STIR THE POTS

Per Se, no not the restaurant....but the Chef!

What do you do when all hands are on deck, you're in the mad crunch and the last table of two is a member who owns restaurants. Then, later after paperwork, cleaning and planning the next meal, your boss tells you none other then Thomas Keller was the guest of that last table.

Yikes!  Well, here's what you do, of course. Look for the dupe, wondering what the hell he ordered. And then you worry whether it turned out well. Or not! And then you try not to think about it! Just knowing I crossed paths with this living legend, someone actually from my past... yikes, again. Because Mister Keller was chef at one of my previous kitchens, Restaurant Raphael. Now he has found me at the private club where I'm head chef. And I thought we were an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind club."

Deep breaths. And then some.

A moment of silence...(for Michael)

Yesterday I got sad news about my friend and chef Michael Kobylanski. Apparently, he passed away last weekend. It had been a beautiful day up till then, sun shining outside, inside cooking up a good lunch. The day reminds me of Michael. He wasn't just a dedicated cook. He was a lover of the Sarangi and all sorts of Eastern mystic stuff or other quirks that made him who he was. Special. I will miss him, whether for his politically incorrect jokes or his perfect imitation of one of the characters from Deliverance. 

He once greeted me at his apartment wearing overalls without a shirt. "Howdy Clem", he said, pinching his  nipple, a typical Michael-moment. The man was full of laughs, once spiking a waiter's egg sandwich with Nigerian cayenne pepper, which became a regular event. 

He also baked incredible breads, unorthodox and with a hand feel approach. His  pizzas were brilliant. And as an innovator, he always encouraged us not to follow the mise-n-place list of our former chef, a guy characterized by over-seasoning, herbs and copious amounts of flavored lipids. What was hilarious was the same chef tasting our food, believing we'd followed directions, telling us how wonderful it turned out because of his specialized ingredients. Knowing better, Michael and I just listened, sharing a grin. 

What I most recall was Mike's professional irreverence. He never could seriously respect the food wannabe, or the superstar chefs. Mike would much prefer eating at home with his beloved wife Renata than try the latest trendy supposed hot-spot. Not that he always stayed home. He sought interesting eats with passion, and looked to push the imagination of younger chefs. I'll always recall him encouraging those working under us. In the stress filled and sometimes less then friendly field we call cooking, Mike stood out as a stand-up guy.

I have so many stories I could share of my good friend, I am sorry we didn't spend as much time together to gather more memories, but I wish him sunshine and good lunches and love, wherever he is. 

Rest in peace friend, dziękuję.

Motorino

Just like me to get on the pizza craze kind of late and miss out on Anthony Mangieri's famed Una Pizza Napoletano while he was still in NY. But not to worry, there is pizze  being made there again, that of Chef Mathieu Palombino at his new outpost  Motorino.

 

It's definitely made some waves, the likes of Rachel Ray anointing it amongst others with the seal of approval...at first I was sort of turned off, with the thought of a good thing turned out or spoiled by fame, plaudits and celebrity...but I was hungry the other day  and was itching to try some pizze! I had already seen Mike Colameco's recent show where he tried some pizze at  the flagship, Motorino in Williamsburg. Mike usually is a good indicator whats hot  and I like the places he goes to.

So upon entering the minuscule storefront that is well manicured and well tended by a sharp staff, I couldn't wait, just the first sighting of a charred, puffy and steaming pie made me even more hungry.

So my wife and I perused the menu and ordered the signature Octopus and warm potatoes flecked with pepporoncino, capers, celery, parsley.The wife ordered some non-descript mixed green salad, simple unpretentious, with some health factor or reasoning I suppose?

We ordered a pizze to share, the spicy sopressata pizze along with a fabulous barley ale from Sardinia.

 

We quickly polished off the first pie and I couldn't help but order an other.This time the special of the day with chopped ramps....my wife doesn't really enjoy pizze like I do, but she helped wipe out the two, exclaiming how good it was and so lite!

The acoustics were a bit loud with the peoples voices drowning out the old school playlist of Elvis and Sinatra, but I was entrenched in my birra and fabulous pie, oh yeah, the service was tops! Vespa, taxi, bike or whatever, get some pizze!

Small world

Yes I am endeavoring to cut back on social networking. Facebook. Twitter. The latest, Posterous. But it's fun when you see old friends, army buddies, and meet new food oriented people like, well, a lot of your readers.

Recently, such networking reconnected me with Bob del Grosso. Talk about "blast from the past. I met Bob not long after getting out of the Army. It was my second professional kitchen job, a place no longer in existence called Le Coq Hardi. Yet, the memories are fresh as ever; its copper bar, the oysters (which I shucked), the chores of making granite to cleanse the diners palates. This was back at the end of the 80's, when food was really blooming in America.

Bob was an erudite, well read man. I recall his copy of Escoffier, along with his quiet, serious demeanor as he worked, always precise in his movements on the line. A man of few words, save for explaining method and techniques, lots of thinking and no wasted movements. So when we touched base through a mutual friend, and I found he writes just as eloquently as he spoke back then (a bit of humor and of course seriousness, focus on food and a bit on politics), well, it's a joy.

So let me share the joy. Even if we only worked three months together, the shifts we enjoyed together induced so many memories and lessons, remembered to this day, etched from the heat and blur of a busy kitchen. Click here and enjoy him like I did. And do.

Tony eats Istanbul!

Yes, finally Anthony Bourdain does Istanbul!

Kenji Kume

 

Whenever I have worked with other chefs, it's almost most always been me as the student or observer. Cooking tends to be competitive, and there isn't much time for making friends when you're trying to climb the so-called "ladder." 

But recently, begun in travels to Turkey, I've had the chance to "play" with friends in the kitchen. Starting with my good friend, Dilara in Istanbul,  I have met and interacted with cooks in a less stress filled setting. In such a setting, these chefs, like me, seemed inspired by our surroundings and product.

On my last visit just this past summer,  I met and worked with Kenji Kume. Formerly a sushi chef, who worked in Japan, London and currently in Istanbul, Kenji has fused his various experiences to create a more holistic, global view of cooking and food. He balances past training in classic cuisines (which include French,Italian, Japanese and now Turkish cooking), using them as building blocks for anything he does in the kitchen. 

 

Together we collaborated at Abracadabra, creating an impromptu food lab, and then experimenting in Garp, where we fed people with bare bone ingredients. In truth we only worked a short time together. But for me, it was highly memorable. Fun.  Working in a primitive kitchen, we both realized that, though from different places in the world, cooking can bring you so close together.

Cliche as it sounds, food speaks all sorts of languages. We still keep in touch and Kenji still asks me when I am moving to Istanbul to join him on his current project. I will see, my friend. The offer is awfully attractive. In the mean time I am going to twist his arm and get him to talk to me about his fascinating experiences and great story of how he got into this food thing!

Jean Michel Bergounoux

When I think of the chef Jean Michel Bergounoux, the French term "terroir" comes to mind. It refers to the way a particular region stamps its mark on certain foods, such as a certain regional coffee bean or wine grape. With Jean Michel, the regions influencing him were simultaneously influenced by his presence, namely great  kitchens  such as Trois Gros, Connaught Hotel and Leon de Lyon.

He definitely influenced me, as both boss and mentor. There were two primary lessons he imparted to all of his cooks; use the simplest, but also freshest products, and then employ as much of that simple, fresh product as you can, never waste! From a secondary cut of beef and carrots, together braised in a white wine, Jean Michel could conjure a dish that left you with the sense that your soul, as much as your belly, was nurtured. Simple but so satisfying.

Luck was good to me introducing me to Jean Michel, as it gave me a chance to work alongside him at a turning point in both his career and my own. I spent three years under his eyes at Restaurant Raphael, the restaurant where he readied to open his own restaurant L'Absinthe. Working under this master chef offered a plethora of lessons, methods and techniques, each rooted in a French tradition. Today, I still follow many of the basics Jean Michel taught me; his braised rabbit in mustard, the way to roast a chicken, or even his vinaigrette.  His lessons could fill a book, if only he would write one. Such a book would be a page-turner, as I remember my years with him as a mix of laughs and wonder listening to his stories of working alongside some of the most important chefs in contemporary French cuisine.

During a visit to our restaurant by a well known critic, Jean Michel told his crew, "a person who knows food will judge you by tasting something so simple as a salad, so always season and taste!" A few words, but the power of the truth has remained. With this interview I have the opportunity to pay homage to the chef whose simple but lucid advice inspired so many ideas and  insight into managing a professional kitchen, a man who powerfully reflects his own words about cooking that "you really have to love it or you wouldn't want to do it!"

Podcast

Click to listen

 

 

Dilara Erbay

Istanbul (or Constantinople)  has rich layers of history where the  food is central to life in this metropolis. Yet in the United States, not much is really familiar about Turkish food, except maybe shish kebabs or baklava. One person changing that is Dilara Erbay of Dilara Sabra Cadabra. Check out her wonderful site!

Erbay is a chef and artist who I literally just discovered online via Momondo, while surfing for information on the similarly terrific chef Mehmet Gürs, interviewed here last week. My curiosity piqued by Erbay's ideas and charisma, I dispatched an e-mail to her asking her for an interview. Voila, the speed of the internet, the generosity of Turkish chefs. She quickly accepted. This week I finally called her and I am already invited to visit her restaurant in August.

Dilara reminds me of a Frida Kahlo of Turkish food; she is the real thing and  expresses herself quite eloquently on all subject's food and more. My favorite statement of hers is. "Art is anything!"

Click to listen Podcast

My friend Mike!(Knorr, chickens and latex gloves!)

Anthony Bourdain always says people in kitchens are misfits who couldn't make it anywhere but the kitchen. I tend to agree with Chef Bourdain. The characters you meet come from all parts of the world or universe.  Some shouldn't stay in the business. Others just can't escape it. The hardest part is keeping in touch with people when your busy working those shifts  and staying friends... at least by anything more than email. Afterall, if you're a working chef, you're spending an awful lot of time in your workplace kitchen, leaving little time and energy at the end of the week for much socializing.

And honestly, it's tough making friends "in the biz." Beyond time restrictions, there's the competitive nature of the restaurant industry, as well as the seemingly intrinsic insecurity of kitchen positions. One day you're there. The next day you're not. Such harsh fate can stem from all sorts of things. The top chef decided one shift that the "plate of the day" was not up to snuff, and therefore it must be your fault. Gone. Or you screwed up their special soup on a day they were particularly sensitive. Out the door. Maybe you're showed up at work reeking of a late night bender. Or worse you show up in the middle of a bender. Whatever, really great food elicits great passion. Kitchens draw passionate people. Passionate people make for colorful but risky environments. At least for cultivating easy friendships.

Still, sometimes in this crazy wonderful business (even a bit more than sometimes... sometimes) you meet a fellow food professional who it doesn't matter if you see every day, every week, or just once a year. They may be someone who has your back. Or they just may be someone who is generous with their wisdom, humor, or good cheer. Whatever, such friends are precious. Take a certain chef whom I count on to take me to New York's Asian markets in Queens, introducing me to different ingredients and food not recognized in my culinary repertoire. All to say, I would like to make my own introduction to a friend of mine. Everyone, meet Mike Kobylanski. You will find him every once and a while leaving kind messages here. Or just adding his two cents. 

There are more than enough stories to tell  about Mike, you could fill a book with! One time we were in the kitchen after lunch. Mike and I put some latex gloves over our heads and were clucking like chickens when our top chef walked in. Worse, he was joined by Charlie Trotter. Mike and I scurried like hell to the walk-in fridge and hid. All of a sudden Mike turned to me. "Shit," he said. "The Knorr chicken base is on the counter!" For a moment we were scared. But then we broke into uncontrollable laughter, imagining how it would ruin our boss' reputation to see the chicken base as he showed the esteemed industry AND television food personality around his kitchen. We didn't even consider the latex gloves swaying on our own heads as we crowed and cuckled, knowing that our future no longer carried jobs with the legendary PBS-sanctioned Charlie Trotter. Hell, that is what a real food friend delivers, sharing war stories and kitchen mischief.

Thanks Mike for the memories. Oh yeah, when are we going to the Heidelberg to see Rosa?

 

 

Mehmet Gürs

Matt Lauer's series of travel adventures is where I first heard of Mehmet Gürs. Both his  Turkish and Finnish background caught my interest as well as his knowledge of Turkish cuisine. In my own neighborhood we have a large Turkish community, we can get just a sampling of some of the diverse ingredients, like yufka,pomegranate molasses. Or buy the bulgar to make pilaf which make up a small part of the Turkish kitchen repertoire.

Istanbul is the point where east meets west in a geographical sense, but in the culinary terms it's the city that blends many different cultures including Mehmet Gür's take on Turkish food by blending Finnish smoke with Turkish flavor,or as he says fusion without confusion. In his restaurants he incorporates the spices and staples of the bazaar, the Anatolian interior, and then combines it with  Finnish austerity  to stir the pot in Istanbul's growing culinary restaurant world.

From the Topkapi kitchens of the Ottoman sultans, Turkey has a rich history in food, from previous rulers and empires it has absorbed as well as spread it's cuisine across the world  bringing a unique flavor to the table. Mehmet has been described as the Jamie Oliver of Turkey, with his own  TV food shows in Turkey. He also wrote a book,(Downtown Cook Book) and is currently writing another, named after his restaurant Mikla. It will be published in both English and Turkish, if you can't wait take a listen.

Click to listen Podcast