A trip to France really nourished his culinary roots

By Theresa  Curry

Correspondent

Nursery food was not on the menu at the Bickford home when Jim Bickford  was growing up in the Stockley Gardens  neighborhood of Norfolk. He dined on sweetbreads and duck, oysters in season, crab and fresh vegetables.

“I found out later that my mother had spent some time in Paris, ” he said. “That explained a lot.” 

 Years later, after his mother had passed away, he became interested in cooking. He tried to find her old recipes and notes, but they’d been lost.

It wasn’t until after a fourth son was born to Jim and Blair  Bickford that Jim decided to take on the kitchen chores.

“I thought about my mother a lot,” he said. “Unfortunately, though, I hadn’t paid enough attention to what she actually did in the kitchen.”

Luckily, he had a neighbor, Pierre Monet,  who was then the corporate executive chef for Colonial Williamsburg.  Monet,   now retired, conducted classes in his kitchen for his neighbors.

“Naturally, he was French, so we learned his way of cooking,” Bickford said. “That’s when I realized that cooking wasn’t all about following recipes, but techniques for bringing out the best flavors in food.”

A trip to France further inspired Bickford.

“I was amazed,” he said.

Again, he thought of his mother and the care she brought to everything she made.

“I understood why she managed our household the way she did,” he said.

Bickford was fascinated by seeing his mother’s as well as his neighbor’s approach to food reflected everywhere he ate in Paris.

“I realized that it was impossible to get a bad meal in France . It’s such a matter of pride to serve good food.” He and his wife have returned many times in the past 10 years.

Bickford, an independent developer and landscape painter, jokes that he’s come to think like a Frenchman.

“That is, I do think about my work, but at the back of my mind there’s always that thought: 'What’s for breakfast, what’s for lunch, what’s for dinner?’ ” 

Although he’s quite liable to spend hours on a special dish, he’s also found that, by thinking ahead, he can serve wonderful, flavorful meals to a house full of guests while still finding time to visit. He has come up with a full day of time-saving meals.

Jim Bickford’s day

Planning ahead a few days, Bickford will make gravlax for an evening appetizer. This traditional, pressed-salmon dish requires a couple of days as it absorbs the flavors of the dill, salt and sugar.

“And I might start the soup,” he said. “It’s really better after it sits for a day or two in the refrigerator.”

The dessert – pears with port – also can be made ahead, and the crab cakes, made from his grandmother’s recipe, need to chill for a while so they’ll be firm enough to form and fry.

Breakfast is Parisian eggs, a dish Bickford says might also be served for lunch or dinner in France, but does fine as an American breakfast suitable for guests.

“It’s one of the easiest things you can make,” he said. “It’s basically bacon and eggs with cheese, but the presentation makes it special.”

To save even more time, you can use precooked bacon.

For lunch, he’ll serve a chicken-bean soup.

“Usually, I make soup from scratch, but this soup, made from chicken, canned beans, canned tomatoes and spices, is wonderful.”

He serves it with a green salad with a cream or vinaigrette dressing.

After the gravlax appetizer, Bickford will serve his crab cakes for dinner. It’s a unique recipe that uses butter and cream cheese and no filler. In the summer, it might be accompanied with sliced tomatoes, string beans and fresh corn; in winter, perhaps a succotash made from frozen vegetables.

The pear juice and port  that’s left from cooking the pears for dessert is thickened and served with a little cream, a simple but very elegant and flavorful close to a full day of creative and trouble-free meals.

Theresa Curry, flavor@pilotonline.com