Chef Quote of the Week: Andrew Carmellini

“I’m going to try not to sous vide anything over there,” he said. “It takes some of the love out of cooking, for me. It takes out some of the fire and smells and caramelization. Some things are just better roasted in a pan.”

Chef Andrew Carmellini of Lafayette

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog, and I feel reinvigorated to do so with all the food and wine activity here lately.  I've met some wonderful new friends who are very talented, and I've gotten a chance to reconnect with some old ones.  

Look for new and more frequents posts in the coming weeks...

Chef Quote of the Week: Thomas Keller

“With the relatively small number of people I feed, is it really my responsibility to worry about carbon footprint?” Mr. Keller asked. “The world’s governments should be worrying about carbon footprint.” Chef Thomas Keller on "chefs' obligation"

Chef Quote of the Week: Roy Choi

“It’s like when you get stoned, sometimes things go into different worlds and fabrics and textures. It’s a little crispy, then it’s spicy and warm and soothing. It helps me bring in a whole pantry of ingredients that as a chef I may have considered not good enough. Using [classical] techniques but then balancing it with straight French’s yellow mustard, or bringing in some ghettos--- that you pull from your cupboard.”  Chef Roy Choi 
On inspiration (ahem) and where he gets his~

Chef Quote of the Week: Michel Richard

"Before nouvelle cuisine, no chef had the right to create their own dishes. You had to copy Escoffier.”  

Chef Michel Richard

on the late Jean Louis Palladin's contributions to the culinary world.

The mentality among the rank-and-file chefs back in France, notes Richard, went something like this: “Creating your own dish when I was a young man? Are you sick? You’re not smart enough to create your own dish.”

Richard is honoring Chef Palladin ten years after his death with a multi-course tribute meal at his DC eatery.   Read the article in the Washington Post here.

Chef Quote of the Week: Danny Meyer

"Within moments of being born, most babies find themselves receiving the first four gifts of life:  eye contact, a smile, a hug and some food.  We receive many other gifts in a lifetime, but few can ever surpass those first four.  That first time may be the purest 'hospitality transaction' we'll ever have, and it's not much of a surprise that we'll crave those gifts for the rest of our lives."  

Danny Meyer from "Setting the Table"

Chef Quote of the Week: Alain Ducasse

“Desserts are like mistresses. They are bad for you. So if you are having one,
you might as well have two.”
- Chef Alain Ducasse

Chef Quote of the Week: Anthony Bourdain

"I was about getting the biggest paycheck then, so I could see music, smoke expensive weed, do cocaine, that kind of life. It was less important to me that I would get good at my craft. I deluded myself into thinking I was good."   Chef Anthony Bourdain



Biggers with Roy Yamaguchi

 In the age of oversaturation of reality shows, we have reached a perverted gladiator-style of entertainment, and the arena is the kitchen.  We've come a long way from the Food Network's "Ready, Set, Cook!" in which perky host Sissy Biggers egged on a studio audience to cheer for their favorite cook as they raced against the clock to create a dish from a mystery basket of ingredients.  The winner was decided by a majority of flashcards held by the studio audience depicting either a tomato or a bell pepper for their favorite contestant. 

Today, debasement, sabotage, plot lines, humiliation and real live injuries are not just common, but necessary to attract viewers.  It is the Wild, Wild West, and there no heroes, just survivors.

So, it's very rare when a ribbon of truth ekes out into the MSM about what it's really like in a professional kitchen.  And, when it does, it seems to fall on deaf ears.  This is why I chose to make Anthony Bourdain my "Chef Quote of the Week."

Successful author and TV personality Bourdain recently had a very (public) self-deprecating moment, and it was directed at a portion of the audiences who one day aspire to culinary greatness.  He calls it "My Favorite Mistake".

"If you’re serious about cooking and your craft, do the opposite of what I did."

Read the full piece in Newsweek here.

Chef Quote of the Week: Alain Ducasse

On wine:  "There are no rules...You have to taste the wine with an open mind. You can drink red wine with lobster and white wine with lamb."

Chef also adds, "The world of wine is more creative than the world of cooking...There are so many impassioned winemakers. I think there are more impassioned winemakers than chefs."  Click for the full interview with the WSJ

Chef Alain Ducasse 

Chef Quote of the Week: Charlie Trotter

  “You know the old adage that the customer’s always right?” he said. “Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. And that is why you must seize the control of the circumstance and dominate every last detail: to guarantee that they’re going to have a far better time than they ever would have had if they tried to control it themselves.”  Chef Charlie Trotter

I've long believed that the adage about the customer always being right was never intended for restaurants.  It is meant (and I suppose true) for the service and retail industries, instead.  The main difference here, and certainly at Chef Trotter's level, is that you are dealing with the culinary arts.  At this level of restaurant (and those like it), you are experiencing food prepared by someone who has devoted their life to educating their palette, developing their craft and creating unique meals to be shared unspoiled.  

As I have discovered over the years, those with power like to exercise it to feel the full rush of what being powerful means.  Customers who like to flex that muscle and reconstruct a dish, substitute, omit and tailor a chef's menu to their liking are not, I repeat, NOT, getting what the chef intended, but some bastardized iteration that is akin to letting some unskilled orderly handle your delicate open-heart surgery.  Like giving your Mercedes to a hack mechanic and asking him to pimp it out and paint it cherry red.  Like ordering a diet coke with your breast of pheasant with morels and truffle.  There are those out there who disagree, and quickly bash chefs as egotists who are inflexible snots, simply because they believe they have the right to get what they're paying for.  I argue that those chefs have the right not to serve you, either.  

Charlie Trotter is famous (among all his skills) for being the first chef to go on record as saying that in order to perfect your product, service and brand- it's necessary to fire customers.  Get rid of those whose expectations don't meet your standards and focus on the ones who do.  At some point, the thinking goes, there will be enough customers who, not out of misplaced reverence, but respect for the chef and his vision, will frequent an establishment because of that vision, not in spite of it.  That was over 15 years ago.

A selection of amuse bouche from Trotter's September, 2000

If you care to read a bit more about Chef Trotter and his rare breed of customer service, click on the quote above that will take you to a recent article on the 51 year old chef and why he stands out (to some) as a genius and to others, a lunatic tyrant.  

Full disclosure:  I am a huge fan of Trotter's philosophy, his cooking, his books and accomplishments.  His style of cooking and commitment to excellence have shaped me and help me become the chef I am today.  I spent a week in his kitchen in September of 2000 absorbing, tasting, cooking and finally, partaking of his Grand Tasting menu.  It was, quite simply, one of the most unique experiences I've had in my career.  

The staff of Trotter's circa 2000. I am located dead center, (back) with the Cheshire grin next to my future buddy, and Top Chef Season 2 contestant, Otto Borsich.

The great artists are rarely understood in their time, and much of the article in The Times attests to that in its myopic view of Trotter as of late.  It attempts to psychoanalyze why Trotter is not in the press more or hasn't expanded his brand into multi-unit prostitution, or why he has failed in his attempts to do so.  In each of these scenarios where he tried to recreate the level of excellence at his restaurant in Chicago, there were contributing factors that didn't meet the standard of the original, and subsequently he pulled the plug.  While some call that failure, others would call it integrity.  

The copper pots that distinguish the tiny, talented kitchen.

As far as Grant Achatz is concerned, I have immense respect for him.  He is cut from the same cloth as Trotter, Adria and Keller.  Yet, I can't help thinking his publisher and/or partner pushed to create controversy to sell more books with all the volatile portions dedicated to his pent up angst toward Trotter- especially now, since he appears to have "a cordial if not close relationship" with him. But then, FUCT (F*$% You Charlie Trotter!, the acronym supposedly adopted by Achatz and his partner to emote his feelings about his post-Trotter's tenure) is pretty harsh, no matter how you slice it, and I believe somewhat unprecedented among chefs of such stature.  Achatz maintains it was included in the book to later draw a parallel between the two chefs and their shared commitment to perfection.  Still, the Golden Rule seems more apt among professionals.  

Van Gogh's The Golden Rule

Whatever your view, I believe there can still be room for an innovative artist and an artistic innovator in the same arena.  

Chef Quote of the Week: Gabrielle Hamilton

“I’m going to eat foie gras...I’m going to have sex with whoever I want to have sex with. I don’t want politics to deny me these experiences. And I’m not having them every day. So it’s not rapacious or gluttonous. Please.”
Chef Gabrielle Hamilton, Prune, NYC

Chef Quote of the Week: Thomas Keller

"When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about."

Chef Quote of the Week: Maya Angelou

"[Food] is important to live. It's practical. It's also important as an art form..."

 "Its beauty, its preparation and presentation can be like the heart of the art in a person. So while it's practical, it's also esoteric."

Chef Quote of the Week: David Chang

"I think the basic thing that home cooks can learn how to do is just season properly. ... If the home cook realized how little salt they use compared to what's needed, it would make their food taste better."

David Chang

Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ko, Milk Bar and Ma Peche

Chef Quote of the Week: Guy Savoy

"Cuisine is an art, and I believe that cuisine, much as it cannot be understood without an understanding of the ingredients, cannot be appreciated without a convivial atmosphere. A well-filled plate is no longer enough. If you want people to have a good time, there needs to be other parameters, from the décor and the atmosphere to the people and the relationships that they create. There is no magic formula. Alchemy is personal." - Chef Guy Savoy

Chef Quote of the Week: Gray Kunz

On what he looks for in hiring cooks: "I don't necessarily need to see the resume. For me, it's the character the person has. Maybe that person doesn't have all the technical skills, but I can teach technical skills. The skills I can't teach are character, determination, goodwill, persistence. Someone who wants to learn has a very good, positive attitude in the profession. These are things that will come as a package to a person."  

Chef Gray Kunz

Cafe Gray

Ferragamo or Laurent Perrier? A Chef Chooses

I must admit, it's a glorious feeling reading an interview with one of the greatest living chefs and finding out how wonderfully down to earth he is, and dare I say, just like you.

Ferran Adria is one such chef.  He recently gave a talk in New York City as part of a promotion of a new biography that both canonizes him and demystifies him at once, even if in the process a little man-crush gives way from author Colman Andrews, formerly of Saveur magazine, my most cherished food porn rag.

Chef Didier Oudill

In my years of working under chefs of a certain stature, when a down-time arrives and you have time to watch the rare and beautiful beast in his own habitat, you learn as much about his methods as you do the man behind the cuisine .  One such chef, Didier Oudill, was my chef during an externship at the Hotel Cafe de Paris in Biarritz, France.  He was disturbingly introverted and often gave to fits of pacing the kitchen while staring at the floor with knitted brow, as if solving an intricate theorem.  So, the other cooks and I would titter when he took a call in his office from one of his many friends around the globe, as he shouted in exuberance to hear their voice, while somehow seeming to make up for the distance with his elevated tone.  "Hah-looooooooooooo!"

And, it was that dichotomy that was both unplanned and revealing.  An "aha!" moment, but certainly not at the time.  I imagine I've had more than a few cooks think I was a patient off his meds in the past when doing the very same thing- trying to solve a problem completely unrelated to all that was in play at that moment, but no less important. 

When Chef Oudill would let his dog, Lipp, roam freely through the kitchens, it instantly humanized this mystery man.  When his kids visited and stepped inside the sacred laboratory (and he didn't freak), you knew there was a real man inside.  And, when, upon heading home I presented him with a "thank you" gift of a unique Laguiole knife whose soul purpose is for slicing lobes of foie gras, he seemed genuinely grateful and elated.  Not every stagiare is so fortunate to have a picture completed; no, some spend the rest of their career in kitchens trying to put an early experience with a "culinary madman" into perspective.

Or, you could come out of a high-profile interview like Adria did this week and appear downright playful, humble and inspirational in the process.  Andrews commented that Chef "dresses simply" because he'd rather spend his money on fine champagne than shoes because he'll remember the bubbly.  (If I had this guy's bank roll, I think I'd find room for both- just sayin'.)  But, perhaps the comment that resonated with me so much was one that captures my whole philosophy on food:  it's “very complicated and complex. I don’t know anything about food...maybe, a bit more than most.”

Then, offering an example, "it would take a lifetime to know about tomatoes. It’s not a joke. Multiply that by all the ingredients you can.  If you don’t have a humble attitude about food, then you’ll be dead.”

Thank you to Patricia Talorico for reporting this exciting and unique talk.

Chef Quote of the Week: Alain Ducasse

"Cuisine has become too complicated -- this is about subject, verb, adjective: duck, turnips, sauce." 
Alain Ducasse


They don't call them The Masters for nothing.  The great living chefs of French cuisine aren't just about French cuisine.  They just happen to live and practice their craft in the country that all classical cooking is routed in.  Their set of standards and practices are held dear by the most revered chefs in the world.  Alain Ducasse holds the most Michelin stars of any chef (now or ever) in the world.  And, so when he (or any of the others) steps up to the plate (ahem) to say something, we listen. 

Yet, his world class commitment to excellence has humble beginnings; the home.  Our earliest (and often fondest) memories of food come from the hearth of la famille.  Our mothers, our grandmothers- our family.   In another quote from the same interview, Ducasse adds, "I want to remind people of the taste of bread and butter... the best bread, toasted just so, and served with butter at exactly the right temperature," he enthused, wolfing down slice after fragrant slice of the thick, crusty bread sourced from one of Paris' best boulangeries.

The new trend, les cuisine simple?  I am SO on board with you, Chef. 

Chef Quote of the Week: Fritz Sonnenschmidt

On what it means being a chef:  "If they have the responsibility to make sure something is right, and get blamed for being wrong, they have earned the [title] of chef."

Frederic "Fritz" Sonnenschmidt, CMC

Chef Quote of the Week: Brillat-Savarin

"You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you not have done for a truffled turkey?"

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Chef Quote of the Week: James Beard

"There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing." 

James Beard