Matters of Taste

A Food Writer Remembers Charlie Trotter

The food world was shocked this week by the announcement of super-chef Charlie Trotter’s death at  at the age of 54.

                                      
                                        

 Well-known as an irascible perfectionist who terrified workers in his kitchen, Trotter was also acknowledged to be one of the most creative, disciplined and hard-working chefs of the past decades. His eponymous Chicago restaurant vaulted Chicago’s dining scene into the big leagues. He closed the restaurant in 2012 after 25 years at the top of the gastronomic hit parade.

                                                    

I loved Trotter’s food. Globe artichoke soup poured over spun honeycomb and garnished with artichoke chips and fresh mint. Open-face wild mushroom tarts. Cardamom-scented ricotta soufflé with candied Buddha's Hand mushrooms and olive praline. (Food photos by John Reed Forsman for Veranda.)

                                                      

In 2005, I wrote a story about the 25 greatest meals I had eaten in my 25 years as Restaurant Critic of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Dinner at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago was one of them.

Toast of the town

At first, I found the sleek, quiet, contemporary atmosphere of Charlie Trotter's very staid. But with each remarkable dish – an asparagus terrine with goat cheese; potato cannelloni with artichokes; foie gras served with white asparagus soup and sweet Vidalia onions; skate wing with clams and preserved papaya – and with each delicious wine recommended by the friendly sommelier, Trotter's Chicago town-house seemed more and more like the happiest place on earth.  

But as much as the food world appreciated Trotter’s talent, fellow chefs, kitchen workers and, yes, food writers were often totally put off by his arrogance and demanding-to-the-point-of-nasty style.

I encountered that side of Trotter on my very first writing assignment, some 30 years ago, for the then-San Diego Union. At a glitzy gala dinner, staged in Los Angeles by the Relais & Chateaux collection of luxury restaurants and hotels, 50 American and international chefs gathered to cook together. The team represented a staggering 90 Michelin stars. For hours, 49 of the chefs toiled in the hot kitchen of the Biltmore hotel, helping each other, trading jokes, tasting, and praising. The other chef, Charlie Trotter, blew in the door with less than 30 minutes to showtime, having done all his cooking elsewhere – unencumbered by such things as collaboration and camaraderie.

I wrote:

“As the last waiter clears the swinging door, all eyes focus on Charlie Trotter, who has arrived with great fanfare and with much of the preparation of his lamb dish done in the morning in his Chicago kitchen. 

While a KCET camera lens creeps to within an inch of the glasses perched on his nose, Trotter leans over a plate explaining quietly to his helpers exactly how his lamb with Israeli couscous and red wine essence should be plated.  He places an oven-roasted slice of lamb loin on the plate, moves it a fraction of an inch, moves it again, adds a drizzle of sauce, then steps back to assess his handiwork.”

High-strung. Volatile. Arrogant. Maybe.

But the world’s communal dining table will be a less interesting place without Charlie Trotter’s talents. And I, for one, will always be grateful I got the chance to enjoy that foie gras with white asparagus soup and sweet Vidalia onions.

                                     

Grandma Knows Best

On Thursday, Café Boulud chef Gavin Kaysen and his fellow panelists at a James Beard Foundation presentation here in New York City were asked about their fondest food memories.

Kaysen, formerly chef at Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, answered without hesitation.

“I started cooking with my grandma when I was about 7 years old,” he began, adding that his mother, father, and other grandmother never cooked at all. “We always had a great time in the kitchen,” he went on, citing the cakes and cookies and meatloaf that he and grandma made together.

“But the best part of it all was that she let me say ‘shit’ when we were working together. You know, if I dropped something or the cookies burned, I could say ‘shit.’ For a 7-year-old kid that was about the coolest thing ever.”

Kaysen drew laughter from the audience of chefs and other food lovers, when he noted wryly that those experiences with grandma clearly prepared him for the life and language of a professional kitchen.

His grandmother died seven months ago, while Kaysen was working on the speech he was to give for Commencement ceremonies at the prestigious Culinary Institute of American. In the speech he noted his grandmothers' influence on his career and the passion for cooking that she nurtured in him.

Kaysen won the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef (under 30 years old) in 2008, pictured here.

 

 

Happy 108th Birthday to James Beard

You may think that this coming weekend is all about Mother’s Day.  But the nation’s diehard foodies are, instead, focused on a rotund, jovial gent with a foppish bow-tie, a bald head, a picturesque townhouse  in Greenwich Village, and a reputation as the Father of American Food.

That would be James Beard, and today would have been his 108^th birthday if he were still on this earth eating and drinking with his trademark gusto. (Photo from website Sweetpaprika.com.)

To celebrate Beard's important contributions to the development of a distinctly American cuisine and his efforts to promote the use of seasonal, regional foodstuffs, the not-for-profit James Beard Foundation sponsors workshops, classes, conferences, nightly dinners prepared by chefs from around the country and served at Beard’s West 12^th Street home, and this annual spring weekend of award ceremonies.

Tomorrow night, the JBF, which explains its mission as “celebrating, nurturing and preserving America’s diverse culinary heritage and future,” will host the JBF Media & Book Awards. Awards will be given for best cookbooks (in multiple categories); best writing in such areas as Health & Nutrition, and Food Culture and Travel; Best Restaurant Criticism; and for accomplishments in broadcast journalism such as Best Television Program.

On Monday evening, thousands of black-tied food professionals – chefs, restaurateurs, winemakers, journalists, publicists, cheesemakers, farmers and more – will converge on Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for the annual Restaurant & Chef Awards, when kudos such as Best Chef: Northwest; Best Chef: New York City; Outstanding Pastry Chef; and Outstanding Wine Service are bestowed. Considered the “Oscars” of the food world, the glitzy program is followed by a dazzling reception of food and drink provided by an all-star cast of chefs.

This afternoon, I visited the JBF LTD  “Pop-Up Restaurant” a temporary restaurant and food pavilion at Chelsea Market. The pop-up, which is in place until May 14^th, features nightly dinners and lunches by high-profile chefs, free tastings and seminars, giveaways, and demos by on-air and Food Network Kitchens talent.

Today’s program featured a spirited panel discussion, moderated by national restaurant consultant Clark Wolf, on the subject of Beard’s life and his impact on America’s food world. Joining Wolf were NYTimes columnist Melissa Clark, artisanal butcher Jake Dickson of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, Café Boulud chef Gavin Kaysen(who was voted James Beard Rising Star Chef in 2008), and JBF vice-president Mitchell Davis.

Each regaled the audience with stories of personal connections to Beard. Clark reminisced about a childhood spent skimming through her mother’s Beard cookbooks and testing recipes on her own, including the maddening process of beating eggwhites for meringue. Dickson spoke of his job at a butcher shop when he was in high school and his fascination with the artistry of shaping meat into things like crown roasts. Wolf himself remembered the day in 1976 when he was working at a San Francisco cheese shop and Beard blew in the door. “He was an enormous man, dressed in a floor-to-ceiling black trenchcoat,” Wolf laughed. “He said his cardiologist wouldn’t let him come into a place like this but did I, by the way, have any St. Nectaire." 

At the panel’s conclusion, a handsome birthday cake was served to everyone in the audience. Said to be one of Beard’s favorite desserts, the Pithivier was a wispy puff pastry concoction with almond paste prepared by renowned pastry chef/chocolatier Jacques Torres.

Check out this site in a few days for the results of the Awards ceremonies.

 

Charlie Trotter: Marching To His Own Drummer

The front page is full of stories these days that could bear the headline “A Leader Left Behind.”

But it wasn’t Mubarek or Gaddafi or Assad that today’s New York Times headline was talking about. It was Charlie Trotter, the Chicago chef who has been proclaimed Outstanding Chef of the U.S. by the James Beard Foundation and whose restaurant was dubbed “The Best in the World” by the Wine Spectactor magazine.

 “Trotter, a Leader Left Behind” details the glitz surrounding the self-taught chef’s ascendance into the firmament of haute cuisine, as well as his failed efforts to establish eateries in New York and Las Vegas, and to become a household word a la Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali. Author David Kamp writes “...Mr. Trotter hardly seems to figure in the national food conversation anymore.”

Considering the number of extraordinary U. S. chefs who do not go on to found restaurant empires and do not gather the notoriety or income of, say, Batali and Lagasse, I'm not quite sure what the point of the article is. But one of the not-so-subliminal messages is that Trotter’s modus operandi – he’s a demanding boss given to kitchen tirades – is partially to blame for his sputtering popularity.

 “But there remains a perception that there’s more to these off-site fizzles — that Mr. Trotter is a perfectionist control freak, temperamentally ill-equipped to delegate and collaborate.”

I saw that side of Trotter years ago while covering a gala dinner staged by the Relais & Chateaux collection of luxury hotels and restaurants. It was 1998, and 50 American and international chefs, representing a staggering 90 Michelin stars, had gathered in the kitchen of L.A.’s Biltmore hotel to prepare a dinner for 700 people to honor Robert Mondavi.

Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame, roasted bacon-wrapped saddles of young rabbit. Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington whipped up a gossamer grapefruit butter sauce for steamed lobsters.

Michel Guerard, the father of the nouvelle cuisine revolution, put the finishing touches on an elegant shellfish gelee. Famed Paris chef Michel Rostang, the organizer of the event, readied artichokes for his galette with fresh truffles. Roger Verge, for decades the genius behind one of France’s most beloved restaurants, chatted with chefs, kitchen workers, journalists and camera crews in his role as elder statesman.

Divided into teams of three, the chefs shared tasks, opinions and jokes as they worked, side by side, for 9-plus hours, in tiny spaces marked with their names on flimsy pieces of paper stuck to the walls with tape.

Daniel Boulud, whose NYC restaurant Daniel has won every prestigious award there is, joked about “roughing it” in the Biltmore’s kitchen. “But we’re having fun,” he said, “it’s like going to camp.”

One participating chef was conspicuously missing: Charlie Trotter.

With about 30 minutes left before ShowTime, Trotter made an appearance. My story in the San Diego Union-Tribune described the scene:

“As the last waiter clears the swinging door, all eyes focus on Charlie Trotter, who has arrived with great fanfare and with much of the preparation of his lamb dish done in the morning in his Chicago kitchen. 

While a KCET camera lens creeps to within an inch of the glasses perched on his nose, Trotter leans over a plate explaining quietly to his helpers exactly how his lamb with Israeli couscous and red wine essence should be plated.  He places an oven-roasted slice of lamb loin on the plate, moves it a fraction of an inch, moves it again, adds a drizzle of sauce, then steps back to assess his handiwork.”

Finally, Trotter took his place at the end of the line of his nine sous-chefs and inspected each completed dish before it was put on a dining room-bound tray. So much for collaboration, camaraderie and respectful teamwork.

On the other hand, Trotter still has plenty of admirers, as today’s New York Times article points out.  Author Kamp says “Mr. Trotter is particularly virtuosic with vegetables.”

And Kamp quotes Alan Richman, longtime restaurant critic for GQ:

“Alice Waters may have discovered vegetables, but Trotter was the first man I knew who cooked them beautifully.”

Luckily, I also got to see that side of Charlie Trotter. During a dinner in the Lincoln Park townhouse that has housed the restaurant since its opening in 1987, my sister and I shared two prix fixe menus, one the vegetarian version. We were totally wowed by the procession of exquisite dishes, each one more flavorful, more memorable, more magical than the last.

When I wrote in the Union-Tribune about the 25 best things I ate in 25 years as the paper’s restaurant critic, Trotter’s creations were front and center.

"At first, I found the sleek, quiet, contemporary atmosphere of Charlie Trotter's very staid. But with each remarkable dish – an asparagus terrine with goat cheese; potato cannelloni with artichokes; foie gras served with white asparagus soup and sweet Vidalia onions; skate wing with clams and preserved papaya – and with each delicious wine recommended by the friendly sommelier, Trotter's Chicago town-house seemed more and more like the happiest place on earth."

 

 

 

 

 

Words of Wisdom from Deborah Szekely

“When you throw a pebble in a pond, the circles slowly radiate out, and then, slowly back in again,” said Deborah Szekely last night during her weekly fireside chat at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico.  And that’s the way things work in our bodies and our environment too, she went on to say.  Pollute the oceans and you’ll pay for it….contaminated seafood or no more seafood at all. Eat McDonald’s and Taco Bell every day and your body will let you down – with such problems as excess weight,  hypertension and lethargy.

Szekely (pronounced Say-Kay), the 88-year-old founder of the first spa on the North American continent (she opened Rancho la Puerta with her husband Edmond Szekely in 1940), went on to expound on what she calls “the new 3Rs….respect, responsibility and regeneration.”

Respect your body and it will, in fact, pay you back….with renewed energy, spirit and strength. Respect the world around you and the reward will be an environment that nourishes this generation and those to come. In addition to her words of wisdom about the Three Rs, Szekely shared her thoughts about waking up in the morning. Nothing earth-shattering, mind you. But, in my opinion, “right on.”

First, she says, "wiggle around a bit" as soon as you wake up. Move your body around in bed, be aware of how it feels, be grateful that you are, indeed, waking up to experience another day.

After she gets out of bed and shoos her two puppies out the door, Szekely says she sets the time on, and winds up, the antique clock that sits on a shelf in the room. The daily task reminds her that a new day and more time on this earth is something to be cherished and not taken for granted. “Treasure time,” she told me during an earlier conversaton. “It is our most valuable possession.”

Szekely, who also created the famed and pricey Golden Door spa in Escondido, California in 1958,  is considered to be the guiding light of the body/mind/spirit fitness movement, and the godmother of spa cuisine. Attractive, trim and exuding a quiet sense of joie de vivre, the octogenarian credits her good health to daily exercise – she does Pilates four times a week and walks two miles every day -- and a dynamic involvement with the people and world around her. She’s also an ardent spokesperson for the importance of enjoying good food that’s also good for you. “Eat sensibly,” she advises. “Don’t be always measuring and counting. It’s like measuring love or kisses. If you start counting calories, you lose the fun of it all.”

 

 

MAUREEN CLANCY'S HAVING DINNER WITH WHOM??

Just in case you want to know more about me and this blog.....

The La Jolla Light, local newspaper of the La Jolla, CA. community, today ran a mini profile, complete with my likes, dislikes, dreams, aspirations and my ideal guests for the ultimate dinner party.

You can access it on-line at LaJollaLight.com.

Another Closing...Only Delicious Memories Left

The news from France this weekend that Michelin-three-star chef Olivier Roellinger was hanging up his toque brought back vivid memories of one of the best dining experiences of my career. (I wrote about Roellinger and my dinner at his Maisons de Bricourt restaurant in a San Diego Union-Tribune article about the “25 Most Memorable Dining Experiences in 25 Years as Restaurant Critic.”)

 

"It would take a novella, not a newspaper article, to do full justice to dinner at Maisons de Bricourt in Cancale, France. We dined in the candle-lit conservatory of an 18th-century manse, surrounded by antiques and silver. Outside, the rain made the lush garden shimmer and provided background music that ranged from gentle raindrops to crashing thunder.

 Chef-owner Olivier Roellinger was not about to be upstaged by Mother Nature. Our nine-course seafood extravaganza included crab meat trimmed   with tiny periwinkles; turbot with green and white beans; roasted John Dory with Muscadet; and baby lobster tail flavored with spices of the East Indies. Only at dessert time – berries in a pistachio crisp and warm bittersweet chocolate "cigarettes" – did we forget for a few minutes the presence of the pounding Atlantic just a block away."

That was the summer of 1997. I was in the area  to explore the extensive coastal walkway called the Sentier des Douaniers or Walking Path of the Customs Officers. I planned to eat in the best restaurants and burn off the calories by walking these enchanting trails. My 17-year-old son, Nicholas, who was living with a French family for the summer, agreed to go along.

Interviewing Roellinger was a high priority. Known for his creative genius in the kitchen, intellect, and self-effacing, affable personality,  Roellinger has long been considered an authority on spices. He has traveled the world’s “spice routes” extensively and knows that segment of the spice trade road that runs through his native Brittany better than any other chef.

Nicholas and I stayed at Chateau de Richeux hotel, an enchanting 1920s mansion owned by Roellinger and his wife Jane.  Perched on a grassy knoll a few miles from the tiny, cobblestoned town of Cancale, it features large, beautifully decorated rooms from which you can glimpse the coastline and smell the bracing essence of the Atlantic. 

The hotel, which offers 11 rooms and two apartments, will remain  open, as will Roellinger’s more casual seafood restaurant Le Coquillage.  And while Roellinger will give up the demanding day-to-day role of chef/proprietor  of a Relais Gourmand establishment – he says his legs, seriously damaged in a brutal gang attack when he was 21 years old, are no longer up to the task – he will continue his involvement with his spice company, Épices Roellinger which specializes in salts, spices, spice powders, herb teas and vanilla beans. According to a New York Times article, he is also considering a cooking school and several cookbooks.

To read about the other 24 dining experiences that made my "Best" list in the Union-Tribune Travel article, visit the U-T’s Web site, SignOnSanDiego.com.

Rising Star Chef of 2008

NEW YORK CITY---

What does a young guy do the day after winning one of the most prestigious culinary awards in the country?

Cook up a mess of chickpeas.   

Reached by phone this afternoon in the kitchen of Café Boulud, Gavin Kaysen was preparing the dried beans for a canapé that will be served tonight at the popular Upper East Side eatery.  “I’ll probably fold them into some hummus with piqueno peppers, some preserved lemon and a bit of mint and parsley,” explained the winner of  the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year Award. “It’ll be very refreshing,” he added, referring to the furnace-like temperatures that have blasted the city for the last few days.

Last night, at the James Beard Foundation’s glitzy annual awards ceremony at Lincoln Center, Kaysen won the award for a chef 30 years of age or younger “who displays an impressive talent, and who is likely to have a significant impact on the industry in years to come.”

The other finalists were Nate Appleman of A16 in San Francisco Sean Brock of McCrady's in Charleston S.C. , Johnny Monis of Komi in Washington, D.C., Matt Molina of Osteria Mozza in L.A., and Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon.

“Shocked, just shocked,” is how Kaysen described his reaction to the award, an engraved bronze medallion on a red ribbon, which was presented to him by last year's winner David Chang and TV personality Padma Lakshmi. “I mean, you certainly don’t expect something like this when you first move somewhere, especially New York City which is a big pond with big fish,” said the boyish-looking chef who started manning the stoves at Café Boulud just seven months ago. (One of his hits was this sophisticated summer squash agnolotti studded with bits of sweetbreads, crispy bacon “tuiles”, red pearl onions and fresh sage.)        

Kaysen’s rise to the pinnacle of fine dining in the U.S has been a fast one, highlighted by a little luck and a lot of hard work.

For five years before Daniel Boulud tapped him for the top Cafe Boulud job, Kaysen was chef of El Bizcocho in the Rancho Bernardo Inn. While there he won stellar reviews from San Diego restaurant critics, was selected one of Food & Wine magazine's 2007 Best New Chefs and represented the U.S.in the prestigious Bocuse d'Or International cooking competition in France, where he placed 14th.

Kaysen graduated from the New England Culinary Institute, then moved on to stints in the kitchens of Domaine Chandon in Napa Valley, Auberge de Lavaux in Lausanne,  Switzerland and the Michelin-starred L'Escargot in London.

When asked to ponder why he won the award after just seven months in New York when he didn't even make the list of finalists while at El Bizcocho, Kaysen was both philosophical and practical.

“I think the award reflects everything I’ve done up to this point, including my five years in San Diego. But it’s just that when you’re in New York, everyone has the opportunity to eat your food because everybody goes to New York City,” he continued, with “everybody” being the food professionals and journalists who vote on the awards.

“I save all the tickets in the kitchen,” he added, referring to the orders placed by diners. “And I’ve had a lot of people come in and eat my food over these seven months. It makes a very big difference. It’s not that San Diego isn’t on the food map, because it is. It’s just that everybody goes through this city.”

Kaysen also gives much credit to his staff at Café Boulud who he says inspire him every day, and to Daniel Boulud, the creator of one of the most impressive gastronomic empires in the world. (It includes Restaurant Daniel, Bar Boulud, db Bistro Moderne in New York City and Daniel Boulud Brasserie in Las Vegas.)

“Daniel was like a kid in a candy store when I won,” Kaysen said with a laugh. “He sent me a text message right away; it was classic Daniel. It said something like ‘Big hug to you, Baby.  You rock my world’.”

“Daniel’s a very inspiring person. I’ve always looked up to him as a mentor. He’s somebody you can always learn from.”

The  18th annual black-tie event at Avery Fisher Hall was emceed by Kim Cattrall and celebrity chef Bobby  Flay. A couple thousand professional chefs, winemakers, restaurateurs, food journalists, publicists and well-heeled foodies (tickets cost $450) sat through the three-hour ceremony, then feasted on the breathtaking fare from more than 30 nationally renowned chefs at the reception afterwards.

For a “taste” of the spectacular dishes whipped up by these chefs and a complete list of award winners, including Outstanding Chef, Restaurant and Restaurateur, visit my blog tomorrow.