Ruth Freeman's penchant for
cooking began at age 10 in Puerto Rico, selling her home-baked
brownies, Mom's recipe, for $1 a batch to residents in their
apartment building.
Subsequent boarding school years in the United States didn't
allow her to indulge her cooking fancy. But as a student at
Oberlin College in Ohio, Freeman expanded her culinary skills,
cooking for herself and baking cookies for friends.
Later, the Rowayton resident cultivated her taste buds during
years of travel as a corporate exec for Manhattan-based
insurance brokerage company Marsh & McLennan. Pleasure trips
with friends to Ireland, Italy, France and other ports of call
included cooking classes and visits to cheese makers, fish
smokers and olive oil producers.
The single career woman switched vocations last year to work at
the Rowayton and Darien libraries as a circulation department
staffer.
"I have a wide range of taste," says Freeman, who also lived in
Jamaica while growing up. (Her family moved frequently because
her father worked for Texaco.) Bold flavours and spices rate
high on her list of culinary favourites that include pungent
Indian curries and lusty Mediterranean dishes loaded with
garlic.
"Lemons and garlic," she says, "are two things that I can't
imagine being without. They can help almost anything become good
food."
She credits the Caribbean influence for "the curry thing," and
says she loves beans, particularly black beans -- key
ingredients in soup and salad recipes.
"I never met a black bean I didn't like," she says.
Freeman is equally smitten with simple comfort foods like roast
chicken, grilled fish and mac and cheese. Whether it's dinner
parties for eight friends or day-after Christmas festivities for
30 relatives, her aim is to please palates.
"Ruth is one of the most prolific hostesses I know," says
Margaret Steele, a friend and neighbour who nominated Freeman
for this month's Cook du Jour, citing Freeman's orzo salad and
veal stew among her favourites. "Anything she puts on her table
-- rolls, chutney, pesto -- she has made herself. That to me is
an amazing feat. I get my pesto at the farmers' market and the
chutney comes out of a jar."
Not infrequently, Freeman cooks with long-time friend Susan
Drake of Darien, whose daughter, Kenly, 19, is Freeman's
goddaughter. Freeman and Kenly attended cooking classes together
during trips to Santa Fe, N.M.; and Paris.
"Ruth has an amazing talent for instinctively knowing what
flavors blend together well," says Drake. "There is always
something wonderful wafting out of her kitchen."
The two are part of a group of nine women who each contribute a
dish toward rotating pot luck dinners every five to six weeks.
Says Freeman: "It's a lot of fun as you can spread your culinary
wings ... and you only have to clean up every nine months."
Well-versed at staging dinner parties, Freeman says advance
cooking is a must. The freezer, she says, is one's best friend.
"Your guests are here to see you and not stand around your
living room while you're in your kitchen panicking."
Preparing a last-minute flambe doesn't cut it for this cook, who
doesn't need theatrics to "punch in a couple of big flavours."
Even mundane chicken breasts can be redeemed by pesto and
chutney, she says. "Your piece of protein, all of a sudden, is
much more exciting."
And as pedestrian as macaroni and cheese can be, Freeman's
version -- "I go through the cheese drawer and whatever's
sitting around that needs to get used, gets used," she says --
is worthy of acclaim.
Says Steele: "My daughter, Mary, loves her mac and cheese. We
being around the corner tend to benefit."
Freeman's no slouch when it comes to baking, either. Breads and
fruit tarts are her specialties. Favourite recipes include
rugalah and whole grain bread, the latter from cookbook author
James Beard's "Beard on Bread" (Knopf, $15).
Freeman, an avid gardener, says she is attracted to the tactile
nature of baking. "My hobbies tend to be things that involve
getting something underneath my nails," she says. "I love the
whole process, the kneading, turning a mess into a beautiful
pile of dough."
This summer, Freeman baked a variety of rustic fruit tarts with
plums, raspberries, blueberries and peaches.
"I love a good piece of chocolate cake, but I'm really hooked on
those." Freeman looks forward to autumn, which brings apple
picking and an apple version of the tart.
"Whether she is entertaining in her own home or a picnic grove,
she entertains simply but beautifully," says Steele. "She has
everything right down to the flowers on the table. Even at
picnics."
