You can't get this in a restaurant....

Post by Brian Castellani

Happy Father's Day, everyone!  Speaking of fathers....

Back in the day, in Parma, Ohio, my wife's dad, Len Rusnak (one of my heroes in life), was fond of saying, after a great home-cooked meal, "You can't get this in a restaurant," to which all the kids would moan, "Daaaaad"  They moaned because what they heard him saying is, "This meal you are eating, here, is why we are not going to a restaurant tonight."

Okay, so maybe it was meatloaf and scalloped potatoes, but still, it was cooked with love by Maggie's mom, Helen, and it was from fresh ingredients. (That's Len, by the way, getting ready to chow down on some birthday cake!)

Twenty years later, in the 1970s, Maggie's sister, Cathy, would come back from The Ohio State  (Go Buckeyes!) and everything would change.  The Rusnak clan would switch its eating behaviors, moving toward bulk, natural, organic, fresh, local, and at-home-eating.  Going to visit Len and Helen, for example, meant drinking fresh juice from the juicer, taking your vitamins, and it meant, if Maggie's sisters were over, from Cathy to Mary to Annie, fantastic, freaking food cooked by three awesome chefs.  All very inspiring, and ultimately the impetus for me to learn how to cook, one horrible meal at a time, until I actually started getting good.

Now, I do not know exactly when, but it was a few years ago, and the Rusnak gang was together and we were partying and eating our way through some fantastic food when someone, I don't know who, said, "Wow, I will tell you, this food is so fantastic, you can't get this in a restaurant."  Suddenly there was a pause in the room, and it hit us, "Dang it if Len wasn't right!"  And he is.  I saw a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain and he was talking with one of my favorite chefs, Eric Ripert.  They both made the point: if they could get Americans to do one thing, it would be to learn, again, how to cook!  Amen.

Anyway, here is some of my recent cooking.  As a Pho Boy, I had to learn to cook Pho.  So, here is my first try.

So, what is the moral to this story?  Go buy a cookbook, or pick one of your favorite meals and try to cook it!  What's the worst that can happen?  I will tell you, as someone who loves to cook, when my friends and family say to me, after eating a meal I have cooked, "You can't get this in a restaurant," I feel like a million bucks!



Here, as requested, is the recipe I used--click here.  I cheated on a couple things after trying a few times.  I used different forms of beef from the butcher at our local grocery store, Heinens, instead of ox tail.  Also, I got lazy the one day and bought, from the deli, some very nice eye of round, sliced.  I also like the fish sauce, which you can get at any Asian grocery store, such as the ones downtown Cleveland, which I recommend visiting.  Also, you can get, for very cheap, Asian basil, which almost tastes like black licorice.  I also use thin rice noodles as I do not like and am allergic to the heavy wheat noodles some restaurants use.  One last word of warning, go easy with the ingredients, such as the anise.  Just keep trying, you cannot get this stuff right on your first try, plus everyone has different tastes.