I had no idea how much I had traveled till I began to write about it.
CHAMPAGNE AND FOIE GRAS
My first important visit to Europe was with ‘The Pierres’ a.k.a. ‘Pierre Deux’. For the information of those of you who may not know, Peter Levec and Pierre Moulin. They were an openly gay couple who partnered four decades ago, always seemed to be in love, sold the highest quality antiques, and created a beautiful, dignified Provençal world of fashion and style. They were also my friends.
They were famous and at the top of their field. Everything they did was done with a quiet and elegant country French manner. They had shops all around the country, and were well known in the best circles, excuse the expression. I learned a lot from them in the early days of The Black Sheep.
They lived as a couple, had befriended me and decided that I should experience part of my first major visit to France with them. That was a once in a lifetime offer. I bought the seat on Air France the very next day, and made my arrangements. We planned to travel together for awhile, and then I would take off on my own to revisit Burgundy and the south.
Our first stop was Paris. The plane had arrived very early in the morning, and I was in no mood to sleep. I’d had some red wine when we took off and found four seats across so I could stretch out. I slept, so was well rested when we landed. It was a sunny morning, very light haze in the sky. Wide awake, I took a walk, found a café where I bought some of their version of morning coffee, and a slab of bread smeared with sweet rich creamy butter, called a ‘tartine’ because the tarts of Paris used to eat them as snacks. It was as though I’d never had butter before. My odyssey had begun. I took a bag of fresh croissants from a boulangerie with me and went walking. The city was still just waking up, my favorite time of day here in New York, too.
Here was a city where every morning the streets belched water from the river to rinse down the gutters and let the pigeons wash and play. The first time you see this it’s startling, especially if you aren’t prepared for it. Bursting from every corner around these pale stone buildings were red and yellow flowers in bloom. I saw workmen painstakingly repairing the intricate mosaic of cobblestones on the streets to hide any repairs. At home we have pot holes. Voila.
At night everywhere the city put on a new face, the lights so artistically placed so as to show every intricate detail of a landmark or square. ‘City of light’ they call it. It sure was. You could feel the energy of its coming back to life after the winter.
Paris was ready for this country boy, I knew she’d had years to prepare for little me, years of tourists, conquerors and travelers, and I was prepared to be impressed, but not easily. In fact I was bowled over, I really was.
I wasn’t ready for the intricate decorations on so many of the buildings, the ordered almost uniformity of the architecture, so unlike the willy-nilly of New York. I saw at once that it’s a city that is organized to preserve itself, and to take care of its treasures, unlike my home, which is always touting itself as ‘the best’. I wonder if we don’t shout it too much. I’ll take New Yorkers over the Parisians, however. Much more real.
The April weather had settled on the city and the boys were two completely transformed people when I imagine them back in New York. They seemed lighter, more youthful and Pete definitely had some more mischief in him. We'd go out for a drink, and when I needed to relieve myself, and no pissoir was in sight, Pierre, always dignified normally, suggested the curb, with a wink, assuring me it was a la mode to do that here in Paris. So this is what they mean by ‘Paris in the Springtime’.
Thrilled to be able to show off the city they loved, and at having a youthful novice to show it off to, they took me to see the sights, the Saturday morning flea market, Bois du Bologne, the Louvre, the bistros at Les Halles, sidewalk café’s and one very special evening at Le Bernardin, then a Michelin two-star, where I had the best poached turbot I ever had in my life. I still keep trying to duplicate it. It was the era when everyone was using beurre blanc sauces and this was the best I’d ever had. Little did I realize at the time that I was in the presence of culinary greatness, but that was the way it was with The Pierres, they lived comfortably in that world, and took it in stride. They were so at home in Paris, I wondered why they’d ever bother with New York. As my mentors, they determined that some of it would rub off on me.
They allowed me inside of a very private part of The World of Pierre Deux. They were indeed business partners, sharing decisions jointly, and they were also a loving couple. They would scrap sometimes, of course, but always supportive. In them, I also saw my parents, over half a century together, and still so much in love, and yet still keeping one another going through lovingly irritating one another. Saturday morning at the flea market it was Peter's turn to be slow, and to have difficulty walking and keeping up, and Pierre would have none of it, urging him, impatiently, to keep up and not lag behind. It was the following day, however, that I recall especially. Madame Sylvie was a very old widow with a large apartment on the Avenue Saxe. She had invited us to dinner and it was understood that the boys wanted to buy some of her very rare and excellent pieces of furniture from her collection, She had fallen on hard times, needed money and was selling off her possessions, a little at a time. It was sad. I see this survival strategy in many friends of mine who have become ill, and now in my own life too. At that time I still had no clue that I’d been infected.
We picked up some Champagne at a local food shop, a cluttered affair packed with all kinds of fascinating edibles, and walked through the brisk, fragrant spring evening to arrive at her apartment in time to find her in her tiny immaculate blue and white tiled kitchen, preparing our dinner. She was painstakingly toasting bread slices, bending her frail frame over a tiny Beaux Arts gas-fired black iron toaster.
I had a chance to look around. There were large dark pieces - armoires, beautifully carved. These were the treasures The Pierres had come to evaluate, and hopefully to buy one or two. There was a dry, musky scent to the air, and the scale of her cramped dim apartment contrasted with the furniture, as though they had been moved to here from a larger more generously proportioned place.
Doilies and cloths covered many of the surfaces, there was the faint scent of furniture wax. The boys had mentioned that she was ‘tombe’ - fallen. It was clear she had lived a better life than she now was enduring, but Sylvie was all class.
The champagne was served, and I was already starving, as we hadn’t had the time to stop off at a charcuiterie for me to get a snack before dinner. Previously filling that empty hole in my stomach was a habit I developed which always made it easier for me to have better table manners and to not eat too much when I was the guest at dinner. The exception was the great dinners and wine tastings back in New York. I learned to line my stomach and not let the incredible wines they served distort my good judgment. My love of fine Burgundy and my collection of grand cru Bordeaux are a result of my having been privileged to be on those guest lists.
When Mme. Sylvie brought the tray of warm toasts, she also smilingly offered us a large ‘bloc’ of perfect Foie Gras. It was the real thing, I knew it was a treasure. It’s the liver of a specially raised and over-fed goose, poached gently, pressed in a mold, and sliced. It costs a fortune and it ranks high on the list of very rare and fine French foods. While she was out of the room, I protested to Pierre that I couldn’t eat that -- it was inhumane to treat those poor animals thusly, and I would NOT be a party to such an atrocity. Up on my Animal Rights soap box now, I’m describing how they’re force-fed ‘till their livers swell, get diseased, and become a delicacy, etc, etc. In short, was becoming a bore.
"Shhh! Shut up, she’s spent all her money to entertain us, and you’ll embarrass her!"
How they endured me, so outspoken and crude, I will never know, and I’ll always be grateful. I think they forgave my youth. I cringe when I think of myself back then. I am sure I amused them, in some loving way. Sylvie must have overheard as she arrived with more toasts, and offered me yet more Champagne. I was already tipsy as it was. She had a wonderful twinkle in her eye, and a perfect sense of humor for an ancient Parisiènne. She is pouring my wine. I loved her.
"They love to eat, Michel, do not worry, cherie, they beg for more, you should see! These geese are not abused animals, oh no! Not at all. I lived on a farm. We raised them, they are treated well. They get all the walnuts they want because they want them etc. etc"
I was just drunk and weak enough to believe her. Crumbling, I agreed to sacrifice my ethics to avoid breaking an old lady’s heart, and agreed to taste. (remember this moment, dear reader)
"So okay, one bite: But only a little"
I swear to you, I melted when I tasted it. I was off on yet another tasting adventure. Savoring and concentrating as deeply as I was able, that texture, the aroma, unctuous, rich, velvety, mysterious and just slightly warmed by the toasts which she never stopped delivering. This couldn’t really be liver, could it? It’s way too subtle, too ‘something else’. Almost like butter. So elusive, the way that things are when everyone raves about a thing, and you wonder what the fuss is all about, and then you discover, they were right. Maybe raising geese that way was a wrong thing, but then that goose did not die in vain, because I thanked heaven for it’s having made me such a happy boy.
I am sure you are wanting me to describe foie now, but like a truffle, it is beyond the capability of my pathetic words to do so. It is all at once an experience of texture, taste and aroma. Every sense was being massaged in the softest and yet intense way I ever had. You have to try it yourself.
Everyone has such glorious praises about Paris, and of course I had prepared myself to be cynical. Paris won. Which meant that I won as well. They really have it together - that city is a national treasure. Too bad we don’t think of our cities like that.
The rest of our dinner included a perfect ‘poulet rôti’ with wonderful pommes au beurre and flageolets, baby spring beans just in season and an apple ‘gallette’. I wondered aloud how she had managed in such a tiny kitchen, Pierre explained that she had bought them at a local family food shop called a traiteur. Excellent take away food is easily bought at traiteurs in neighborhoods all over Paris.
I was totally seduced by the entire experience, and I thank them all for that, now wherever they all are. I know the boys are in heaven, still together, and Sylvie, well I heard that she passed away several years after we met.. I recall seeing several of her pieces arriving over the next few years at the Pierre Deux Bleeker Street store, all refurbished, the drabness gone, now alive and beaming with that special waxing technique the boys perfected.
Holidays are the busiest times at The Black Sheep, or were, and one of the treats I would always buy for myself as a reward for exhausting myself and slaving for other people’s holidays at the expense of my own, was a chunk of fresh Foie from my friend Ariane Daguin, at D’Artagnan. It’s the best you can get here in the states. I’d ration tiny taste-treats to myself every so often, make it last a week or a little more. No matter how often I have it, however, I will never be able to taste it without bringing back the memory of that evening chez Sylvie.
TRUFFLE -- Restaurant Pic, and my first truffle.
copyright 1999 Michael Safdiah all rights reserved
A truffle is a strange looking fungus which has an exotic aroma and flavor, highly sought after by gastronomes. It’s only found on the roots of certain trees and only in certain parts of the world. They grow beneath the soil, and they are located by dogs or pigs especially trained to find them. Small wonder they are priced as high as they are. They look like a dried prune which has dried out some more.
I had been on my first "tour des trois etoilles". One Michelin ‘three star’ after another in a southward binge-trek from Dijon to Provençe. I had already visited several of my old haunts where I had done ‘stages’, brief apprenticeships, and had already visited several of my Chefs maitres. One would send me to another, with recommendations, and I was on an eating juggernaut. I was suffering already from too much eating three star food, I had a ‘crise de fois’ - a crisis of the liver.
I had been working very hard at my little restaurant, The Black Sheep, and needed a vacation. Taking the time to "smell the roses" just never occurred to me, I was living inside my life, and loved every minute of it. Stopping to savor is what this experience is about. Perhaps I never really experienced it until I started to write about it.
So I had come to land at Restaurant Pic in Valence one evening, - I had been sent there by Chef Troisgros at Roanne, and went expecting the best of the best - that’s the reputation Chef Jacques Pic enjoys, I wasn’t let down, the room was the nicest I had seen so far, stone arches, perfect lighting, and it felt completely comfortable. I wore my green wool tie, the one with all the grease and gravy marks from every great restaurant I ever ate in. I am proud of that tie.
Confession time, on the way to the restaurant that particular evening, Dusk was just settling in, and I found myself making a hairpin turn thru a tiny Burgundian village, and the local charcutier was still open. The glow of lights and the irresistible array of foods in the shop window in the stone building snared me. I stopped (of course), and bought a few slices of paté -- just to tide me over. I had become The Hungry American. I ate the patés with my hands while driving on the road to dinner. Then having been my own worst enemy, I arrived at Pic for what was to be one of the best meals of my life. .The only thing which might have made it better would have been me with an empty stomach. .
I ordered half bottles each of Chablis Le Clôs and a Le Musigny ‘73, and "Le Menu" That ought to do it, but tonight I saw one item on the a la carte that I was magnetized by: An entire truffle roasted en crôute, with a sherry sauce. It was inspired by the old-world tradition of roasting whole truffles in the dying embers of a fire. Cuisine a’ l’ancienne. Wow. I never had a truffle before; I sent for the head waiter.
" I’ve always had truffles in cans, or slices, or grated, or oil, but I never tasted a whole one before, would it be possible for me to have this? The additional price doesn’t bother me" In a lesser kitchen, a request like mine would upset the smooth flow of their work,
A few moments later, he returns and says,
"le Chef proposes that he do a special menu for you to better enhance your enjoyment of the truffle"
I am floored. Do you know what that means? When that magic statement comes out of a man’s kitchen such as from Pic, The greatest chef in France wants to do something special for little me. That’s what makes him great - how deeply he will bend to accommodate one customer. - of course I said, "of course".
I am in heaven. A crayfish salad arrives, the creatures arranged in a still life as though they were still at the bottom of the ocean. Lettuces and pieces of steamed vegetables touched with a dressing barely making their presence known, exotic oils, ginger enough to not really let you know it’s there, except to enhance the fresh briny character of their origins. The sweet shellfish was sublime in this setting which only served to allow it to stand out without obscuring it. If this was all, it would have enough.
Now, my truffle arrived. The heady sherry sauce was offered in a boat, the waiter about to pour it over the pastry, but I declined at first, preferring to do my own exploration of my virgin specimen. It was simply presented, fresh from the oven in puff pastry, in a white napkin, showing me no hint of the demonic elements I was about to encounter. Have you ever tried to describe something which defies description? It was dark, I knew that it had come from some part of hell which harbored things to tempt man. I recalled that I never could describe chocolate, or coffee, and while we all know how to compare new experiences with known ones, this drove me crazy.
I hesitated a bit before breaking open the puff pastry, awaiting the aromas which were sure to burst forth. I inhaled deeply. I recalled a forest floor after a rain, with sharp earthy smells. I then tried a small slice, inhaled it, chewed another up and held it in my mouth, and another, larger, which I chewed and then inhaled the vapors through my sinuses, the way I learned to taste wine. More I took and thrust under my tongue, was this eating, or something more? I am certain I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care, I was on a quest for experience.
The Burgundy was having its effect on me, There were raspberries, and violets in the wine, that was easy. So now I knew what Truffle was. And damn me, I have no way of telling you, but if you ever get a chance to have one, do it, and remember me.
Next course was a piece of braised beef, with a mound of what looked like mashed spuds and some brown gravy. "How quaint" I thought. Did I come all the way here for plain braised beef and spuds? Well, almost. The beef was probably the best I ever tasted, it was aged Charolais and perfectly done, just imagine the most perfect "chew" and the most wonderful tenderness, and the sauce was an absolute masterpiece. There was a hint of truffle in it, to tie it in with the previous course, and also some marrow. This man had learned to cook like an old woman! Total soft seduction. The greatest compliment I could pay him, he allowed again his perfectly selected ingredients to speak for him, no glamour, no glitz, nothing showy here, a simple humble offering. Therein lay his brilliance.
The mashed turned out to be pureed celery root and turnips, whipped with local sweet butter. I couldn’t get enough. I know I could have asked for more, and gotten it, but I was too intimidated, and there was more than enough food. The dish was a perfect companion to my Musigny. A few tastes of cheese selected by the waiter were offered, but I was already beyond sensory appreciation of them. They were local rare examples of the Rhone region, they were perfect with a little bread.
I don’t recall the rest of the meal, it was the usual dessert cart, the cookies, sorbets, Illes flottant, candies, I only recall the entire experience was a lifetime lesson in humility for me. What a contrast from the other three star chefs, here was one who didn’t need to show off, and that was because he understood how to get at where all of us live.
Chef Pic asked me if I wanted to see his kitchen, and I did, telling him I would peel carrots for him for the chance to spend even a little while with him. He smiled when I told him he cooked like an old lady – he said he held that ancient cuisine above all others. That was one of the greatest months I ever had in my life, and it influenced my cuisine at my little restaurant, The Black Sheep, for years to come.
A note on reservations. Three star restaurants never take reservations for a specific time, as we do in America. One merely reserves a table - and it’s yours for the evening.
EN VOYAGE TO TUSCANY
copyright Michael Safdiah 1999 all rights reserved
The trip from Nice to Pisa on the tiny airplane was unique - Just like the ones to my beloved Fire Island. Loaded to capacity with five passengers and the pilot. Cramped inside, we flew low enough for me to see Monte Carlo and the beautiful Italian Riviera, mostly over land until we had to cross over the Gulf of Livorno. Of course I immediately relaxed with the thrill of flying at such a familiar height. The lady who sat next to me spoke American, clearly an experienced traveler, she told me all about herself in the short space of time we had in the air. I was proud that she knew of The Black Sheep. I felt like a celebrity, on my very first visit to Italy.
When I arrived the first thing I noticed was the Italians themselves. The men, well I always look at men, certainly seemed so much more relaxed. Relaxed inside their bodies, relaxed with the way they allowed themselves to be revealed. They were sexual, and okay with it. I realized by comparison to where I’d left, how up-tight a people the French can be.
The rent-car I had hoped for was (of course) not there, and I spoke no Italian in order to convince anybody I had reserved it. So, welcome to Italia! The little Fiat I got (not the convertible I requested) took me in circles to even leave the airport. I swear airport roadways are designed by retired frustrated rat-maze designers. I finally decided I had left the airport, and had driven around half an hour looking for a sign to Pisa (I wanted to see the tower) There were Alto Stradas, Super Stradas, strada-stradas. I was totally lost in a strange land in a speeding car with everyone beeping horns at me in Italian. I made a lot of turns out of uncertainty, anxiety and the desire to not crash. You know, one beautiful thing about being lost in Italy, I learned, is that no matter where you end up you’ll be in a beautiful place. Eventually I noticed there was nothing but countryside, beautiful countryside. Italy is even more beautiful than France, I thought, I must be far away from Pisa, and a sign with an arrow, saying "Firenze". At last. A familiar name.
Well, then let it be Florence. Avanti! I gave up the idea of seeing the tower easily, my real love is not seeing tourist traps, but making a connection with the place I am traveling to. The chance to drive alone left me with time to reflect on the previous few weeks, and on my relationship with Bart.
Bart had returned on a flight to New York via Paris, and I was in Italy and I was on my own. No compromises.
There had been some bickering before we parted, but we always did that. We loved one another and lovers do disagree sometimes. All in all it was our first big trip anywhere together, except for the trip to Negril, which I hated, because of the Danish-owned hotel we stayed at, where the dinner meals were served at 5:30 and if you weren’t there you’d have to eat leftovers. No more Scandinavian hotels, all the guests were Euros, older, bland and just plain dull. I’ll take Americans any day. Or go native.
It is a beautiful island, Jamaica, but I don’t think I’d go back to a high class hotel there, I’d prefer to have a native cook and maid in a rented house. That would be the life. Their local wine sucks, or at least the stuff they poured for us, and as they had a kind of an embargo on imports, getting French wine, or any other imported foodstuffs, was out of the question. They wanted to maintain their payments of trade balance at the expense of the poor tourists. But back to France.
We had just visited wealthy friends - the Sterlings -- they own the Iron Horse Winery in Russian River, California -- who had a home in St. Paul de Vence, a town perched on a hilltop. It’s a picturesque spot, an ancient, "ville Perché" (perched town" so situated to protect its occupants from marauding marauders. From down below, you look almost straight up, there’s a steep high hill, sort of tree covered, and way way up, there are houses and buildings made of stone. Centuries ago you would have been dissuaded from making the trip to loot and plunder. Stones could surely and easily be thrown down on your head and kill you.
You wonder how you would ever climb there, but you manage it with effort. The streets are narrow, cobbled, hilly and willy-nilly. Each few feet one wanders unveils a new vista of the ancient world, and of the mountains in the distance. I fell in love with it. It’s easy to see why man has embraced this as a place of shelter, Their home, set into and carved out of the rock which formed the hill, was very old, tiny, with small furnishings yet it appeared modern because of the beautiful things in it.
A few hundred years ago there would have been a family of peasants huddled against the ceaseless wintry Mistral wind around a fire inside this stone shelter. instead of a modern French Riviera showpiece.
Lunch with there was a feast of Mediterranean grilled vegetables, and some light rosé wine. The meal was a dizzying array of colors, flavors, and incredible serving dishes. Why I recall that brilliantly colored china surprises me now. Deepest chrome yellows, rich blues, apricot . All of Provençe was about intensity of color, it being so deeply baked in the brilliant sunshine of the Riviera. The stairs in the old house were steep, the walls were crooked, the whole effect was one of very old magic.
It was all small talk at first, these were people whose business was wine, and entertaining is a way of life for them. After the small talk we really got down to some wonderful conversation, we were all young and Americans in France, they were so gracious, and we’d visited their parents at their home in the Russian River, so we had a rare and exciting lunch, lots of good wine and laughter, and left to find our rooms for the night in Mougins, a nearby town.
We stayed at Moulin de Mougins, the beautiful three-star inn owned by one of my former maîtres, chef Roger Vergé. It is a restaurant built into an ancient mill. It must be every cooks dream (certainly mine) to have a place near a resort, with fragrant herb and flower gardens, sunlight, and famous and rich guests in a place nestled in the hills overlooking the Riviera.
After dinner the first night, he visited our table. He graciously welcomed me back, I mentioned that he had a dangerously dark tan, and made some remark about pocketbooks, which we all laughed at. He didn’t laugh as loudly as I’d have wished. It seems when food is not in my mouth, one will always find my foot there. He looked so regal, with that deep Riviera tan and his white hair, and I challenged my old mentor to cook us real Provençale food, ‘la Cuisine Grandmère", instead of "la Cuisine des Trois Etoiles" so I could show Bart what ‘old Provençe’ was like.
"you will have a table tomorrow, and I will cook for you" he said in the matter of fact way a person does when he is used to being obeyed. I was thrilled, and spent the entire day anticipating dinner. I think we even smoked a little recreational pot before dinner, a mistake now that I look back on it.
The first course was langoustes, sort of a crayfish-lobster, but in a lemon-y garlic-y dressing, with a blend of olive and walnut oils. He didn’t spare the fresh herbs, there were so many, the blend was an indescribable, and exotic combination of thyme, rosemary and lavender combined with some North African aromas. It was beyond French, I had to remind myself that this little hill town was right on the French Riviera, and a crossroads of conquering armies for centuries. It is why Provençe is what it is.
The oversized plate was decorated with shellfish of all sorts. It was a seafood still life. He was inspired by Bouillabaisse, there was also a dish of that hot aioli sauce called Rouille always served with it. His was lighter, brilliant, certainly easier to eat and colorful. I was able to taste colors. It was three-star, and all Vergé, but I was looking for "old fashioned cooking" - "Grandmère". I was certain he had directed this, but hadn’t had much of a hand in its preparation.
The baby racks of lamb which followed were loaded with herbs, (wild ones, and intense), and half a ton of roasted cloves of garlic. Of course there were roasted baby vegetables, all shapes and colors, and they had taste too! I recalled then that we have mini-vegs at home too, but they lacked taste. Oh, and a few roasted potatoes that really tasted like potatoes. Not since Equador had I tasted a real potato. Now the assault had begun. I was home, finally. Here was a master at his intense best. He had abandoned his trademark ‘lighter’ approach to please the whim of a guest, little me. Here is where hospitality and good food were married with humility.
There was an intense lamb pan juice, but it had been slightly thickened, so it was more home style. It was deep and stayed with you while you savored it, and again, you knew that garlic had been emphasized in your honor. I think there was olive oil in it to enrich it. There was a light but fruity local wine, just enough to enhance the food, and perfectly blend with it. Chef selected it, and sent it to us with his compliments.
We were eating so quickly by then we weren’t paying much attention to the details, we were a couple of pig-boys in love with the food, the day and each other. Sad, now that I think of it, but you either experience it or you intellectualize it. I ride a bit of both when I dine out. My hedonist self goes for the big experience, and later after a few bites, my reflective self comes on board. That meal I think I just told my reflective self to take the night off. I realize now that I was intended to that.
It was "Death by Garlic", and there was fragrant ice cream made with Thyme for one of the endless selections of dessert. I hate it when they do that - they kill you with so much great food, and then the cheese tray comes, then sweets, and of course cookies, and you can’t escape the assault on your liver; you don’t even want to. You just sit back in those oversized arm chairs designed to give you that feeling that you own the world, (I don’t) and you let it happen to you.
We were up late that night suffering the consequences of our overindulging, not because of the food, which was great; it’s just that we pigged out. No regrets.
I wondered if Bart had enjoyed the trip, I sure hoped so, it took years of being lovers and then separating and finally coming together as friends. The ‘friends’ part was the best. Whenever we were together after we broke up, there was a peace, a quiet which enveloped the two of us. It was always easy to spend time together, and the best part was that we didn’t need to do a damn thing. We managed to salvage that and have it as long as we knew one another.
ENVOYAGE TO TUSCANY -- PART TWO
The road to Florence had a totally different flavor from anything I had seen in France. It was even more old-world looking, maybe it was the power of suggestion, but I was overwhelmed by the ancient and timeless quality of the countryside. No doubt this was the Italy I always imagined it would be. The hills looked more rounded down, somehow older and softer than the rocky country side of Provençe. The car was filled with the intoxicating aromas of those melons I had bought in Cavaillon. They were now out on the back seat, the better to ripen and protect them. Would the aroma of tuber-roses be approximate?
Again my mind reflected: We had left Baumanière and were heading from Aix towards St. Paul de Vence, taking country roads. The country was flat, the quiet road lined with tall shade trees, and a tiny sign appeared: "Cavaillon" –those incredible melons. There’s nothing picturesque about a melon field, it’s flat and uninteresting. Then I saw a sign, "melons a vendre". Okay, a French roadside farm stand, why not! Besides, if I didn’t taste a Cavaillon melon right here and now, then there was no point at all to the trip. I was already reduced to being a mere stomach eating its way across Provençe. I hit the brakes and turned the car around. There was also some garlic that hadn’t been dried or aged yet, it was fresh out of the ground. I’d never seen it before. I bought some of that and some other fresh fruits too. My luggage and I should have known better. As I continued my drive, the melons took my wandering mind away from the car and the Italian road, and back to France.
Nearby to Beaumanière, the venerable three-star all-stone restaurant of Chef Outhiers, was a large mountain-like rock formation, made of bauxite. It’s incredibly steep. Atop of which is an ancient Provençal fortified town, now a ruin and tourist attraction. It is called "Les Baux" Eons of erosion have left the terrain all around it flat and very low, sparing this immense hard rock, which rises like a monument out of the countryside. The unexpected way it sits on the landscape makes it appear like a living presence. Ancient times saw captives thrown off the cliff, and animals were driven over the top to leave their corpses at the base and be gathered for meat. On the particular gray-damp afternoon we were there I met a boy named Victor, who was a homeless urchin and who had found a way to survive from the kindnesses of tourists at Les Baux. The afternoon was still chilly and there was the wind, inescapable, and he was wearing a thin tattered brown sweater which wasn’t warm enough. He had large brown soulful eyes, full lips and a head of long curly hair. I guessed him to be somewhere in his mid teens. I gave him my address in New York, and wished that I had the means and the courage to bring him back to the US right then, but didn’t. A few months later I got a letter from him, and never had the courage to answer that either. Now I wish I had, but I’ll never know - the road not taken.
My thoughts left Victor, and now I was reviewing the meeting I’d had in the kitchen of Baumaniere with their sous chef, Jacques. A previous visitor to New York, and to my restaurant, he’d served me a surprise the evening before, a lapin (rabbit) au vinaigre, stewed with vegetables, and a special vinegar made by marinating herbs and vegetables in it for a month. He proudly taught me the formula for the vinegar, and of course with great food you need no measurements, only approximations. One taste of that magic elixir was forever stamped on my palate. I use it now for chicken, and a variation of it for some pork I enjoy cooking.
Continuing my drive, I was re-experiencing the all too hushed breakfasts at Jean-Pierre Silva’s restaurant near Savigny-les-Beaune, Le Vieux Moulin. There were melons there too, so I knew that these precious fragrant beauties were to be found nearby. I was young and inexperienced when I began touring, and my ‘Yankee’ attitudes came with me. I know it’s cultural, but I love the mornings. In the better inns in France the atmosphere at breakfast is too somber to suit me. Everyone whispers, no one laughs, you wonder if they had a halfway decent time the night before. Often they formally refer to their husbands and wives as "m’épouse" (my spouse), which is as bad as gays adapting the term "partner", which hasn’t a drop of emotion in it. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the wonderful baked treasures, the coffee, and the fresh unpasteurized cream, the fresh-squeezed blood orange juices and melons would make you just want to shut up and be quiet out of respect for the kitchen.
"JP", as his friends call him, is a young, friendly, down-to-earth master-chef, and he and his wife Isabelle had borrowed heavily to finance their fabulous 2-star inn. They bought it with her parents. I introduced myself to Jean-Pierre, and we hit it off right away. Of course I got a tour of his sparkling modern kitchen, and a chance to show-off to him my new technique, "Toasted Cream" He loved the possibilities. Chef Paul Bocuse also liked it a lot when I had shown it to him in Lyons, as did Chef Jacques Pic when I was with him in Valence.
One evening I asked him if I could accompany him to market. I knew it would be a great favor of he granted it. Three times a week, he’d make the ¾ hour long pre-dawn drive to the market at Chalon-sur-Saone, and return to his restaurant laden with cheeses, fresh vegetables and fruits for his guests. Chalon is a typical ancient Burgundian town. Because of its crossroads location, it’s easily accessed from the farms and the many great Michelin-starred inns and restaurants in the region. Hence the market here is interesting to say the very least. You never know which great chef you might run into, however markets are the great equalizer in our business, the ‘greats’ mingle freely with the not yet so. "Egalité" as the French are so fond of saying, and forgetting.
I awoke especially early, and slightly hung over from the Nuits St Georges the night before, and loaded myself, slumped next to him, sans café, in his tiny beat-up blue Citroen truck in the chilly, damp Burgundian morning. He drove, like most French chefs I know, way too fast. His driving woke me up. The market was just setting up and would be totally dismantled and vanish within a few hours, leaving no trace of it’s having been there. While the light in the just-after-dawn sky was blue gray, the produce was bursting with freshness and color. Farmers were showing beautiful springtime produce. Kodachrome flowers were heaped high on low tables. Enormous soft green cabbages, mountains of bright orange carrots, and perfect cream colored parsnips, leeks without a blemish, huge white asparagus. Fresh garlic (just in season), oranges, and Cavaillon melons. He bought - I just watched, I was dying of envy. After all, even though I was in French Country Market Heaven, where would I cook it? It was just enough to be there where such things were available. I shared the joy of a man who had what he wanted in his life.
He carefully selected some fresh farm cheeses, and some other treasures. His regular produce purveyor delivered the ordinary products to the restaurant daily. I wanted to linger, but he moved very quickly through the stands, and as he danced from stand to stand, some farmers called out to him to show him one thing or another, sometimes holding it up in the air for him to see.
"You’ve got to be careful, not to buy what you don’t need, but when they save something for you, it’s good to buy some just to keep the relationship"
He poked, sniffed, frowned, challenged, made purchases and disappeared before I could turn around. His speed assured he’d have a chance to get at the best before anyone else grabbed it. He knew and cultivated his sources, just as I did in New York. He was warm but businesslike. They saved special things for him, and that made me think of how it was at The Sheep with my purveyors
The sun had already started to burn off the cool morning mists, and it was time to head back. Now he seemed to be more relaxed, and as he drove (no less speedily, I add) we spoke at length about our mutual joys and frustrations in the business - the help, the suppliers, the hours, and the fact that hospitality was the best life a man could ask for. We joked that one day we’d have to "grow up and get a real job" someday. We laughed at the close scrapes, the times we’d get away with things in order to have a dinner come out perfectly, and no one knew… I feel a warm sense of comradeship with this man whom I had only just met. We’ve been living such similar lives an ocean apart.
We knew that no matter where in the world you are, no matter which way you worship, you are brothers if you are chefs and restaurateurs.
Chef's Diary, Chinatown
It’s 3am, Sunday morning
Noodle shops are inexpensive and usually open all night, serving from a steam table filled with steaming pots of rich broth, into which a wide selection of noodles, roast meats, vegetables, dumplings, shellfish, are served in enormous bowls. It’s a meal in a bowl.
It was a busy night at the restaurant,
The place is almost empty, I look around to see
My crabs arrive. a huge, piled-high dish, fantastic!
You know, I never liked crabs,
I feel good. Hedonist. I am wondering what awful thing will happen.
I am glad to be a New Yorker. Lucky. I’m a small-town boy,
I busy myself with the crabs, creature devouring creatures,
but I had no want of their company
Last week I returned hoping to relive that wonderful meal.
This is also a true story, every word I apologize for its' being long - Michael
DUNGENESS CRABS
March 17, 1997
Then I saw that Mario was cooking some on his show last
Anyway, I called the place I originally got them from, in
Easily distracted, and always bad at focusing on only one thing
We finally locate the place, Eric takes the car with orders to drive
There was a lone darkly-clad figure working the tanks, and I explained
Now Eric had got himself lost, so I start to jog for blocks while
Home we went, back to my corned beef which was steaming quietly
Now the old anguish came again. What was I to do? Surely
The new steamer with the corned beef beckons, I hesitate, tell
Now that the restaurant is gone, I am enjoying Tofu more often,
Total steaming time, 15 minutes, with
The Corned beef was the silkiest, most delicious I ever ate, and
ps: the crabs -- they were better than expected. I was at once
RECIPE SECTION:
The beautiful rich broth is ladled over the crab parts, served
Of course You can make a bouillabaisse using this technique, make the broth,