At Home
Chris Kerrigan’s sous vide steak with baked potato and grilled asparagus.
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hris Kerrigan is no stranger to good food. Growing up in New England—Dover, New Hampshire, to be exact—Kerrigan knows what it’s like to have a vast supply of fresh seafood and, at the same time, to be part of a family that didn’t frequent chain restaurants. And it’s those two things combined that led Kerrigan from an early childhood to enjoy the benefits of good food. A Navy veteran, he used to guide pilots to land their planes on aircraft carriers in rough ocean waters. Nowadays, with just as much precise care, he “directs” a well-appointed home kitchen that includes a number of specialty cooking utensils, doing so with the love and devotion necessary for mouthwatering meals.
Home fries, gwumpkies and the secret to perfect mashed potatoes “I remember really taking an interest in cooking around the seventh and eighth grade,” says Kerrigan. “The first thing I recall cooking regularly is home fries,” which, believe it or not, taught him a lot—like not walking away from a cast22
edible INDY Winter 2017
iron skillet filled with hot oil on the stove, and the benefits of baking soda when faced with a grease fire. But there are other things about cooking that Kerrigan learned young. “Some of my favorite memories with my mother were in the kitchen,” he says, adding that chicken cordon bleu was the go-to for special occasions. “That was probably the first ‘grown-up’ dish I learned to make. More than a few dinner parties were had at my house before high school dances where I’d whip up that rich, cheesy, saucy dish. That recipe has stayed with me, in my head, throughout the years and has seen its share of adaptations.” Kerrigan also recalls his grandmother’s cooking … “I had a Polish grandmother who was quite proud of her gwumpkies [Polish stuffed cabbage]. They were awful! I remember dreading going to Sunday dinner for those unholy pouches of overcooked cabbage stuffed with pork that contained enough whole peppercorns to last the average home cook a lifetime.” Grandma Stella did redeem herself—or at least his young self ’s version of her—when she’d make mashed potatoes. “It wasn’t until I was in my 30s, long after her passing, that I learned her secret quite by accident: It wasn’t an ingredient, but
