What Great French Chefs Eat

Spent a few hours at Brooklyn Kitchen yesterday, while Eric Ripert, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and David Bouley reminisced about restaurants past and peered into the future of food. They all had wonderful stories about the chefs they’ve worked with and the kitchens they’ve been in.

Bouley fed me that amazing sea urchin/caviar/dashi creation – a dish I’ll be dreaming about. The roe was suspended in a barely-jelled broth that seemed held together by little more than a wish. It was as lovely as a Florentine paperweight, and for one crazy moment I felt as if I was inside the terrine, wandering around in a wonderful new world. The flavors pushed each other forward, and if you concentrated, each bite provided a different experience.

Meanwhile, what were the chefs eating? Robust and juicy sausages, lemony kale salad and fat chunks of hearty bread. And what did they drink? Cans of beer.

A David Bouley creation

Sea urchin, dashi, green apple, caviar.
Almost unbearably delicious.

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Chicken Brine

Made Thomas Keller's brine from the Ad Hoc Cookbook yesterday for my farm chickens. It's got a LOT of whole lemons in it, which makes it different from any brine I've ever used. I was extremely happy with the result; the meat was not only moist and very tender, but it had the sweetest scent.

Life is just a bowl of cherries

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Sour cherries: it's going to be a long afternoon of pitting

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Perfect Morning

Light breeze, sunshine, no humidity. Woke up early with the taste of last night's oysters still resonating in my mind. I loved the fierce bed of kimchi they were resting on; just made it was still crunchy with an intense sweetness and a lingering heat. But what I loved best was the way the chef had fried them: Crisp outside, with a custard heart. (Swoon, in Hudson).

Inspired, I'm making a lemon and herb scented brine for my chickens. Tonight I'll roast them with new potatoes. Big salad. Can't wait.

Fair Fowl

Just stopped by the farm where I’ll be getting my chickens from now on. We pay $135 as our share in the CSA, for which we get 2 chickens a month for 4 months – and the satisfaction of knowing that we’re participating in the farm.

The farmer is a woman, and before she handed me two beautiful birds from the refrigerator, she led me through her barn so I could see the new chicks, little balls of yellow fluff huddled beneath a heat lamp, and the little turkeys, who have just gotten their feathers. They were about to leave the barn for the first time, and they strutted proudly about. One independent chicken skittered at our ankles; she doesn’t like spending her time with the rest of the flock, preferring the company of the pigs.

And who can blame her? They’re sweet little creatures, nosing and grunting about on the hillside. We stood leaning on the fence, watching them cavorting with an old corn cob. Hard to believe they’ll be 250 pounds by the time the leaves turn.

“But that’s $17.50 a chicken!” said a friend I met in town when I proudly displayed my chickens. She pointed to her grocery bag and said, “I just got one at the supermarket for three bucks. Can yours taste that much better?”

I tried to find a way to tell her that the way things taste is in your mind as much as your mouth. Struggling for words I finally blurted out, “Do you have any idea what your chicken’s life was like?”

She didn’t. But while it was once possible for people not to know about the conditions in animal factories, in these food-savvy times ignorance is an act of will. Why would my friend want to know about the miserable life of her factory chicken? It could only ruin her appetite.

I’ve written a lot about this issue, but I think you have to go to a farm to truly understand the price of a good conscience. The chickens I was taking away had good lives and a clean death. Giving them that isn’t cheap. But it is a price that I’m willing to pay. Because these chickens taste so much better – in every way.

Softshell crabs at Aureole; the

Softshell crabs at Aureole; the pastrami sliders were better, but this is a much prettier picture.

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Foie Gras mousse

My favorite dish at Sho Shaun Hergatt

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Bakudan

Had what may be my favorite lunch today at (a sadly vacant) Matsugen; they call it "bakudan" which means "the bomb." A waiter brings out a lovely little bowl containing a heap of rosy tuna tartare, a few smoothly orange uni, strips of raw squid, pearly white and squeaky clean and a pungent heap of natto. You stir this up with a quail egg and a pile of salmon roe that pop against your teeth. You shake in some soy, add a bit of wasabi and stir again.

Next you open a cedar box holding extremely crisp sheets of dark green seaweed and hold one in your hand. You roll the glorious mush you have just created into the seaweed and eat the little roll with glee and greed. And then you eat another. I could eat this every day. Happily.

Harold McGee

Sitting here reading the galleys of his new book, Keys to Good Cooking. It's kind of like having him standing in the kitchen next to you, answering your questions. I can't imagine that there's anybody who cooks who won't keep this book right by the stove.

Jeffrey Wright

Dinner last night on The Highline. Lovely local food very much in the Michael Pollan mode (mostly vegetables, and not too much). But for me the big thrill was seeing Jeffrey again; I loved cooking with him last summer on Adventures with Ruth. And it's so exciting to know that his project - building a road in Sierra Leone so farmers can get their goods to market- has been supported by The Tiffany Foundation. He's built his road!

Good idea at ABC Kitchen.

Raising the pie keeps the crust from getting soggy.

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Dinner last night at Marea. Started with geoduck - so crisp, so clean, so briny - and went on to cold lettuce soup with fried oysters and trout roe. The trout roe is what made the dish, a delicate pop in each bite. And then that perfect pasta - just a bit of snap - richly laced with sea urchins and crab. It is about as satisfying as a dish can be. Love that restaurant.

Father's Day

My father disdained what he called “Hallmark Holidays,” but today, thirty years after his death, I’ve been thinking that he was wrong. On this damp, gray day there is a melancholy happiness in eating his favorite foods and thinking about how much I still miss him.

Dad loathed American breakfasts. “How can you eat that?” he’d ask, looking miserable as Mom and I ate bowls of fruit and cereal, “it’s not real food.” Mom’s concession to Dad’s breakfast obsession was to get up early every morning and trudge to the bakery around the corner for fresh rolls. These she set out with plates of cheese (always the pungent Leiderkranz, sometimes the less objectionable Emmenthaler), sliced ham, salamis, fresh butter and good jam.

“But where’s the herring?” Dad asked every morning. Mom never deigned to answer. During their courtship she had discovered how much he loved herring and always had some on hand when he came to visit. “Only after we were married did she inform me that she could not stand the stuff,” he said. Then he would shake his head sadly and say, “That’s the price of marriage. You have to give up the things you love best. Now I only get herring on my birthday.”

It’s not Dad’s birthday. But wherever he is, I hope he’s eating herring.

In his honor, I'm doing that right now.

Great flea market salt shaker find

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Just back from the farmers market. Still fairly sparse up here, but it was so good to be walking among all those people with dirt under their fingernails. I was hoping for sour cherries. Alas, I'll have to wait until next week. But the apricots and sugar snaps are lovely, and I got some great local liverwurst and kale. Dinner tonight: kale salad, grilled steak, braised potatoes and apricot crisp. (I know, I know, but I can't get enough apricots when they're in season.)

Farmers market haul

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The sun is streaming into the kitchen, mingling with the scent of the chicken stock which has been slowly burbling away all day. It’s the smell I missed most while I was laid up, and I’m so happy to have that warm aroma rolling through the house. It will be risotto, and sauces and maybe a few late-Spring soups.

Brought the first vegetables home from the CSA today. It’s still sparse: lettuces, kale, some herbs, a huge fluffy pile of really pungent arugula. A couple of squashes and a napa cabbage. Not even enough for minestrone, but it’s just the start. It was a good feeling, standing at the farm, feeling as if I was not a customer, but a participant in the planting. And next week my chicken CSA begins. Best chickens I ‘ve had around here. Can’t wait.

Cooking Again

Cooked last night, for the first time in more than two months, and it was such a joy. It wasn’t much – I made an apricot crisp, which took about 5 minutes, all my still-recovering foot could bear. But Fred and Sherry were cooking too, slowly stirring the just-ground polenta. Fred was marinating duck breasts – a Paula Wolfert recipe that is one of my all-time favorites, and constructing Fergus Henderson’s cauliflower, leek and white bean salad, a little symphony in white. Just as the apricots began to fill the kitchen withtheir lovely aroma Fred stirred cream and lime into corn, a recipe from Ad Hoc that tastes mysteriously of ginger. He made Alice’s almost-Caesar too– whole leaves of romaine drenched in anchovies and vinaigrette. No eggs, no croutons and we forgot the cheese at the last minute. I liked it better that way; it was such a ferocious plate of greens.

As we cooked we cranked up the blues until the kitchen was filled with sound and scent. Michael kept pouring more rose´, and soon we were dancing around the room. When Liz and Emily walked in, we put out cheese and nuts and that great local liverwurst while everyone took turns stirring the polenta.

Just as we went outside to eat the sun began to slip away, in a blast of golden red. The frogs began that deep thrumming, and I thought that if I could distill one moment of pure happiness, it might be this one.

Home grown avocado.

Home grown avocado.

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Bruces wedding pig

From Portland, with Love

The box was sitting at the door when I got back from the farmer's market today. I slit it open and a cornucopia spilled out: nuts and beans, jams and grains. The note says, "Miss Ruth's Portland Care Package" - a selection of favorite products from two of my favorite people, Karen Brooks and Teri Gelber.

Half are from Ayer's Creek farm in Gaston. They include two different kinds - on white, one yellow -of freshly ground polenta. I put them right in the freezer, but I'm itching to cook them.

The jam (black currant) is from Ayer's Creek too, as are the Purgatorio beans. Karen's note says that I won't need to soak them - and that they'll cook in about half an hour. If that's true, it's amazing; the last time I cooked white beans they took forever.

There are also fat hand-roasted hazelnuts from Freddy Guys, so irresistible that I ate half the package on the spot.

And granola from Tracy's; the proceeds help fund Urban Gleaners, a food-to-homeless table program. Crisp, crunchy, delicately sweet.

Just looking at all this food sitting on my counter made me miss Portland. One great food city.

Care package from Portland

More Tender Answers

I would ask you if your mom had a favorite meal, or something she really enjoyed eating that you enjoyed with her.

Mom's greatest culinary triumph was corn on the cob. She had a secret source, and she'd put a big pot of water on to boil, call the farm, ask them to go out and pick her the smallest, whitest ears, and then rush home. She cooked the ears for just under two minutes, and they were superb. I've never had corn to rival hers, and I never eat an ear without thinking of her. (Mom called inferior ears, "horse corn," which is what we mostly get these days. )

How many times did you get food poisoning growing up?

None. One of the great advantages of growing up on spoiled food is that you end up with an iron stomach. Last summer, when we were shooting in China for Adventures with Ruth, I was the only one in the crew who didn't get food poisoning. And that includes our Chinese government minder, who actually went to the hospital.

Were your parents alive when the book hit the shelves? If they were, did you have to go into hiding?

I could not have written the book if my parents were still alive. And as anyone who's read For You, Mom, Finally, knows, I felt guilty about the portrait I painted of my mother. It's not that it wasn't accurate; it's just that I knew she would not have been thrilled to have the whole world know she was bipolar.

Pat in the kitchen, about

Pat in the kitchen, about to eat caviar.

Tender Questions

My friend Larry's sister is reading Tender at the Bone in her bookclub. She asked me to send her some "special" information that she could pass on. Wondering what to say, I asked the Twitterverse to send me some questions.

How did your upbringing/experiences of your youth influence your own parenting?

Great question. I guess I tried to do everything differently than my parents did. The strange thing is, looking back, I didn't really. Oh sure, I cooked better food, and we probably had a calmer household, but I tried hard to let Nick be his own person, just as my mother had done. I think the one difference is that I expect so much less; I'm always stunned (and thrilled) when Nick wants to spend time with us.

Did you find that having a difficult mother made you better or worse at dealing with difficult people in your life/jobs?

Oh, better, definitely. There was only room for one squeaky wheel in our family, and it sure wasn't me. After my mother, I can get along with just about anyone.

I was fascinated by your initial connections to politics and activism. Is that still important in your life?

Absolutely. I believed, early on, that it was important to be an ethical eater. I think it's informed everything I've ever done. The big difference is that we know so much more now than we did forty years ago...

Did you ever figure out if you ate armadillo or what the another animal was in China?

I found out, much later, that it was pangolin, an armadillo-like creature.

What role did your Mother's sometimes problematic cooking play in your developing a passion for food?

I was a food critic from the cradle. I had to be. I started tasting, seriously,when I was very young. I was focused on what was in my mouth, trying to find out if it would kill me. But before long I became completely fascinated by flavor.

THE great Portland coffee cart

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YouTube - One Eskimo 'Kandi'.

via www.youtube.com

This song keeps running through my mind.