<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"     Published in the September 2013 issue The best way to cook is at someone&amp;#039;s knee. You stand, you watch, you get out of the way when they need to get something off the stove. Stand there long enough and you start to pick up not only little tips, like how to chop a pepper, but also larger truths, like why we cook at all. Here, four writers with varying levels of experience shadow four great chefs, each at the top of his game. It was like a one-day culinary school taught by a master. Feel free to stand and watch. Check back here to read more this week! Lesson 4: Forget the Noise The chef wants me to use one pan. One bowl. One spoon. He wants me to do my work in a single corner of one table in one of nine kitchens tucked into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the new Horseshoe Casino in Cincinnati, three of which are devoted to the scale and service of the sprawling casino buffet, which serves German, Asian, Italian, American, and Mexican food, plus a separate salad bar, soup-and-bread station, and dessert spread. Ovens are wired to the chef&amp;#039;s computer; walk-in freezers are matched by walk-in ovens. Pallets of mayonnaise sit on the polished concrete loading dock. But the chef, Pete Ghione, asks that I ignore all that. I came here to learn what I could from a chef who cooks for thousands of people a day, and his first lesson is: Cooking is a small job. Finite work. One simple task connected to the next. Right now, he wants me to pick up a Roma tomato, core it, and cut it lengthwise. That is my job. Casinos always toy with scale. I once stood in a tunnel beneath the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, where I got to shake hands with both Siegfried and Roy. Just as my brother and I were about to get our photo taken with them, the four of us were forced to make way for a kitchen worker pushing a spotless cart of beautifully chopped iceberg lettuce. Three cubic yards of it. Somehow astounding. We all stared silently at the scale of the thing. &amp;quot;Zhat is for buffet,&amp;quot; Roy whispered to me, as if that explained things. Or excused them. His breath smelled like parsley. When you&amp;#039;re sitting at that blackjack table in the middle of four million square feet of slots and showgirls and hospitality suites, the whole universe is you and your three hundred bucks. Distance, size, and perspective are fun-house-mirrored. That may be why Ghione is teaching me three compact, quiet, reliable recipes in the middle of the hubbub. One corner of one counter. He describes each dish \u2014 orange-chicken tacos, avocado salad, charred-tomato salsa\u2014as a series of isolated yet interdependent steps. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t have to make things more complicated. You don&amp;#039;t have to cook too much food or food that requires every bit of your energy. You just have to make good elemental food. You present it that way and it works on a kitchen table in an apartment or on a huge buffet line.&amp;quot; There is no difference, he is saying, between us \u2014 me, a guy who cooks at home for a few people at a time, and him, with his clientele of hungry hordes. Oil the grill, not the tomatoes. This keeps them from getting greasy and overmoist. Little lessons spill out of him. &amp;quot;Simplicity matters more to me because it gives me the time to enjoy what I do. So I cook more, I guess,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But I cook better food.&amp;quot; Still, at first the lesson plan he has devised for me doesn&amp;#039;t sound like enough work. Not enough that I&amp;#039;ll learn from it. The salsa is simply six piles of vegetables, roasted and pureed. But immediately, he starts breaking it into steps, and in each step lies wisdom. Grill the onions first, to flavor the grill. Roast the tomatoes with the skin to the heat \u2014 keeps them from steaming, getting mushy. Time the roasting of the other vegetables around the tomatoes&amp;#039; roasting. When the tomatoes have blackened on the skin side, flip them over until the open side starts to show some black. Ghione wants me to work quicker, to be more systematic in turning the vegetables toward the heat.  &amp;quot;Being fast doesn&amp;#039;t have anything to do with being a chef. It has to do with the changes you&amp;#039;re bringing about in the food,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Uniformity keeps it simple. You don&amp;#039;t want to be problem-solving when you cook. You want to make something reliable and good. You need to work fast to keep things even. Don&amp;#039;t doze your way through a dish.&amp;quot; I admit to him that I don&amp;#039;t ever eat roasted tomatoes \u2014 too soupy, too lacking in texture. &amp;quot;But the taste is remarkable,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;The charred skin is key. That&amp;#039;s a flavor you want \u2014 and texture is eliminated, because we&amp;#039;ll puree it in the end.&amp;quot; The other kitchens surge toward the lunch buffet. Questions fly at Ghione. He answers without looking up. He is focused on this spot, where he and I work. Work the avocado in the cup of its skin. Mash it in there. You won&amp;#039;t have to fool around with another bowl. His buffet chef checks in just as we finish the salsa, which we&amp;#039;ve blended in a food processor. Ghione&amp;#039;s mind is on what he&amp;#039;s about to eat. The three of us eat it on chips while it&amp;#039;s still hot, right out of the food processor. They are two men at the front end of a massive parade of food, pausing to marvel at what six vegetables, roasted and blended just so, have become. &amp;quot;We should serve this,&amp;quot; the buffet chef says, jabbing at the salsa with a chip in his fingers. &amp;quot;Jeez, that&amp;#039;s good. We should serve it warm, like this.&amp;quot; We&amp;#039;ve made only the one bowl, a small pleasure in a vast space. This can be done again and again. Ghione&amp;#039;s salsa is a master class in creating flavor. CHARRED-TOMATO SALSA Pete Thione, Horseshow Casino, Ciccinnati \u2014As told to Francine Maroukian Serves 4 Ingredients   canola oil and sea salt 10 Roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise 6 scallions, stem ends removed 1 white onion, peeled and sliced \u00BD-inch thick 2 poblano chile peppers 2 red jalape\u00F1o chile peppers  Very lightly oil and salt vegetables and chile peppers. Working on a hot grill seasoned with canola oil, char each ingredient until caramelized and tender \u2014 the skin will pucker and slightly blacken \u2014 starting skin-side down for the tomatoes. Peel the skin and remove stems from the chile peppers once they have cooled to the touch. Place all charred vegetables in a blender or food processor.  4 cups baby arugula leaves, rinsed of sand and soaked in water mixed with ice cubes for 1 hour 2 large tomatoes, seeded and cut into eighths coarse kosher salt freshly ground black pepper   Add to blender  mix in blender:  10 cilantro sprigs 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin juice of two limes \u00BD tsp ground cumin   Puree for about  20 seconds and adjust flavor with salt. Serve warm or at room temperature. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a24395/charred-tomato-salsa-recipe-0913/>