Insights on hospitality from a restaurant professional
Good bye 2007.
Thank you for everything you’ve given me.
A husband. A whole new family to call my own. Stories. Friends. Inspiration. Amazing meals. Travel to incredible places. Knowledge. Love.
Hello 2008
I look forward to making the most of all the days you have to give me.
I raise my glass to all that has come before me and all that is yet to be. Here’s to life, to love, to inspiration!
Almost every Sunday you can find me at the Hollywood Farmer’s market with a smile on my face and a pocket full of dollar bills. If you see me just before noon, you’ll see me struggling to carry a cup of coffee in one hand and a week’s worth of fresh fruit and vegetables in my overloaded Lady of Guadalupe shopping bag, in the other. I like to limit myself to one bag, because it keeps me from buying too much produce that I’ll never get around to using.
Usually by week’s end, I am successful in creating dishes that include all of my market fresh ingredients. But come Saturday night when almost a full week has passed, I can usually find a few neglected vegetables in the refrigerator’s crisper that need using. Take for example last week. Even though I intended on cooking a beautiful Christmas dinner with some friends, the electricity was intermittent because of the Santa Anna winds, so at the last minute my husband and I ended up eating take-out Chinese instead. We enjoyed not cooking, but come Sunday morning when it was time to take accounting of what was needed at the market, I discovered a crisper full of wilted bunch of carrots with the greens still on, a head of cauliflower just starting to show signs of turning, a butternut squash and a handful of onions. Being mindful of our household budget, I decided to skip the market and make a pot of soup for the week from the vegetables at hand.
SUNDAY MARKET SEEN-BETTER-DAYS VEGETABLE SOUP
*only to be made as penance for when you’ve failed at making use of most or a good amount of your market vegetables.
Open the crisper. Take out all the produce you haven’t used all week. Forgive yourself for being lazy/busy/distracted by your life.
Separate the fresh ingredients from the produce that looks like it has seen better days. Seen-better-days produce like wilted veggies, limp carrots, half used onions and any other green that has lost its spunk, should be used for building the stock. The other vegetables should be saved for adding to the soup once the stock is made.
Put a large stock pot of water on the stove on high. While the water heats up, add the stock making vegetables. The fun part about this, is everything can go in. Carrots with the tops on. The whole bunch of wilted celery. Half up a few onions and whatever else you have laying around. Don’t worry about making this stuff look pretty. It’s all going to get tossed out once the vegetables are cooked down.
**Cook’s note: If you have one of those amazing pasta stock pots with the internal pasta basket, throw the vegetables in there. That way it will be easy to remove the cooked down/stock making vegetables.
Bring the water/vegetable pot to a boil and immediately bring down to a simmer. Let stock simmer until your kitchen fills with the aromatic smell of soup. At least an hour or more. While this is happening, prep your semi-fresh or fresh vegetables. Good veggies for soup are cauliflower, squash, kale, pea tendrils, onion, carrot, celery, etc. Cut your ingredients into uniformed bite sized pieces.
The stock is ready when the water has a distinctly new color (green/brown) and should have a sweet, vegetable flavor. When the broth is almost sweet with vegetable flavor, remove the cooked down vegetables from the broth.
Add the fresh ingredients, a bay leaf and some salt. Simmer for at least an hour.
Begin tasting your soup for seasoning. Enjoy this moment as you taste all of the flavors of the market intermingling. What flavors are more pronounced?
Once you know the basic flavor of the soup, add at least two to three tablespoons of soy sauce to the soup. Taste again. Believe it or not, this little step is going to make a HUGE difference in improving the flavor. By simply adding soy, suddenly the soup tastes hearty, as if you added chicken or beef stock. **Why is this? Well, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, there’s something in soy sauce that elevates food to a whole other level and gives it a FIFTH FLAVOR. The Japanese call this satisfying meaty/savory flavor, Umami. But I digress. Add more soy if needed, according to your taste.
Simmer for another hour if you want the flavors to really come through. For a hearty soup, add hearty pasta noodles or leftover rice. You can also serve the soup over day old bread.
Serve the soup in warm bowls and finish it with grated Parmesean, to bring out even more satisfying flavors of umami!
Keep some soup in fridge for tomorrow and freeze what’s left in to-go containers or Tupperware for later in the week! Enjoy!
As inspired by Ed Levine at Serious Eats
1) The tasting menu at Cibreo, Florence
The deconstructed Ribolita and the tomato aspic were the meal’s highlight.
2)The Gelato (Fresh Cream and the Candied Fruit) at Grom in Florence, Italy
3)The number 13 La Cazuela (Bowl of hot cheese and chopped tomatoes) at Superica, Santa Barbara
4) Bistecca Fiorentina on the grill at my chef friend’s house in Panicale, Italy
5) The Funghi Misti Pizza at Mozza, LA
6) A bowl of fresh ricotta covered in honey at Osteria Aquacheta Montepulciano, Italy
7)The squash and pecorino Fresca dish at Ostera Aquacheta in Montepulciano, Italy (see earlier post “An Obsession is Born”)
8) The Chocolate Croissant at Tartin, SF
9) The Salt Cod breakfast dish at the Hungry Cat, Hollywood
10) A handpicked cheese selection including air-dried Fici Figs by Chester at Joan’s on Third, Los Angeles
I ran into my wine maker friend Chris Keller the other night at the restaurant I work at. Chris was in a good mood and celebrating over a great meal with an even better bottle of wine. Chris is the wine maker of Paige 23, and, in general is one of the happiest guys I know. In any given exchange, Chris has been known to quote Buddhist philosophers, Bruce Springsteen, Monty Python and well-known LA chefs. Maybe Chris’ perma-grin is from being married to a beautiful and sweet woman named Hahn. Or maybe it’s because he’s producing some undeniably gorgeous and elegant wines out of a garage in Santa Ynez.
Whatever it is that makes Chris Keller tick is a good thing. Because his wines rock.
It was a busy night at the restaurant. On my way past Chris, he stopped me. “How’d you like to come up north and help me come up with some killer blends of my wine?”
When a wine maker friend asks if you want to come and taste his wine straight from the barrel and weigh in Bordeaux blend, you just can’t say no. Especially not if you call yourself a student of food and wine. One must say yes and prepare for a wonderful education in grape varietals.
And so I did.
Chris Keller’s wine is Paige 23. Respected by wine makers and restaurants around the world, this small winery operating out of a garage, creates beautiful wines from French varietals such as Grenache, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Paige 23 is a labor of love for Chris and his business partner, Joe Kalina.
When Chris isn’t making wine, he works as a wine consultant selling wine and creating wine lists for several LA restaurants—which is where I first met Chris. It was at the tail end of my work as General Manager of a busy Culver City restaurant. There were so many difficult things about my 16-hour a day job that made me want to hang up the suit and quit the business all together, but my weekly meetings with Chris made me want to stick it out a little bit longer so that I could have thoughtful discussions of food and wine and taste wines with him and other incredible wine makers he represented for his consulting business. I eventually quit my job in Culver City and luckily, Chris and I have remained friends ever since.
MONDAY MORNING
Hans and I wake up early enough to get a cup of coffee and a tank full of gas and still be on the road before 9am. The usual 2-hour drive up to Santa Ynez is easy and relatively free of traffic. We make it up to Buellton before 10:30. Enough time to get some eggs at the local greasy spoon.
11 am. Meet Chris outside his wine garage. Inside it’s cold. There is a line of half bottles labeled and filled with wine just pulled from the barrel. 
After we grab a few glasses and a plastic jug for a makeshift spit bucked, we’re ready to go. It’s time to start tasting.
ROUSSANE ’07. Practically fresh off the vine, it’s a surprise tasting something that has wine flavors, even after being picked just two months ago. Still in that early, juicy stage. The wine tastes sweet like apple pie with butter, nutmeg, Christmas seasonings and apricot.
SAUVIGNON BLANC ’07 Santa Barbara Highlands. Aged in Stainless. Floral, green, pineapple and kiwi. Juicy and balanced with a grapefruit finish.
VIOGNIER 07. Here is where my mind gets blown. The wine is aged in stainless steel and, unlike other wine makers Chris skips the 2ndary fermentation stage. The result, a wine that tastes of honey, lemon blossom and nuts and has a real viscosity that makes me realize that Viognier doesn’t have to taste like perfume and white flowers.
**This wine is amazing as it is. Chris decides to bottle this as is.
GRENACHE BLANC ’07 Tank fermented. This wine tastes like red licorice surrounded by a layer of spicy tannin. Still very much alive and working towards becoming what it will be, the wine feels alive and jumpy.
**Chris decides this wine is great as it is and decides to bottle it without blending it.
CABERNET FRANC ’07. From the Westerly Vineyard. More Red licorice dried plum and apricot, clove, rosemary and mulling spices. This will be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.
Santa Barbara Highlands 06 MERLOT: Violets, cinnamon, blue notes on the mid palate with a spicy finish. This will be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.
CABERNET ’06. Westerly vineyard. Plum, cranberry, chocolate. Beautiful acidity with nice aromatics. This will also be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.
After tasting through the wines, we begin concocting our plan for blending. Here’s where things start to get interesting.
THE 1/3 BLEND
We blend equal parts of each varietal (Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet) and taste. What we discover is that this 1/3 blending isn’t cohesive at all. There’s the red fruit of the Cab Franc up front (and all over the place), the acidity of the Cabernet tries to make it through but the whole things ends too quickly. The finish is almost dusty. Something is clearly not right.
40/40/20 SPLIT
We re-group and decide on a blend of 40% Merlot, 40% Cabernet and 20% Cabernet Franc. We hope reducing the percentage of it in the blend will lessen the aggressive flavors of the Cab Franc. The result is significantly different. The wine is balanced from beginning to end. There are blue notes of violets and other fruit, acidity and balanced tannin. The blending is a success!
What I learned
I think the most incredible thing about tasting wines straight from the barrel, was realizing that it really doesn’t take all that long for wine to become wine. It takes years, however, for the wine to become what it truly should be.
There’s an art to blending. Once you know the characteristics of a varietal (What flavors a Cabernet has to offer vs. Cabernet Franc), you can start to understand t
he process of blending. By blending, you can take the best qualities of two or more wine varietals, and use them to create another, more nuanced wine. How one blends the wines together and in what proportion becomes just as much an art form as growing and making the wine.
Ever since I was a little girl, Christmas morning always began with freshly toasted Nisu, a Finnish sweet bread, slathered in soft butter. My grandmother, Hilja, would put on a pot of tea and while she toasted thick slices of the spiced sweet bread for the family. Though the idea of opening gifts had us giddy, the smell of Grammie’s Nisu could entice us away from our presents and have us running to the kitchen for a fresh a bite of this special sweet bread.
Nisu, a Finnish sweet bread, is braided and blonde like a Finnish girl’s hair. The sweet bread (also called Pulla) is flavored with freshly ground cardamom and a touch of sugar. Every holiday my grandmother would bake us a loaf and smuggle it into the house and hide it, so that the family wasn’t tempted to tear into it before Christmas morning. The braided loaf is soft, like a delicate challah bread, but sweet and perfumed with the exotic flavors of cardamom. Of all the breads I’ve tasted, no other uses cardamom in such an intoxicating way.
Though it’s been almost a decade since I left my family home in Gloucester, Massachusetts (the town where my Finnish ancestors settled), I have never lost the taste for Nisu.
While making my two batches of Nisu, a braided Finnish Cardamom sweet bread, I found myself with a couple extra handfuls of shelled cardamom.
Here is my recipe for a great, fast cup of home made chai:
1 bag of black tea
A teaspoon of cardamom (fresh out of their pods)
one black peppercorn
a pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of pinch of nutmeg
a cup and a half of milk
Simmer all together until warm. Should be the color of caramel when the tea bag is brewed and flavored with the spices. Add a sugar to taste and serve!
When you’ve got the flu, your insides are turning inside out and you think you’re going to die, have you ever wondered what’s in it for the virus?
I mean, what possibly could a virus get out of all of this? I started thinking about this question and wondered if viruses were more like marauding teenagers. Maybe the point is to make their mark on the weak by destroying what they hold most dear. Maybe Viruses just get off on destroying.
Clearly, I’m no scientist. I just like to eat food and hate anything that keeps me from enjoying my meal. Bad service, bad food and being cash poor are the usual suspects. But now, VIRUSES are on my radar.
Why does a virus have to go in and mess with ME?
I’ve been doing a little research and from what I can tell, viruses know that they’re insipid little organisms and their time is short. So they, like angry little teenage marauders, like to cause as much havoc they can and then jump hosts and start all over again. They don’t like to stay in one place too long, else get caught. So they vini-vidi-vici a person and then, change their look a little, and move on. That way, they can keep on messing with people until the end of time.
Vicious little *(7*&(&8%@’s!
According to the J. Craig Venter Institute, the flu I’m talking about is a Type A influenza.
Researchers classify type A influenzas according to structural variations in two surface proteins: hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Like changing coats, the influenza virus changes the shape of these HA or NA proteins when it accumulates minor mutations or reassorts more dramatically. The human immune system no longer recognizes the virus, and infection begins anew.
Steven Salzberg, senior author of the Nature paper, says the new work illustrates this chain of molecular events. “The study demonstrates that these influenza subpopulations, or variant strains, represent a pool of genetic resources that the influenza virus can draw upon,” says Salzberg, a researcher at TIGR and also director of the University of Maryland ‘s Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. “Pockets of distinct flu strains spread locally, with flu evolving in different directions. Then, when one strain mingles with another, a new, dominant strain can emerge.”
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and I want to know the motivation for things, but some how, knowing WHY a virus would need to do such vicious stuff makes me feel more understanding of it.
I know. I’m sick.
Okay, so it happened. I got the flu virus that’s been going around. I knew it would happen eventually. I work in a restaurant, for god’s sake. I touch dirty dishes and have people sneezing on me all night. I don’t know why I thought I’d be immune. I wash my hands all the time and am careful not to touch my mouth or face while I’m working…But then again, I am want to share a sip of wine with my co-workers at the end of the night. I just should have known better.
So I got it. From what I can tell, it was probably some mutant strain of the Norwalk Virus or some nasty virus like that. At first I thought I had food poisoning, the way my body reacted so violently, but when I got a fever I knew it was the flu. Once I could see straight I did a little Googling to find out more about what I was dealing with. According to USA Today, this viral strain has hit CA hard and it has killed thousands of people.
I can see why. Damn.
If you’ve had this flu, you’ll know the symptoms very intimately. Goes something like this…Everything’s fine and then one minute, say at four o-clock in the morning while you’re sleeping, you’re suddenly sitting up in bed acutely aware that something is terribly wrong with the body you’re inhabiting. And you better run to the bathroom. Fast. And then, well… all hell breaks out. Maybe for like ten minutes your stomach bloats out and moves around like there’s an alien trapped inside you and you wonder—is there an alien trapped inside my body? And then you realize it’s something much, much worse than that and everything that was once inside you is immediately ejected—any way possible.
Flash forward though the nasty bits. You struggle through chills, cramps, fever and general discomfort associated with turning your insides out. You’re free of food and liquid and stay far away from anything that resembles anything with a scent. You wait through it—maybe a day or two or three– and beg for it to end. And eventually, it does if you’re young, strong or without a compromised immune system.
After two days without food, I feel more alive then ever. Almost appreciative. Granted, going through the Norwalk virus isn’t pleasant, but when it’s over, life is SOOOOO much better. I can smell food again. I can drink tea. Sip soup. Chew on a noodle or two. And for the first time in a while, I can think about the food that I’m eating in terms of nutrition and what effect it might have on my body. Because, dear reader, for the past few months (ah, admit it Brooke…Years), I’ve been eating for the taste of FOOD. Not for its benefits.
So maybe, just in time for the New Year, I’ve been given a chance to rearrange the way I think about the things I’m eating. Instead of thinking about flavor first, I’m thinking about my body, THEN flavor.
So who knows what that means. For the time being though, I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about soup. Really, really good soup.
Sometimes when I pick up my chef’s knife I get a sort of stage fright. Everything will be going along just fine with my dicing of an onion and then all of a sudden it happens. I try to focus on the vegetable or the fruit I need to cut, and suddenly my attempts to clear my mind of judgement fails and I have to stop. I can’t cut a thing. Even though there’s no one in my kitchen checking my knife sills, I can feel the presence of a great chef judging me.
I think it was last year when my knife skills problem started.
It all began when I saw this one episode of THE NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR. It was the show when Iron Chef Morimoto tests the hopeful TV chefs with a quick challenge. He hands the contestants a chef’s knife and a fish and tells them to filet the thing.
It was horrifying what happened next. In this pool of talented food professionals, most of the contestants couldn’t filet the fish. One or two skilled people were able to de-bone the fish in just a few minutes, but all the other kitchen jocks just destroyed the fish. It was embarrassing. One woman did such a bad job Morimoto couldn’t even look at her.
He just stared at the messy pile of wasted fish and frowned. “Uh, basically,” he said, “you have no knife skills.”
And that, as they say, was that.
Now every time I step up to my chopping board, I hear Morimoto saying the very same thing to me.
Over and over again.
“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills.”
No matter how swift (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”) or how uniformed my technique (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”), I feel Morimoto’s critical gaze checking my work. Sometimes, even my husband says the dreaded phrase (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”)—just to mess with me.
But all of that is over now.
Thanks to the Cooks Library and swell guy named Peter Hertzmann and his book Knife Skills Illustrated, I’ll be slicing my onions like a master.
This book is my new bible. Whenever I’m ready to slice and dice, I pick up my Knife Skills book and get reading. The pages are full of great illustrations that make learning knife skills from a book absolutely possible.
Like this illustration, for example. Basically, I had no idea I was holding the knife wrong. According to Hertzman, if you want to have great knife skills, it’s all about the pinch grip.
I’m so down with the pinch grip.
This is not the pinch grip.
This, my friends, is me doing the pinch grip.
I have to agree with my new friend Peter, the pinch grip gives me way more control over the knife. Holding the knife like this hurts a little at first (tender hands of a novice), but very soon I’ll get a knife-skills-blister just like the pros! I’m so excited!
I’m so excited, I even took pictures of myself cutting brussels sprouts. Because I’m a big fat food blogging nerd.
I’m beside myself happy. There are just so many vegetables to be sliced. Multitudes of onions to practice on. I can’t wait to perfect the art of deboning a chicken! Just you wait Morimoto. I’ll have knife skills yet!
It’s Thursday night and the restaurant is packed. It’s nine o’clock and there’s a line out the door. The manager’s i-pod shuffles through a rock set. Diners yell to hear each other. Servers like me, bend and spin around crowded tables.
Upstairs in the office, it’s quiet, except for the constant ringing of the phone lines.
A solitary receptionist hits the blinking lights that represent anxious people in search of a reservation.
“Thank you for calling _____, please hold, thank you for calling______please hold, thank you for calling _____, please hold. ” She saves breathing for after the last blinking light is touched.
She inhales and clicks onto a line. The receptionist can tell from the crackle of traffic and men talking in the background, that she’s on speaker phone.
“Thank you for holding. Can I help you?”
The voice on the other end yells to be heard. “Yeah. Hi. This is Casey Affleck. I need a table for four in fifteen minutes.”
The receptionist explains that the restaurant is booked. That the reservations are booked one month to the day in advance. The actor insists. He’s Casey Affleck. He’s in the neighborhood. He needs a table now.
The receptionist recalls the name, but can’t quite place his face. Other than being Ben’s brother, who is Casey Affleck again? The receptionist calls the manager for help. Is there something that can be done?
While the curly haired woman waits for an answer, she IMDB’s the actor’s name. So, he’s been in the Ocean 11 movies. That’s right, she thinks. He’s the funny side kick guy. Oh, and he was in that Boston movie about a girl getting kidnapped. Never did see that movie, she muses.
The manager steps in and suggests there could be an opening. A reservation has no-showed. He’ll do his best to squeeze in Affleck, along with the rest of the walk-in’s. Before the receptionist hangs up, the manager offers one small caveat: “Tell him he might have to wait a while.”
A while later, the curly haired actor (and his mini-posse) is seated.
A server like me, but not me, approaches the table. She greets Casey Affleck and his friends with a smile. They look up from their menus with Los Angeles upper crust disdain. Casey Affleck nods to the server. She blushes a little when he stares at her, all intense with his semi-famous dark eyes.
“Listen,” he says. “People usually send out appetizers for me when I come in. You can let the kitchen know I’m a vegan.”
The server does a double take. What did he just say? The server spins away from the table, dazed.
The server approaches the kitchen and pulls the chef aside. She repeats verbatim what Casey Affleck–the actor–has just told her.
“So…Uh, are we going to send him out some beets or something?” the waitress asks.
The chef calmly nods his head. “Hell no.”
_______________________
For your consideration…
I really don’t get what all these Bon Appétit readers are so upset about.
What I read on Josh Ozersky’s post on Grub Street, was a statement about Bon Appétit’s attempt to attract a younger, more hip audience by changing the typeface of their magazine. I read his skepticism and frustration with an old way of thinking and saw his challenge to Bon Appétit to think out of the box and to take more chances in its attempt to find a more hip readership. I read a post that suggested that maybe it takes a little more than all lowercase letters and a vowel’s monthly color change, to create a buzz that would appeal to a younger fan base.
But that’s what I read. Hundreds of other food-blog readers scanned Ozersky’s post and saw red. They read insult and accusation. They read Ozersky’s comments and felt he had slighted them for liking to cook at home.
Blame it on my potentially poor speed-reading skills or my single-minded need to find proofs for my personal opinions on the food industry, but I did not feel at the very least bashed by Josh Ozersky’s post. Instead, I got happy. Really happy.
Finally, someone was saying what I was thinking! These big glossy food magazines have gotten so big and lofty in their appreciation of “the bigger things” (more on that later), that they’d forgotten how to appeal to a much broader audience. They might say they want to skew younger but they’ve forgotten what “new” really means.
Ozersky mentioned the biggest problem the big-gun food magazines face is, is that they “will never be any hipper or friskier…because no magazine about upscale entertaining can ever speak to people that don’t have big houses and plenty of time on their hands”.
This, I think, is where people started to see red.
Sure, he said that the magazine appealed to people with money and was written for people who “ate in”. But isn’t that true? Isn’t Bon Appétit targeted for people who have the time and money to cook and appreciate food? Look at the ads between the stories and you’ll know exactly whom the advertising department is aiming at. These are people with great outfits, go on European vacations, have well equipped kitchens, don’t worry about their food budget (going to Whole Foods/Whole Paycheck doesn’t make them sweat) and most definitely like to throw extravagant parties.
Sure, people like me with six-figure debt (thanks film school!) read the magazine and diligently cook from it, but the glossy isn’t TARGETED for my financial bracket. Just ask my accountant. My financial bracket shouldn’t even spend the amount of money I do on food and think I’ll ever get ahead.
But back to Josh Ozersky. After he posted his little side bar about Bon Appetit, Grub Street post was immediately bombarded by angry readers’ comments. And boy were they pissed. They ranted and raved and stated that he was terribly wrong and that there was nothing antiquated about their beloved magazine. They said Bon Appetit was their bible and that it is written for everyone that loves food—regardless if they eat in or out.
Even my hero, the Amateur Gourmet, had something to say about the Grub Street post. He said the blog didn’t make him mad until he reached the end of the article. He wrote that Ozersky’s comment that Bon Appétit is for people who eat in” was what fired him up.
He said:
Personally, I see some truth to what he’s saying: cooking at home isn’t as exciting as going out…but you’re not engaged with the outside world the way you are when you wait two hours in the cold for your table at The Spotted Pig…. You may not find us in the glossy pages of New York Magazine, but you will find us at our kitchen table, laughing with friends, and digging into a slice of homemade apple pie. I don’t know where you’d rather be, but I know where I’ll be tomorrow night.”
I don’t think this is what Ozersky meant to say. In just this little side bar, Ozersky states that Bon App has lost its edge because it appeals to a class of people. What I think he’s saying is that in appealing to the rich it eliminates all of us. Bon App is a lifestyle magazine, not a recipe for a universal way of thinking about food.
As food lovers, we read about food because we love it. We love to think, taste and discuss it everywhere and anywhere. If you’re young and interested in food, or a food lover with a tight budget or a person who wants to know something new and extraordinary, you’re more than likely not going to turn to bon appetit for the scoop. You’re going to go to the Internet, or the Cook’s Library, or a number of different locations to see what people are saying.
To truly love food, one must understand all the aspects of it. There is taste, aroma and texture. There is personal style, history and traditions. To be wise, one must be well read, well versed and experienced. Bon Appétit has served its purpose in the early years. Back when the magazine was first published, the articles were edgy. It did take chances. The magazine was a bible for my mother’s generation and brought to a new level of culinary appreciation to millions of men and women. But now it’s the 00’s and Bon Appétit isn’t cutting edge any more. The Internet is. Google searches lead readers to the answer to almost any culinary question.
I cook at home. I obsess over ingredients. I study cookbooks. I eat in inspiring restaurants. I work in one. I read Bon Appetit.
But the fact of the matter is, I still don’t LOVE Bon Appétit. I never have. And the reason I don’t love Bon Appétit is because I’ve never felt like that magazine was written for ME. I might not have a big house, a big budget, all the right shaped pots and pans the recipe calls for, or the state of the art stove, but I can most certainly appreciate the articles and recipes. If these flagship magazines don’t change the direction of their editorial content, they won’t have the staying power to change the culinary lives of next generation of readers.
But we’re all selective readers, I suppose. We see what we want to see.
When TV shows lose their way, the viewing public sometimes says the series has “Jumped the Shark”. It’s a funny way to say that something that was once entertaining has become droll, trite and nothing but a waste of time. Usually, not long after “jumping the shark”, the show dies a miserable, lonely death. The origins of the phrase “Jump the Shark”, of course, comes from a dismal season finale of the show, Happy Days. It was the episode when the Fonz had to jump a tank of sharks on his motorcycle. It was a lame trick and didn’t make any sense and the viewers weren’t interested in watching aliens (Mork from Ork) or Fonz try to fight unnecessary foes. It became clear after the shark episode that Happy Days no longer had anywhere they could go with their characters or plot lines. The show was going through the motions and nobody cared anymore.
And so it is with food magazines.
According to the NY Times, Bon Appetit announced it would be “courting younger readers by adjusting its logo”. You see, from now on starting in January, Bon Appetit will be bon appetit (oh! how hip!) and the “O” in Bon Appetit will be a different color than the rest of the letters every month.
Every month the o will be different? Really? Oh, Barbara. It’s going to take a lot more than turning the title of the magazine to lower caps and changing the color of your “O” ever month to make the kids want to read your magazine.
How about hiring someone young? How about allowing freelancers like me (ahem) a shot at a column every once in a while?
I don’t know why this surprises me. I’ve known ever since 2003 when the October issue of Gourmet came out that something bad was about to befall the big guns of food publishing.
Maybe you remember the cover. The image was so out of place you might have stopped dead in your tracks in the check out lane. I recall dropping my bag of muffin mix and gasping an audible “Oh no!” when I saw it. It was the cover that decried “CHEF’S ROCK!” and featured a handful of chefs (LA’s own Suzanne Goin, Eric Ripert , Scott Conant and Laurent Gras) dressed up like rock stars and playing kitchen equipment instead of instruments. The cover made no sense, had no accompanying story that justified the cover and appeared to be quite honest, desperate to appear hip.
Back when Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazine were introduced to the American reader, there were a plenty of exciting things to report on. There were unexplored cooking techniques (deglazing! sous vides!), unknown ingredients (lemon grass! Harissa!) and culinary traditions to be adopted from around the world. Bon Appetit wrote about chefs before celebrity chefs existed. Gourmet magazine explored food before there were Food centric networks and culinary blogs. But with the powerful force of the Food Network and the multitude of self-published blogs, these figureheads of the culinary publishing world have lost their relevance.
For a fresh angle, I’ll go to Amateur Gourmet, Orangette.blogspot, or Spicysaltysweet.com. I’ll pour over my Bill Buford New Yorker articles and the gorgeous food reporting of Saveur. I will continue to love me my Jonathan Gold, Patrick Kuh of Los Angeles Magazine and a handful of LA Times food writers (not snide Leslie Brenner, that’s for sure). I’ll watch TV food stars and read my Waverly Root, my Marcella Hazan, my Best of Food Writing collection or any other of my weekly purchases from the Cooks Library. I’ll read and read and read, but I more than likely will flip through the bon appetit. It’s rare when I get swept up by one of their stories. Even more rare is when I actually cook one of their epic dinner party recipes.
It’s true. Things are getting competitive in the culinary publishing world. Perhaps the antiquated icons of food publishing will collapse under the weight of their ancient ideas and arcane way of doing things. Maybe they never will. But as I look at the current state of food publishing, I can’t help but think there’s another way to make room for more innovative publishing concepts. Surely there’s room for a few more great food stories.
So until my big break as the next great food blogger, I’ll continue writing, keep on waiting tables job, carry on trading stories about great meals, and always, persist in finding the next great dish.
Profumo del Chianti is a simple enough thing. Snowy white Italian sea salt, finely ground and infused with highly aromatic herbs including rosemary and lavender. It’s sold to tourists in jars and vacuum packed bags that are perfect for travel.
But the man behind this uncomplicated, aromatic seasoning is no simpleton.
Dario Cecchini, the Dante quoting butcher from Bill Buford’s book “Heat”, is a culinary rock star. Tour busses carrying food lovers from around the world speed past ancient churches and art museums and head directly for the tiny butcher shop tucked into the hills of Chianti. Dario’s butcher shop, Antica Macelleria Cecchini, has catered to locals for over 250 years. Thanks to Dario and his larger than life personality, the Antica Macelleria Cecchini now serves finely whipped lardo, beautifully butchered meat and gorgeous salume to thousands of meat loving tourists from around the world.
If you are in Italy, all you need is a GPS set to Panzano Italy and then look for the crowd of people milling around the sidewalk with glasses of wine and slices of salame in their hands. Step inside the meat locker sized shop and take in the sights: there’s a wood table decorated with a cutting board covered in sliced meats, jars of spicy marmalade, a bowl of whipped lardo with rosemary. There are house cured salumes hanging from the ceiling and a painting of Dante on the wall. 
While on our honeymoon, my husband and I visited the Antica Macelleria Cecchini twice in one week. On the first day, we walked in the door and immediately knew we had found Dario when we saw the big chested man in a leather vest. There may be a handful of men working at Antica Macelleria Cecchini, but Dario Cecchini is impossible to miss. His larger than life personality and the constant swarm of people around him make Dario the obvious center of attention. 
I watched Dario with star-struck reverence as he spoke Italian with the booming voice of a stage performer. Though I couldn’t understand a word of what he said, there was a lot I could surmise by his dramatic hand gestures and expressive face. I feared that my skills of pantomime would not translate well, so I kept my head down and avoided asking questions about the unfamiliar products he offered up for sale on his shelves. Looking for something that would travel well in our tightly packed suitcases, my husband and I bought a number of vacuum packed bags of white stuff labled Profumo. Though we had no idea what it was we were buying or how we would cook with it, the label made us think what we were purchasing was just what we needed. We both smiled when we read in loosely translated English: “breathe in deeply for sudden attacks of nostalgia”.
Luckily, on day two of our trip to Panzano, we learned the best way to use our Profumo. Sprinkled on a plate and submerged in a bath of olive oil, the Profumo makes an excellent dipping sauce for crudite. At Cecchini’s beautiful new restaurant, Solociccia, they offered freshly picked vegetables and profumo in oil to guests as an antipasti course. The guests oohed and aaahed over the incredible flavors. The Profumo elevates the food, without drowning out the true essence of the ingredients.
Hans and I were in heaven nibbling on a carrot that was dipped in the olive oil, salt and herb mixture. We shook our heads in shock. How could something so simple be so good? Certainly this is what Alice Waters thinks of when she serves a perfectly ripe fruit for dessert or the why Sushi Chef Nozawa refuses to put anything on an amazingly fresh piece of fish. Let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves.
It’s been little more than a month since our return from our honeymoon, and already I’m experiencing extreme attacks of nostalgia. After my trip to the farmer’s market I cut up the world’s largest radish,
A bunch of carrots and fresh top celery. I poured a bit of profumo into a dish and covered it in golden, extra virgin olive oil.
My eyes rolled back as I studied the sweetness of the carrot and how it played against the saltiness of the Profumo. I savored the crunch of the radish and its peppery spice. I brought the dish of oil and profumo to my nose and took in a deep breath until I was back again in Panzano.
In my dream, Dario smiled at me and nodded knowingly. I had come back to Panzano once more. And this time, I understood exactly what he was saying.
Thanks to my New Age mother and my unusual upbringing as a yogi-blessed protestant that received yearly psychic, rune and tarot readings as well as comprehensive astrological charts, I’ve been the kind of person that could find God (a higher power that touches everyone and everything), just about anywhere. I’ve found God in incense scented temples, Renaissance churches, and quiet road side shrines. I’ve felt God in the crashing waves of the Atlantic, in the olive groves of Italy, in the tall branches of the California redwoods, in the smile of a newborn and, most recently at the Hollywood Farmer’s market.
It’s not surprising that I’d find God at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. The city I live in is, after all, named after angels and the streets there are paved with stars. Look around the block and it’s not too hard to find bleeding heart Jesus’ on a tee shirt and a brightly painted picture of the Lady of Guadalupe tacked to the taco truck’s window. Not far from the fresh fruit vendors stands, I’ve seen Hasidic Jews on roller blades talking about the Talmud on their cell phones.
Going to the Hollywood Farmer’s market gives me the chance to settle down, be quiet and get right with God. I swear the vegetables talk to me. I get whole sermons from a juicy Clementine. I’ve heard homilies in a freshly cut peony. At the church of the market, the choir is made up of chefs in a produce trance, the blind guitar player named Pepe, and red-faced babies in strollers, busy chewing on a handful of grapes. The freshly cut samples, pierced through by a toothpicks, are my communion.
I don’t know what it is about the bright colors of the fruits and the earthy smells of the vegetables, but every Sunday I go to the farmer’s market I come back a better person. Tasting a sun warmed grape or a glistening orange slice silences me immediately. I close my eyes and become mindful of every flavor. Some times, when I smell a ripe apple or a juicy pear, I remember what it was like to be a five year old enjoying a piece of fruit. In those moments, I am both a child and an adult, overwhelmed with happiness, humility and the appreciation of the simple things. My worries melt away and the incessant buzzing of my brain working out the details of my life quiets down to nothing.
Going to the Hollywood Farmer’s market not only feeds my belly for the week, it satisfies my soul. I find solace in the Swiss chard. I get comfort in a handful of ripe tomatoes. I won’t say that religion is the answer for everyone. But I’m willing offer a guess that a visit to the Hollywood Farmer’s market might be.
“If you would please me—and there are thousands like me—you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy…Thus when I ask you to write more books…I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large…” Virgina Woolf
And so it is with food blogging. There is not limit to the kind of food websites there are in the blogosphere. Chowhound riles up the locals to give their two cents. The Amateur Gourmet makes short films with a dozen eggs and Broadway musical soundtracks. Orangette makes preserves for her wedding and photographs the jars with the care of an artist.
I want to stand cheek by jowl with the greats and write about the rustic restaurants I’ve discovered in small towns and the great meals I’ve made in my tiny, galley kitchen. I want to describe the flesh of a pear and the meatiness of a beautiful Barolo. I want to share my secret getaways and culinary inspirations. I want to recommend and rant. I want to photograph and document.
Food blogging not only begets writing, but it also inspires a lot of creativity in and out of the kitchen. Moved by the wry wit of the Amateur Gourmet, my pantry has become a casting agency. A big mouthed tea canister, a blustery pile of flour, a cluster of shriveled raisins would make a great cast for my culinary shoot-em up! My wedding day decorations went from the typical choices of roses and got a culinary focus when I turned to my food blogging friends for inspiration. Overly ornate centerpieces became milk bottles filled with wild flowers. My wedding bouquet smelled of mint and basil instead of lightly perfumed white roses. Complicated canapés were cancelled and rustic prosciutto wrapped breadsticks were served in their place.
There will be many journeys here and beyond my kitchen. I look forward to sharing them here with you.
