish with capers. I had never even heard of capers before. I had to look them up to find out what they were, and I could not image how they tasted. It was probably another ten years before I had the courage to buy a small bottle of capers. I was scared to try to cook with something I had never had before. For months, that little bottle sat in my refrigerator, chiding me for my lack of culinary adventure every time I opened up the refrigerator door.

When I finally had the courage to open the bottle and cook something with those capers, I was testing my culinary wings. It was a pasta dish. I could not tell you what the recipe was exactly, but I can still taste that first bite of a caper, all briney and vinegary. It was a huge step in my culinary development.

I do not pretend to be a fancy chef. I like food and I love to prepare it, but I have yet to cook with truffles or many of the haute cuisine recipes I find in my monthly issue of Gourmet. However, no tuna sandwich is complete to me without capers anymore, and for that I say thank you to the Frugal Gourmet.

I still feel a little exotic every time I open those small bottles, though.

Now I am thinking of making Pasta Puttanesca for dinner.