The wheel December 29, 2010

France – 17.12.2010

I have slept all the sleeps I have. Something occurred to me over my dinner, during which I sat still the whole time, and ate tiny bites, and stopped and watched the snow. (SNOW) The dinner was an exercise, more on that in a bit. So the thought that occurred to me over my simple dinner, served on a butcher block. (a sign) What if we just stopped trying to reinvent the wheel? What if the goal of the whole exercise was just to present a perfect wheel to the next group of kids coming up and actually take the time to divest them of the notion that the wheel needs to be reinvented? The truth of the matter is, we will eventually be without means to add all of the bells and whistles that we keep trying to glue to the bike in those cities filled with gastronomes. So what if a pork chop can just be: a pork chop, with some sauteed noisettes of apples and a parsnip apple puree (made with the rest of the ridiculous scraps of apple after all those tiny balls) I say this as I am about to launch into teaching Molecular Gastronomy next quarter. What if the wheel is enough ? “Here you are, a perfect wheel, I took care of it for you, keep in good shape and people will love it.” I know this notion itself is not new, but wheres the badass thats actually talking about enough when he’s taking it to the table? The truth of the matter is, the consumer needs to be retrained. We both know the food system is seriously fucked up. What if we asked the customer/consumer/guest to pick up their half of the responsibility and helped us rectify whats wrong about our food and revel in whats right? Truth is, I get tired of people whining that 3.99 is too much for a pound of meat. Is it? I mean if I fed them every day for 18 months and then factored in everything else and crunched the numbers….it used to make me sad, then angry. But being here, right now, where people will pay for their food (not the tacky atlanta ladies bitching in the corner of the cafe) I feel passionate that this is possible.
So there I was, master of the deli cup dinner relaxing into something I have not done in so many years, just eating. The pace of the meal was predetermined by so many things I am sure. The four mile walk around the Champs de Mars/Eiffel, the slow drifting pace of the snow, the warm wood surfaces, the servers who refused to rush. Any small deviation from that formula could have resulted in something entirely different. A glass of wine, a steak barely kissed by a grill, a salad dressed with a vinegary mustardy dressing and a tiny steel dish of chilled bearnaise. *sigh* Does anyone ever admit that cooks might have eating disorders? Oh, that’s right, we don’t do therapy either….The last six months, what with the on-site culinary analysis (food grading) and the 14 hour days with too much coffee I was actually trying to avoid food, like it was bad for me. “No, thanks I think Ive consumed enough calories today, no, I didn’t enjoy them either.” Someone should have slapped me. So the server, despite my atrocious french must have fallen in love with me because I concurred that I wanted my steak “bloody”, and asked about some Marc after the meal to have with my tarte tatin. Or maybe I wasnt being an obnoxious american. So it was my charcuterific lunch and this dinner that made me stop and think too many thoughts about what to do when I return….but the wheel….the wheel is very much on my mind.

Application & Vehicle October 15, 2010

A chef I work with once said the best culinary instructors were the ones who were a little geeky when they were in school. By that I think he meant, hungry for knowledge in all its variations and vehicles. I shyly have tried to get to know this instructor better, he is wildly talented and one of the most even keeled instructor I have ever met. With his endless patience and his (not so hidden) passion for the art and craft of fermentation he is forever pressing forward with new things to teach the students, new ways to inspire, new craft to perfect. I have no doubt it is his innate talent that contributes so greatly to his ability to be such an amazing instructor. Undoubtedely, when you stop to have a conversation with him he is always excited to share his latest cheese, salami, or pickle. It would be silly to point out how delicious these things always are. He has the quality in an instructor that makes students want to create amazing things so he would always be proud and never disappointed. I have worked for and with some tremendous chefs in my short life, and they all have this quality. I have been blessed to not work for many “old school” assholes, yellers, throwers, or general miscreants. Maybe this would have made me tougher, more of a perfection seeker than I am. Maybe if I went back to that period in my life where I just started culinary school, and I worked on the opening staff for Bouchon I could remember that constant prickle of attention. You can read a million food writers impression of a great chefs kitchen but it isnt until you walk into a kitchen and your hair bristles with electricity or your stomach drops that you know that tribal knowledge. Perfection is a journey, but when you look at someone so evolved, it appears, mirage-like to be a destination. The pass, the window, and the dishroom were spotless and returned to pristine every night. The greasy cord bound printers that pumped out the orders were wiped down, unplugged and put away every single night. The pass, stretched with white linen and held fast with green tape was always immaculate. No one sent a plate with the dirty footprint of an oily or saucy bottom. Your mise; tiny bottles of green, and red, and redux were clean, always. The vinegar “pluche” was never dirty, because pickups were always deliberate, hands always clean. This clarity of kitchen; from the walk in sorted with gallon size cambro containers of descending sizes, handles front, labels small, precise, and perfectly horizontal. It was no joke, it was “the work” and it didn’t end when you left the kitchen. It left me gauged with a seriousness and a deliberateness that instead of inspiring me, tortures me. I drop something and I see it before it falls. I follow behind my students and clean the trail of oil. I want a panoramic eye so I can watch the entire kitchen and move it towards perfection, and I fear I cannot evolve to that just yet, and it pains me to not see or inspire the way he inspired me. His lessons have stayed with me years to the day. How to pick herbs, wash greens, scrub oysters, mince shallots (not in a processor), reduce stocks v. I, II, III. It is in essence, what it looks like to choose the road that does not compromise. It is a hard road, but it is time for me to take it up again.

Mary Francis, Gertrude, Romaine, & Simone August 9, 2010

It is sometimes a pleasant and enlightening thing, to know and feel someones writing and sense of place deeply, on a cellular level. What I mean when I say this is I feel the era of these women heavy in my bones. Not some past life sensation implied by a channeler, no, more like a mise-en-scene you cant quite wash off your skin. Someone once said to me “I want to sit, and think only of you.”. That kind of reverie is how I feel when I think about the lives these women led. Sadly though, I sometimes feel a sense of amnesia about my self worth. Each of these women was so self possessed, so capable of the gravity that was dealt them.
Who in this day and age would consistently and mindfully seek out a good meal in the company of themselves; no paper, no iPhone, no time limit? You and the careful hands of your thoughtful server, reaching an understanding and then playing out that meal with no marker between each savored detail. “I walked in when Celia Cruz came on, smiled when I tasted the sea salt and hamachi, and said farewell after the praline melted on my tongue” If only we could measure our days in savory moments, instead of by tick marks on our virtual calendars. I admit, I have tried to eat alone, guiltily gazing at my phone between courses as if there should be somewhere else I should be, doing something else. Its criminal that we don’t lavish ourselves with the right to enjoy our food as slowly as we would like. It is as if we are (e)racing the time it took for the craftsman who made our meal. Sometimes it makes me ashamed, because we have all been trained to be such efficient craftsmen that when you see a cook slowly, deliberately stitching food together it can charm you quicker than the curl of a mirthful smile.
When I think of the resolute loyalty that some of these women had for each other, and their lot of creative kin it does make me yearn for another. Let me be clear, I do not believe myself to be incomplete without the love of another woman. I do not normally fall for the Hollywood filter that casts all lovers into some siamese mold. I have and do hold loyalty with a very select few women, we would give our last dollar, hold each other up unto exhaustion. But that understanding between women of that same caliber of intelligence and savvy, that simple look that casts a question and a reply, I do not have that yet. The women I have loved have left me perplexed, held me at arms length and only let me see the inner workings of their hearts briefly enough to see the complexity of their chambers and no more.
It leaves me curious enough that a younger me would be bereft, and indeed my tenderest parts do cry at times for the loss. The wizened version of myself tells me that on some molecular level I choose this in women, this fierce defiance, this complicated current below a smooth looking glass. Is it an independence almost remembered or not quite fully forgotten.
An artist, or a writer subsists on a good portion of melancholy, or solitude, or reflection. That airgap between themselves and the world that allows for their art to expand, and be absorbed. A lover is not fond of this gap, a lover craves a closeness that is not sustainable, an intimacy that almost demands vacuum. How to be both; a lover and an artist? No room to perfect your craft if you are consumed with your beloved. No room for the one you admire to see all of your finest details in a mirror that is held too close.
All of these women came to terms with age and infirmity, in themselves and those they loved. Some of them were dealt such harsh blows to the heart that I bowed my head sadly for a moment when I first read of their losses. It is hard to believe that one’s heart can beat again when it feels cold and cottony where it once skipped and dropped at the touch of one so dear.
What do I want, ultimately, and who do I want to become so that I might better prepare myself for her if and when she ever finds me? Of M.F.K I want the grace to savor everything, and to gracefully observe life’s blows. Of Gertrude, that charming impish ageless love of my nearest and dearest, whether they are my lovers or my confidants. Of Romaine that composure that speaks silently to all and says that what defines me will always persevere over what might try to break me. And of my dearest Simone that soft, subtle imperfection that allows for light to shine in and illuminate all that I truly love about myself and the world around me.

the blogroll July 13, 2010

If you haven’t checked out my blogroll, there are a lot of interesting new additions. Some are nerdy cheffie type things, some are pretty cool. Cheers!