Can you provide a transcription of Tamar Adler's video about cooking brightners?

Awww, you all are so nice. It was sort of interesting for me to do this, because it was in essence the reverse activity of something I did a few years ago (but on a much smaller scale) . . . I read into a tape recorder an entire book, for the benefit of a nearly blind woman in my church, so that she could participate in a particularly interesting study group, the book for which was not available "on tape." This was easier in some ways, and harder in others! ;o)

Wow, AJ you are amazing.

AJ, you are the best.

Incredibly kind and generous AJ - what a community here :)

Oh, yikes, I forgot to add that this is arguably a derivative work under the copyright laws or go beyond whatever consent was granted by Adler, so if the transcription I just posted does in fact create a legal issue, I would ask the editors please to remove it. Thanks! ;o)

LNorman, I was a trial lawyer for many years, and attended days and days of depositions representing co-defendants, taking notes on my laptop, typing like lightening, because I usually needed to work just from my notes, and not the court reporters' transcripts, to do my follow up. It's been about 12 years, so I was a bit curious, when I saw this request, how easily I could transcribe something I was hearing. My keyboard is actually faster than the laptop I was using in the 90's, so this was actually quite easy, even though the pace was considerably more brisk than any deposition I ever attended. I had to stop the recording five or six times to do it, and I don't have time to go back and correct/cross-check, but here is, in essence, what she said:


Lots of times you don’t need to make a whole new dish, you just need to make something that’s small and tastes potent. We’re going to take pretty much everything in my kitchen, and turn them into brighteners. We’re going to start by pounding up a lot of garlic. You add salt to it because salt helps break down garlic. The reason to pound it up is that it’s easier to disperse through a sauce. So that’s the beginning. The first one is parsley oil: pounded garlic, chopped garlic – oh that’s how much I really use – and olive oil. It’s kind of amazing how good that tastes. So let’s say you used all of that up over two days and have this much left [the bowl with bits of parsley in the bottom only] but are having dinner with your whole family, you could take as the beginning the end, the end of that parsley oil, add chopped up olives, chopped up capers – I’m using this amount because it’s the amount that I have – lemon zest and olive oil. And a little bit of lemon juice because why the heck not. Another totally amazing . . . sauce. The next one is really cool because it uses something that we never think of as a sauce. These are walnuts that so many of us have around all the time. They could also be almonds. Parsley, if you have leftover parsley oil, you could certainly use that, and some red wine vinegar, and some olive oil. This makes a really amazing . . . sauce. Again starting with our pounded up garlic, a bunch of scallions, pickled chilies, lime juice, a lot of cilantro, almost like I used the parsley before, and some salt. There’s another one. This one I’m going to start without garlic, just because I think it’s really important to understand with all of these the point isn’t that you ever need anything, you need something strongly flavored, so we’re going to use red onion, salt, a little bit of a cucumber, cilantro, pickled chilies, I have a little more parsley left over so we’re going to use that. With all of these the goal is to make something that elevates and illuminates a simple food.

;o)

I'm sorry that you're having trouble with your laptop speakers! We wish we could provide transcription services for all of our videos, but with our tiny staff and busy schedules it isn't possible at the moment.

Tamar improvised her instructions in the video and wasn't working from a script. I know a lot of it came out of her book An Everlasting Meal, so perhaps you could check that out!