Precision December 7, 2010

I imagine the look the beast would evoke once its brought to the table. I often have an excited bristle of electricity, a commanding concentration and wonder at the gravity and opportunity before me. The arduousness of the investment to just bring it to the butcher always amazes me. A chef I knew described it as giving death. I have no such illusions and remember how it made me feel, all those years ago, far afield with my father and uncles. Taking its life, honoring its death, making sure above all that no part is wasted. A beauty that demands respect. The metallic sound of edge as it slides against steel to hone itself for the task. Honing: such an apt expression for a butcher, especially one who seeks to become more and more precise wasting nothing, using all.
The steady hand that is watched switches modality, grabbing the handle shank to shoulder using the blade as lever and as scalpel. The visceral nature of incision can mesmerize, the fingertips pulling back to reveal the next step, the bone, the sinew. The terminology to describe it counters the actual act. Fabrication; a composition of what, an assortment of cuts for the chef? A transformation of beast to braise? All those things, the act of butchery itself is tantalizing; whether cutting across or around the beauty of it can only be matched with a hard kiss of dry heat, followed by a slow simmer in its own unctuousness.

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.

Charcuterie and commitment July 9, 2010

I have said numerous times that the food I love to cook takes commitment; braising, curing, pickling, time, lots of time. Its the one thing I can return to again and again that will center me, thrill me or settle my nerves. My latest passion has been curing. At work and at home, with my students and myself I have been working out that ratio of fat to lean, salt to water, and love to patience. It has been a trying time, a time that has tested my own breaking point again and again. I have questioned my skills to season, to assemble, to lead, to teach and to wait. Teaching, like cooking is a skill that requires patience. Cradled in your hands, you show them what you love, you tell them why, and you gently drop it into their excitement and anticipation and wait to see if it takes hold, if they capture the lesson and make it their own. These are not just lessons, they are the molecules that when assembled are your gastronomy.
One of my closest friends asked me if I had a style. We were talking about restaurants and what mine would look like if I ever had one. Questions like that paralyze me, make me feel like I am not that chef. Sustainable yes, seasonal, or course. These were lessons I was lovingly taught when I was the pupil, the commis struggling for my chops. But do I have a style? A dish that unequivocally bears the mark of my gastronomy? I do not, that is not mine to hold, not right now, maybe not ever. What I love, what I wake up smiling about is the gorgeous transmission of truth. Not my technique, or my philosophy, but the hand guiding another to its surity. Show me a student thankful for the lesson and I will show you a willing vessel.
I am not foolish enough to think I am done learning. I only stopped to look over the landscape and see what terrain might still capture me. We talk about “the lesson” as if the conscious cook will always be driven by it, and in truth we hope that is true. Some times, you falter, you burn something, you dont tend to your culinary principles as meticulously as you could. Its called autopilot and it can happen to anyone, regardless of their profession. It is hard to be young and on fire all the time. The phoenix does not get any younger and the ashes can be threatened by wind and rain.
A simple thing charcuterie, a handful of ingredients, put together in a way that observes time, temperature, humidity. Its good ingredients with attention to detail with a little environmental influence. It could be gold, it could be garbage, but if you pay attention to it, every single day its a miracle. The fat can be soft like butter, the salt and tang balanced like twins on a see saw. I love the craft of it, and it demands patience of me at every step. So I have nurtured a thought for the last several months that this is a new love, something I want to pursue with care. I ruminated, worked on it, and repeated and lo the universe is putting things on my path that will help me attain this goal, work toward this mastery. Funny how a path will slink out of a shimmering wave of heat, intangible like a mirage but solid once you commit more than a footstep or two.
I can see amber colored fields and hands full of a harvests yield and the strings taut against the impending offering. This mise en scene shutters between a framework whisper close to home and a place so far away I never conceived of that story being mine. When I return from Gascony, it will be with finessed fingers and more focused eyes and a story deeply etched in my palm.