Our new series asking chefs to tell us their favorite thing to cook has posed a different question—what’s better: the process of creating or creating something for others to enjoy?
When I spoke with my brother, who is also known as Chef Mike Muscarella from The Fix Burger Bar, he agreed with Chris Rovezzi’s sentiment from the first Chef’s favorite article.
“Chris hit on something I think a lot of chef’s feel,” Mike said. “Chefs are hosts. We want to prepare food people enjoy and make sure everyone is having a good time. But, when we get home, cooking isn’t always something we feel like doing.”
From the commoners’ perspective, I think we envy what a chef can do. We non-chefs wish we came home from a hard day’s work with the arsenal of a chef’s brain.
As far as being in a restaurant kitchen, Mike is proud of all of the burgers he has created on the menu at The Fix (like The Dog Father, pictured left), which is moving from their Shrewsbury Street location to the Northwards building in early July. But, he acknowledged that there’s a difference between the time you spend experimenting with recipes and when the restaurant is packed.
“When you have more time, it’s more fun. I like cooking on a holiday partly because I picture 30-feet of homemade gnocchi in Nana’s kitchen on Christmas with chicken cutlets, a ham, and a turkey on the side in case we’re still hungry—all of which she seemed to prepare effortlessly throughout the day,” he said.
“I also like the idea of making the same things year after year—like brining my turkey,” says Chef Muscarella.
After hearing that, I had to interject. I told Mike that if I had to guess his favorite thing to cook, I would have said shrimp scampi. I assumed the significant other’s favorite dish would top the list.
“I do really enjoy making shrimp scampi because of how much Lindsay likes it,” he said. “But if I had to pick a favorite thing to cook, the closest dish I can think of is mussels because it has a lot of all of the ingredients I like: too much garlic, too much white wine, chili flakes, and shellfish.”
While we may not have figured out ubiquitously if chefs like seeing people enjoy their food more than cooking food, I have two consolations. Mike vowed to post more burger photos on Instagram as @burgerchefdad.
And, he gave us his favorite mussels recipe so we can go home with a chef’s brain tonight.