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Archive for the ‘celebrity’ Category
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
Vertigo runs in my family. I’ve always been prone to motion sickness but about six years ago I went on a ferry in Sydney and my head thought it was still on the ferry for about 5 days. I’d be standing in the kitchen pouring a cup of tea and the whole room would spin. Since then I can’t swing on swings, jump on trampolines or, I thought, go on boats. I’d never in my life been on a sail boat. Why would I do such a thing when I’d just spend the whole time heaving over the side?
Well, before we left for this trip, I got transderm scopolamine from my doctor. That’s the little patch that goes behind your ear and sucks all the water out of your inner ear so there’s no sloshing happening. I’m very sloshy. I had no idea if this thing would work or if I’d have side effects or anything. I just stuck it behind my ear, washed my hands really well so I wouldn’t touch my eyes and dry them up, and then headed to the dock. I’ll end the suspense…the patch worked! The water wasn’t smooth by any means, we were up and down and all around but I didn’t feel a single worble. I can go on boats!!! I also wasn’t worbly when I got back on land. Maybe I should wear these patches all the time ;-)
So, we got on this catamaran along with a couple of dozen other people and sailed about 45 minutes out to Stingray City. I can honestly say I’ve never experienced anything like this. I’ve petted the manta rays at the Monterey Bay Aquarium but they’re small, don’t have stingers and half the time are huddled in the pool away from people. Stingray City was a whole other kettle of fish (*groan*). My son and I were the first down the ladder (well, he was first and I followed) and then he was the first to stop  and get scared to jump down. The water was choppy and he wasn’t going to be tall enough to touch the bottom. So I passed him and jumped down first, tried to convince him to jump to me and then got doused by a wave and got about a quart of salt water up my nose. That’s a great start. But I recovered, got him down and then we were surrounded by stingrays! It was unsettling at first, and then really, really cool. They feel soft and a little slimy and have spent their whole lives at the sandbar where people come and feed them so they are really friendly…almost too friendly. We all had them swim up to either side and slap our legs looking for squid. It was CRAZY!
We spent about 30 minutes in the water with them then headed back up to the boat for some tequila drinks, lots of water, and a sail to Rum Point for some burgers. Since my husband’s foot is still healing from his accident in September, we always had to search out a place to sit first. We camped out in some beach chairs right next to the water, the margarita stand, and Eric Ripert’s station.
Sweeet. I had to pass on Spike Mendelsohn’s burger because it was lamb and I know how I am about lamb. I love rack of lamb. Let it grow up and it’s too lamby for me (I can’t overthink the baby-eating part of that). So I just wandered on and got one of Eric’s snapper sliders with spicy aioli. I actually got  one for myself and my hubby and my son got one without the aioli. Then I went back and got another, and I’m pretty sure another. I scoped out the other burgers and taste-tested a few but always went back to Eric. To quote my son, “How does he make food taste so good?!”
Eric wasn’t overly busy, this was a small event, so I went up to attempt a conversation. I was doing really well! I was asking about the capers and the peppers on the fish from the Barefoot BBQ the night before. He said the capers were brined Spanish capers (they were amazing and unlike any caper I’d ever had) and the peppers were a local island pepper that he didn’t  know the name of. I was commenting that I was surprised I liked them because they weren’t hot but they didn’t have the flavor of bell pepper at all which was great. See? Going well right?! Then I spilled champagne down my shirt. *sigh* It wasn’t sexy with me in a bikini, splashing champagne on myself in a hair-flipping, buxom, margarita-fueled craze (I was not in a bikini, nor am I buxom). I basically drooled. Someday I will manage to not look like a fool.
We had to finish up and catch the first catamaran back to get our son to his snorkeling camp before we went to see Eric and Tony Bourdain do their demo and talk. So we waltzed back to the catamaran and had a lovely sail back to the resort.
It’s always fun to listen to Eric and Tony razz each other. They didn’t do the Good vs. Evil routine (they’ll be on tour with that this spring) but they did a basics of cooking demo and Q&A session. They addressed things that people regularly screw up in the kitchen. First up, the omelet. Tony made  a simple omelet, Eric acted shocked that Tony could cook. Their kids taste tested it and got the thumbs up :) Eric talked about how Tony has taken up meditation. Tony looked quite shocked and confused by this idea. And then of course Eric throws the punchline out which is a stack of photos he has taken, and I’ve seen him post them on twitter, of Tony sleeping on airplanes.  This bromance can get catty!!
Eric then showed how to property tie up a chicken for cooking to keep its shape and juices in. He made scrambled eggs which were to die for! They passed them out in little egg shells. He cooks them through then whips in creme fraiche and chives. I am going to try this technique.  Then they started going through the list of things people do not do right in the kitchen. First up, grill a steak. I was happy to hear them go through the list of do’s and don’ts and know that I was doing it all right! Let the steaks come up to room temp, salt them right before putting them on a not-too-hot grill (or you get raw inside, charcoal outside), DON’T touch them. Flip the steaks only once, don’t cut or poke them, leave them the hell alone. Then let them rest for about 8 minutes before serving. Yup, I do all that! For pasta: lots and lots of water, tons and tons of salt and don’t put oil in the water. It does nothing to keep the pasta from sticking. Oil and water don’t mix.
The funniest bit was when Sandra, Eric’s amazingly awesome, beautiful, funny wife, asked what they make when they cook romantic dinners for their wives. Eric replied with, “I’m not married.” Ouch! And then said they go out to eat. Poor girl’s never going to get a romantic home-cooked meal! That’s what you get for marrying a chef.
After it was over I got Tony to sign my Get Jiro! book and then we went and got our son from snorkeling and, yet again, spent the rest of the day in the ocean, on the beach or in the hot tub. It’s hard to be back home now!
Read about Thursday and Friday!
Posted in beef, celebrities, celebrity, eric ripert, flavor, food, pasta, snapper | No Comments »
Friday, January 11th, 2013
In just a few days we’ll be flying back to the Cayman Cookout for year two of the once-in-a-lifetime culinary extravaganza. We justified it last year by it falling on my actual birthday and Eric Ripert being my favorite chef, blah blah blah. This year we found more organs to sell and justified it again by David Kinch (our local boy representing!) being a chef at the cookout. We asked Eric about having David there when we got our cookbook signed last year so I want to take at least a little credit! ;-)
So, I’ve mentioned this before but something strange happens to me when put in the presence of Chef Eric Ripert. I lose the ability to form coherent sentences. It is highly unusual. I pride myself on starting conversations with people I want to meet and setting up interviews, or at least potential interviews, with them for this site. Neil Gaiman was the first, we remain in touch to this day, 12 years later. Then there was Jason Webley, Sxip Shirey, Kim Boekbinder, Alan Anton, Mark Van Name….all people I admire and consider “celebrities” and none of them have the effect on me that Eric does.
This is why: Neil, Kim, Alan, Mark….even Tori Amos and Amanda Palmer….I’ve spoken with them all and I am in awe of all their talents but I don’t want to do what they do. I’m not a singer, I’m not a fiction writer, I love to cook and talk about food. I love listening to music but producing it isn’t my passion. Cooking is.
My husband is convinced I have a crush on Eric. It’s not that. I’ve been able to have coherent, intelligent conversations with “boys” I’ve had crushes on since I was 15. This is different. Eric has perfected something that I can only dream of doing. He has skills with seafood that I aspire to have.
Oddly, this is not something I want to do for a living. I don’t have the stamina to be a chef in my own restaurant, on my feet from 5am when the suppliers roll in until 2am when the last diners straggle out. I just want to cook the best food I can possibly cook in my kitchen. Eric not only does this with perfection but is a nice guy who is mellow, nice and Buddhist to boot! Every article I read or interview I watch with him makes me more giddy and awkward.
I’ve met his wife and she’s awesome, sweet, beautiful and smart. My son and his son were inseparable at last year’s cookout. All these things would make you think that I would be able to talk to Eric. Yeah…No. Maybe this year?
Grant me the strength and vocabulary to not be a bumbling fool. Give me the wisdom to form a sentence. Or at least not sound like a Brian Regan routine, “Yeah…take luck!!!”…argh!!
Posted in celebrity, eric ripert, interview | No Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
The first event of Saturday morning was one I was really looking forward to. Good vs. Evil – Ripert and Bourdain in conversation. I didn’t realize they had a schtick. They interrogate each other in quite the hilarious way. Tony started on Eric, trying to find his weaknesses…trying to embarrass him. Eric seems to blush quite easily but he’s prepared, it’s all in good fun. Then Eric went at Tony but was still the good cop of the two.
The interesting point in the conversation was when they ended their performance and took questions from the audience. There was a lot of talk about the Food Network chefs. About how Paula Deen is the evilest of them all, I’m sure you’ve heard in the press, because she promotes ridiculously unhealthy food, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago but kept showcasing crap food and is going to be endorsing diabetes pharmeceuticals now. Evil and wrong. This got Tony going more than anything. Until someone brought up Gordon Ramsey. I’ve never seen Eric get upset. He’s usually completely diplomatic about everything. He hates the way Gordon abuses his chefs and not only that, how the show is preloaded with people set up to fail. It is wrong, immoral and damaging to the cooking world.
They also were asked how to get Americans to change their view on food. I completely agree with what Tony said. We have to take the low road. We have to brainwash the kids. Eric’s son thinks that Ronald McDonald kidnaps kids and sometimes they end up in the burgers. That is brilliant. Our son thinks McDonalds is just a bathroom on road trips. You need to make the kids think they’ll be weird or shunned if they eat fast food. If the majority of kids thinks that, it will spread like wildfire. I’ve seen it myself with my kid and his friends. I’ve heard him lecture a friend for going to Burger King. About how awful it is and how it’s not really food. I just hung back and listened, I had nothing to add. To change the world, we have to change the next generation’s thought process.
I briefly gushed at Eric afterward…I cannot talk to that man without praising him endlessly. It’s embarrassing. I have to stop! This time it was about McDonald’s. I love that idea.
  
We made our way to the other side of the resort to Periwinkle for lunch by Laurent Gras. I was really looking forward to this one. After the ceviche on Friday, I knew I’d like what he was doing. I have to admit, I had no idea who he was before he was booked for the Cookout. For being such an avid foodie, I don’t follow the restaurant scene and news all that much unless I’m going somewhere and need somewhere to eat. I missed all the Laurent drama. I was kind of glad for that actually, I came in with a clean slate. He is a genius with freshness and lightness. I left his lunch full but not exhausted and weighed down. We had Conch ceviche with caviar, parsley and lime; Caribbean Lobster with dark rum and lettuce; Wahoo with tomato, ginger and cilantro; and Melon consomme with lemon ginger sorbet.
Our tablemates were marvelous. A woman named Rosemary who makes it a point of getting cookbooks signed everywhere she goes. She has over 500 signed books now in just a few years. A couple from Calgary who are food critics for that area, they were lovely. And Richard Morais, a writer for Barrons and a published author. I just bought his book, The Hundred-Foot Journey and will start reading it soon. It looks fantastic.
For the whole weekend, my husband and I were in the same demos and events except for one. He wanted to drink wine with Aldo Sohm (Le Bernardin’s AMAZING sommelier), I wanted to go see Richard Blais. We both made the right choice and both wished we could be in two places at once. He had wines that were rare and to die for. He snuck me a white burgundy that I savored for as long as I could. Blais was hilarious! He was entertaining, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and so much fun. He made “Oysters and Pearls,” his homage to Thomas Keller but a completely different dish. He took oysters, topped them with a mignonette that had minced cilantro stem in it along with dill, shallots and, of course, vinegar. Then he  topped them with the pearls which were horseradish-creme fraiche frozen in liquid nitgrogen. This session made me want to head to the welding shop and buy myself a container of liquid nitrogen. He also made frozen margaritas by putting the tequila and lime in the mixer and whisking in liquid nitrogen until it became like a sorbet. Genius.
The last demo before dinner was from Eric Ripert himself. Cocktails and Ceviche on the beach. He demonstrated a ceviche and a tartare. Both delicious of course. All the while the sun is turning golden behind him. Our son was playing in the waves with Eric’s son (they had a blast together and Sandra is an utterly sweet and wonderful woman). And we were sipping Moet Chandon and eating Eric’s fish. Life was perfect right then.
Dinner was off-site at Michaels Genuine Food and Drink. We were bussed to the event, given champagne and hors d’euvres and then led to our tables. We had Wahoo crudo, slow roasted pork shoulder, rabbit crepes and lamb scottacdito. None of which I got pictures of because it was too dark but from what we heard the next day, Michael’s was the best dinner of the evening. It was really fantastic.
 After the meal we quickly rushed through the dessert tables, grabbed some absolutely wonderful treats and then had to rush back to get our son from camp again. The disadvantage of having our son with us was having to dart out of things early, the advantage was…well, everything else. He had such an amazing time and when we picked him up that just meant we weren’t hanging around events too late, getting too tired and too drunk. I think it worked out well for all of us.
Only one more day to go. Everything flew by so fast.
Read about Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 4!
Posted in celebrities, celebrity, decadence, dinner, eric ripert, flavor, food, Le Bernardin, table dance, tasting menu, tuna tartare, wine | No Comments »
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
The first real day of the Cookout began at 10am. As Jose Andres put it, “Who puts a cooking class at 10am?! You start a cooking class at 3pm so you have the day sleep and then do your things…then cook!” But he didn’t seem to be slowed by the early start. As Dana Cowin was introducing him for demonstration, she was wondering where he was. As she was saying, “He has got to be here somewhere…” he came bounding on the stage straight out of the ocean in his scuba gear with his ten year old daughter. He is a character to say the least. We were all seated in a tent with the people who payed extra with their American Express Platinum Cards having the preferred seats in the front rows. He undid all that (hilariously) by getting everyone up and out into the blazing sun on the beach, around ENORMOUS paella pans over fires built in the sand. He immediately started hollering for volunteers: 2 people for each pan to stir and add ingredients, 4 people to help make the cocktails, 3 people to grill oysters…go go go!!!
 
The fires were hot. The sun was hot. His sous chefs were in jeans. I thought they were going to pass out but they have to be strong to work for this guy. The dish he was making was called Fideo. It’s like paella but made with pasta instead of rice. Much easier to control the outcome of when cooking for 100 people over open flames on a beach! Pork ribs, tomatoes, pasta (short angel hair), lobster, broth. Everyone was sweating like mad in the heat of the day and the fires but the cocktails started flowing. Fruit, mint, champagne…a beautiful, refreshing way to begin drinking at 10am!!
 
I stood next to Dana Cowin and shamelessly plugged my web site. All the while Jose is running around like a madman and then puts a song on the PA, passes around lyrics and has us all sing along. He is amazing and the food was phenomenal. He’s completely insane and a blast to see cook.
Our next ticket was for a Behind the Scenes tour of Blue by Eric Ripert. They don’t ever just call it “Blue”, it is always “Blue by Eric Ripert”. That was making me laugh.
 
Anyway, we arrived and grabbed a front row seat. Luis Lujan is the Executive Chef at Blue (by Eric Ripert) and walked us through the preparation of the dishes we’d be having for lunch. The first was wahoo. If you ever have a chance to eat wahoo, DO IT! This is an incredible fish. It looks like hamachi but it melts in your mouth. He cut it perfectly, seared in perfectly and dressed it perfectly. I would expect no less. Eric popped in to say hello and then we all got a brief tour of the kitchen. It’s not a huge kitchen and in 2 days time would be filled with the world’s best chefs making 164 plates each for the Gala Dinner. Incredible.
  
We then sat on the patio for our lovely lunch. The wine flows continuously at these events. I’m amazed I could walk but something happens on these sorts of adventures and what would result in me being horizontal at home is just par for the course as the weekend goes on. Probably not healthy but this is not an every day occurence.
 
The afternoon treated us to a demo by April Bloomfield of which I only got to catch the end. Then a beautiful green curry ceviche by Laurent Gras. I was so ridiculously full by this point, I was scared of what Laurent was going to present but it was so light and refreshing that it was more like a cocktail with some fish in it than a meal. It was almost a palate cleanser. He took the ingredients of a green curry but instead of making it a heavy dish full of coconut milk, he used coconut water and created a light ceviche. Something I will definitely try at home.
The first of the epic evening events was the Barefoot BBQ at Tiki Beach. They had a shuttle running from the hotel to the event but it was a whopping 2km away, on the beach, we decided to walk. Really for two reasons: one, we were already so full, we needed to work up an appetite and two, we had to pick up our son from his amazing camp at the hotel before the shuttles were going to be running at the end of the event and we needed to time the walk. What a beautiful way to get to the BBQ. I’m so glad we did that. We didn’t have to wait in line with anxious rich folks who complain if things aren’t exactly as they think they should be, we were walking along the white sandy beach of Grand Cayman at dusk. You can’t beat that.
We arrived at Tiki Beach and it was crazy-busy. Our first stop was Tony Bourdain’s station and some sumptuous pork. He’s still got it man. He may be more known for traveling and writing now but 28 years in the kitchen doesn’t just vanish. He makes a mean pig. We worked our way to the complete opposite end of the venue and found Jose Andres being loud and hilarious as usual as his chefs carved thin slices of Jamon Iberico. I will never be able to eat prosciutto again now that I’ve experienced Iberico. Dryer, saltier, damn it was good. It was atop some sliced beef. So now I’ve had pork, I’ve had beef with pork on top and we waltz over to Eric Ripert’s station where he’s serving beef tenderloin. Why not?! Pork, beef and pork, beef….so full. I thought I made a damn fine tenderloin but, as usual, Eric takes it beyond.
We found a table in the back near Jose Andres and relaxed with our plates for a bit. We got to visit with some fabulous people. I wasn’t sure how the attendees would be at this. There is a lot of money here obviously. And there are some people that have more money than I could ever imagine having and are real snots about it. They have their Gucci and Valentino clothes shipped to them to try on because they live an hour from the Galleria and that’s just too damn inconvenient for shopping. Just one example. But the people we visited with at the BBQ were all wonderful. One woman was a coordinator for the event. One couple had been before but brough his mom this year from Michigan. There were a lot of Canadians representing. Maybe because of Paul Rogalski being there or maybe becuase it’s usually 25 below this time of year and it’s a great escape.
After a few nibbles of dessert we headed back to the beach and walked back to the hotel under the stars….many more stars than we get to see in our neck of the woods. Mars was so bright it was reflecting off the ocean. Amazing.
Read about Day 1, Day 3 and Day 4!
Posted in celebrity, decadence, eric ripert, flavor, food, Le Bernardin, photos, seasonal menu, table dance | No Comments »
Monday, October 10th, 2011
 We were in New York City for a family event. Neil Gaiman has been telling me for I don’t know how many years now to go to Sasabune so I made sure I got reservations while we were there. My husband, 7 year old son and I were all going but I made the reservation for four people knowing I’d be able to fill that seat. Not only did I fill the seat, I filled it with the talented, fun, remarkable Sxip Shirey.
We made our way through the rain and found Sasabune. An unimposing, somewhat hidden sushi bar at 73rd and 1st. There are very few tables. There are no menus. The sign on the wall says, “Today’s Special: Trust me.” I did. Fully. We sat down, ordered some tea and sake and got down to food talk.
The first dish out was albacore in a soy marinade.
Sxip: This is fascinating. This is very fascinating… [takes a bite of the albacore] Oh my God… Oh my God. I really like eating raw flesh a lot.
Chantrelle: Me too. I’m a big fan.
Sxip: In Germany for breakfast they have a kind of raw pork on bread.
Chantrelle: Raw pork is something I haven’t had and I’ve only ever heard of it being served in Germany.
Sxip: It’s really good. This is so lovely.
So, let’s talk about food. I’m a big fan of whatever is the moonshine of whatever culture. When I travel and tour, old men come up with this crooked finger like “come hither” and they pull out some bottle. I was on tour with Gentlemen and Assassins, which is Brian Viglione, Elyas Khan and myself.
Chantrelle: I know I just helped Kickstarter your project.
Sxip: It’s going to be great. I mean it’s three bull clowns on stage. It’s great. Anyway, we were in some French village in a great venue. I got their local grappa but it was called something else—wine turned into hard liquor. I don’t remember the name…not marc.
And then in North Carolina, I really, really love drinking moonshine. Moonshine isn’t like any other alcohol. You feel really awake.
Chantrelle: That’s a dangerous game.
Sxip: You don’t feel like it’s bad for you. In Hungary and those places you get rakia. It can be like battery acid. It’ll come in empty Pepsi bottles. It usually has a slight color to it. And then there’s Slivovitz. It’s plum-based. Rakia is also plum or cherry-based.
You have to have the clear stuff. Rakia isn’t totally clear and it really… Yeah… The first time I had it was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Years ago. I got a crush on a Serbian girl. We hung out and her guys give me a shot of it. I never had it like this again. It literally numbed my tongue. You swallow it and it hits you a second later. It’s Bugs Bunny cartoon alcohol. Your eyes bug out. That was the first time and I was like, “What the hell was that?” But I do really like it. I’m glad it’s not around me regularly. I don’t have moonshine readily available.
Luminescent Orchestrii was touring and I let it be known that I like moonshine. There’s this great festival called Shakori Hills in North Carolina. A guy put a little mason jar of moonshine on the edge of the stage. Then I took it to a brass band—I love brass bands—I love the brass band scene. To me it is the punk scene of this time. People doing music for the fun of it. Huge bands: Mucca Pazza out of Chicago, Killsonic at of L.A., Hungry March Band from New York (kind of the grand mammy-pappy of a lot of them), Black Bear Combo out of Chicago, there was Infernal Noise Brigade, What Cheer Brigade out of Providence. They’re really great. Internationally too: the Pink Puffers out of France.
Chantrelle: I’m totally ignorant of that entire scene.
Sxip: It’s amazing. Once you see it, it makes amplified music seems stupid. It does. Amplified music is stupid. We are so far away from understanding that. It is so not cool—it’s the reverse of cool. It just makes people distant from music. I obviously use amplification when I play, but I always have to have an acoustic thing too.
[Here comes more food. Yellowfin tuna and Toro. With each dish, we’re instructed: “No soy sauce.” or "Soy Sauce."]
Sxip: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Wow, what is that?
Chantrelle: Toro. The fatty part around the belly of the tuna. It’s like fish butter.
| It’s like if meat was ice cream. |
Sxip: It is like fish butter.
There’s this restaurant in North Carolina, in Asheville. Lumiis are on tour. We go and eat there. It’s from the Veracruz region of Mexico. It is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had
Chantrelle: In North Carolina?
Sxip: Yes, in North Carolina. And Benjy is from L.A. and says the same thing. It’s not fancy stuff, it’s tacos, soup. It’s in a grocery, right? And the beef cheek tacos. It’s like if meat was ice cream.
Chantrelle: How did you discover that place?
Sxip: Three of the bandmates are really into food and Benjy and I are really into finding tacos. Real ones. When we go there, he eats with his eyes shut. It’s really amazing. And he’s from L.A. He said it was better than anything he’d had in LA. There’s great food in LA. But it’s probably regional. Why would this be different? The cook is a mom and it’s probably a regional cuisine. But those beef cheek tacos…Of course a lot of people in town don’t even know that place exists.
It’s also very common that people like to feed me meat. I put out a vibe of hard liquor and meat.
| I put out a vibe of hard liquor and meat. |
Walking down in the East Village by a meat pie store, this guy runs up and goes, “Sxip!” He’s a fan of mine and I don’t know him but he gives me a free meat pie. I was really obsessed with meat pies. I’d go to England and I learned to talk about it on stage:
Imagine a world where you have pie and you love pie and you have meat and you love meat. But in this world there are no meat pies. Imagine someone who loves pie and loves meat coming to a magical place where they fused the two together into something wonderful.
I’d say this on stage to explain to the English why I love meat pies. I guess if someone said “you have bread and you have ground beef and you put it together magically.” That’s what it’s like.
The best one though—we played on the Isle of Jersey. The Isle of Jersey is a tax haven on the English Channel. The Rolling Stones manager used to go there with suitcases full of cash. We did a show and I got really drunk with these puppeteers afterwards.
Chantrelle: Not a sentence many people utter.
Sxip: Yeah, I have even weirder sentences when I’m talking about circus life.
There were some locals there that knew me through Amanda I think. And I was like, “I want to eat meat pies.” And they were like, “It’s late but we’ll hook you up.” Apparently it’s late for the licensing for the bakeries and all the bakeries are shut. But what they do is sell illegal meat pies out the back door.
Chantrelle: Black-market meat pies!
Sxip: Yeah. So I’m in a line behind this bakery and there’s a line of drunk people by the gate. There’s a slot in the gate where you shove money through and they shove meat pies back.
Chantrelle: Like a speakeasy for meat pies.
Sxip: I’m really drunk and eating these meat pies. Cheese ones, all these meat ones. And I remember the kid looking at me and he said, “I thought you’d be cool.” I’m like, “No man, you’ve got the wrong guy!”
Chantrelle: You thought wrong!
Sxip: I’m not going to fit into your adolescent-needs-social-order-internal-instinct.
We performed in Grenoble, France. The cheese center of France. They make the best cheese. Gentlemen and Assassins tour a lot and we want to do it right. We were only going to countries that have good food.
Chantrelle: That’s the way to do it.
Sxip: Brian and I were talking about doing a food blog every day on this tour.
Chantrelle: Do it! I’ll read that.
Sxip: We were like, “Give us local stuff.” The cheese I ate made me see god. So complex. It’s probably not pasteurized.
Chantrelle: It’s tasting you while you eat it.
Sxip: Exactly. That the cheese was amazing. There was this one goat cheese. I grew up with goats and if it tastes goaty I don’t like it. But my dad says if you feed them right it doesn’t taste goaty. I can’t eat goat cheese in this country because it tastes so goaty. That cheese was amazing though. It made your brain skip a beat. It is getting so much information. The oldest part of our brain is dedicated to olfactory senses and it’s the largest part. Maybe the newer parts are more complex.
[More fish arrives: butterfish (soy sauce), fluke (no soy sauce), red snapper (soy sauce)]
Sxip: Yeah…mmmmmmm, that snapper!
Luminescent Orchestrii played in Bath England. Bath is an interesting town because it was a Roman town. The beer in that region—I’ve never had such good beer. You come back and drink craft beers here…
Chantrelle: It’s the water.
Sxip: It’s not just that though we mistake hoppiness for sophistication. “Ooh, it’s so hoppy.” It’s like beets. You can put lots of beets in something and you just have a lot of beets, not sophistication.
[More fish comes, warm...No soy sauce]
Sxip: I’m just going to stop talking for this…… Wow. Yummy. Oh wow. Eat that. This is just delicious. That sauce!
Chantrelle: I should never go to sushi that Neil doesn’t recommend!
Sxip: Yeah, this is so good.
[More fish comes. Uni from Catalina Island included on Sxip’s plate. I said I didn’t want Uni when we arrived. Sxip did not.]
Sxip: In my personal mythology, there are only two things I don’t like: Swiss cheese and sea urchin.
Chantrelle: I’ve tried it multiple times and have given up.
[Sxip tries the urchin]
Sxip: I went from neutral to No then I liked the after salty taste. I tell people, don’t make me a sea urchin Swiss cheese patty melt. [not sure how often that would come up!]
Chantrelle: I’m a foodie but there are all these things you’d expect a foodie to be into, like cheese, that I won’t eat. It’s been such a hassle. We’ll go to someplace, get the tasting menu, and we don’t know what’s coming out so we’ll tell the waiter, “Don’t bring us this, that, and the other thing.” And then it’s this game of telephone or we forget something. So I got this idea to just have a card. Hand it to the waiter and then it’s done.
[Sxip looks at the card]
Sxip: No organ meats, that’s a shame. We should talk about foie gras. I finally had it in France. It’s evil food.
| If you want to imagine what that looks like, imagine duck hearts on a plate. |
Luminescent Orchestrii were at this great little arts festival in this ancient walled city in France. We performed there… Actually I have a great story. There’s this French accordionist who is doing regional French accordion music. We went to lunch. It’s France so it’s very meat oriented. You can either have the steak or the duck hearts. This is my only meal of the day and I’m an adventurous eater but I got the steak. I get the steak and I go sit down and this guy has a plate of duck hearts. If you want to imagine what that looks like, imagine duck hearts on a plate.
Exactly how it sounds. He looked at me with this look of concern, slight anger, and confusion and said, “Why would you get steak when you can have duck hearts?” He piles a bunch of the duck hearts onto my plate. The duck hearts are amazing. They’re like the tenderest steak you’ve ever eaten. The steak pales in comparison…Pales in comparison.
Chantrelle: What’s the texture?
Sxip: Like meat. Soft. It’s a blood rich muscle—the strongest muscle in your body.
Chantrelle: I’d have to have someone give that to me not knowing what it is.
Sxip: You can’t not know what it is, it looks like a heart! I like parts to look like parts.
Then at the end of our trip someone found out that our bassist, Benjy, had never had foie gras. This guy had foie gras he’d canned himself. Then Benjy is talking to this woman he just met and said, “So you kind of torture the duck to do this?” And she’s like, “Oh no… They like it.”
Chantrelle: Right, they run to the funnel.
Sxip: So he said, “What do the farmers do?” She said, “They hold the duck down and put the tube down their throats.” Benjy’s like, “Wait, how is it they like it if they have to be forced?” I went to Benjy and said, “That’s why the hearts are so big. The farmer’s giving the duck love. He’s holding it because he loves it. The heart gets bigger and bigger and then they feed us the hearts too!”
We had a few days off and we went to see this American woman and French guy. They have a theater retreat where they live with their child in France and there are all these lavender fields. It’s like van Gogh land. Sunflower fields too. They find out we have foie gras and they serve it with great pomp. I was thinking about that foie gras 3 days later. It was amazing. I wish I could have it all the time… No I don’t, I can’t for moral reasons.
Chantrelle: I had it at the French laundry and didn’t like it. I figured if I have it there and don’t like it I’m not going to.
Sxip: At a laundry?
Chantrelle: No, the French Laundry. Thomas Keller’s restaurant in Napa Valley. I give everything a shot once.
Sxip: The other thing about that dinner was we made burritos. We make burritos, we set the whole thing on the table and then we don’t eat for 2 hours! We didn’t understand this. No one said we are going to do this so it sat and got cold. We sat drinking for 2 hours then eating. Then drinking for 2 hours then having the foie gras.
This is the big lie about the French: “The French don’t drink to get drunk.” What fantasy land do you live in? Do you ever hear this from people? They don’t drink to get drunk? They drink with food. Yes, they do, but they drink for 2 hours before, drink during the food, then afterwards and then for breakfast probably and then lunch.
Chantrelle: It’s not that they don’t appreciate their alcohol. They appreciate it in quantity.
Sxip: The French people are thin but that’s because they don’t eat crap.
Chantrelle: People say that to me. “How are you so skinny and a foodie?” I eat food! I don’t eat crap. I eat good food.
Sxip: If you don’t each shit with corn syrup in it…
Chantrelle: …or deep-fried processed crap.
Sxip: I eat a lot. I eat fat. I eat all that stuff, but I don’t eat processed foods. I love fatty meat. I lived in Texas for 3 years. Texas brisket—oh my God, there’s nothing like it! It ruins you for barbecue anywhere else. They cook it for 10 to 15 hours. It’s got this layer of creosote. There is this one place, I walked in and it was all firefighter sitting there, I thought this is going to be good. When I ordered, the woman grabbed a knife and cut a big piece of creosote soaked fat for me to gnaw on…not even gnaw on, for it to melt in my mouth while she goes in the back to get me my brisket. Texans don’t do much well but they can cook meat like nobody else on the planet. There are certain things I really love and that’s great.
[Crab rolls come... An uncut maki filled with blue crab and rice. Long pause of moaning and breathing]
Sxip: This is such comfort food somehow.
[More breathing and moaning]
Sxip: Next time you’re in New York, go to Fatty Crab. Sit at the bar and get the pork and watermelon salad. It’s incredible. It’s watermelon and green shoots of something and crispy pork skin and big piece of pork fat. Amazing. Fatty Crab I love. Whenever I have a really good gig I take some and there as a treat. [We went the next night, it was heavenly. The watermelon and pork salad was absolutely to die for.]
I think I told my best food stories….Oh wait…Neil and Amanda flew me and the Luminescent Orchestrii to their family wedding party on the Isle of Skye. It was so lovely. He gave me as a gift a jar of extra strength, extra aged Marmite. I finally got it the other day…you have to overtoast the bread a little bit, use Irish butter—slather it on there—then you put the right amount of Marmite. The butter and Marmite fuse into one flavor and it’s just like heaven exploding in your mouth.
[I make a totally disgusted face]
Sxip: You’re a foodie??! I wish my house was closer, I’d make you go back and try it! I’m going to make you Marmite.
Chantrelle: I’d try it.
Sxip: The thing about Marmite is it’s going to last forever but it gives you the sense that you’re eating meat. Triggering something in your brain. You mix that with the fat of the butter and the toasted piece of bread so you have the heat. You’re sinking your teeth into some animal. Easy to chew animal.
I wish I lived near here. I’d so make you Marmite perfectly. I’ll make you Marmite with Marmite from Neil Gaiman.
Chantrelle: We’ll have to make a date.
Sxip: People love to love it and love to hate it. So it creates a great dynamic.
Chantrelle: Some people even write songs about it…well Vegemite at least.
Sxip: The other thing I got from Neil was amazing by the way. He has bees and he gave us jars of his honey. I grew up with bees too.
My father says he remembers cutting the honey and my brother and I would reach over, there would be tinfoil on the table while he was cutting the comb and we would get some on our fingers and it would still be warm. It was so nice. My father was a mathematician who was obsessed with having a giant, gigantic garden that I worked in. We had a lot of these very visceral food experiences. That’s why can’t eat vegetables anywhere. They don’t taste like anything.
Chantrelle: What is your best childhood food memory?
Sxip: My best childhood food memory is standing with my brother. My dad had just made yogurt. He’d pull out a spoonful of yogurt and I’d run up and get a bite then run back in line and my brother would get a bite. I remember that specifically.
Chantrelle: If you could only eat food from one region in the world, including alcohol….
Sxip: [without hesitation] Japan.
I really love English food. Basic meat, a good piece of cheese, good beer. I love it. There’s a Colombian restaurant called Bogota. Really good Colombian food.
Chantrelle: I don’t think I know what Colombian food is.
Sxip: Very good. I suggest that place. I mean I love Indian food and was really in love with it when I first got here. There’s a restaurant called Hummus here that only serves hummus. Amazing. Hummus and one soup. Really good.
As an answer though, Japanese food. I could eat that all day.
Chantrelle: Japan’s great because you can also still get beef.
Sxip: I just love eating raw meat and fish…and I love ginger.
Chantrelle: And sake…Next question: What is your favorite comfort food?
Sxip: Right now a jar of Paul Newman’s spaghetti sauce and Amy’s broccoli and spinach pizza. I put the sauce on there and cook it. For a mass-produced thing, the Newman’s sauce is good. And the Amy’s thing is decent but their whole thing about pizza is not having tomato sauce on it so I add the sauce. Then I watch a movie and eat that. My comfort food right now… Bachelor comfort food
Chantrelle: What do you want your last meal to be?
Sxip: My choice I won’t be able to have because she won’t be around unless I die early, is my mother’s borek or peta. It’s like spanakopita. They make it in Serbia/Eastern Europe. You hand roll thin pieces of bread—a little thicker than phyllo dough—roll out the dough and fold it and fold it. Each layer has butter and it’s filled with cottage cheese and egg. My family calls it peta which means bread. If I could have that that’s the food my Albanian grandmother made and my aunts made. I love it. It’s the most comforting food. My mother came here and I had a bunch of people from the Balkans here. I’m really into music of the Balkans. A bunch of the ladies came over and my mother gave a lesson on how to do it. She doesn’t like it so much, she thinks it’s boring but she makes it because all of her children love it. She went to Aunt Helen who came over here with my Grandma Panny. My mother went and figured out the things my grandmother did that she wasn’t doing. One of the things is that after you roll the dough, you do this thing to the dough with the dowel rod…Not a rolling pin, a dowl…And put in these hash like air pockets in the dough. My mother also wouldn’t knead the dough with her hands, she would use a spoon. My aunt was like, “You’re using a spoon!” Horrified. It makes a difference like all things, like Indian fry bread uses the same materials but it’s how you stretch the bread and give it a mouthfeel of something different.
I would have peta, or as the world knows it, borek.
Chantrelle: It’s your turn to cook dinner, what do you make?
Sxip: I do a pizza that’s olive oil, walnuts and blue cheese. With maybe thinly sliced peppers and maybe thinly sliced tomatoes as a slight flavoring but mostly its about the really good, good olive oil.
More commonly in New York I’ll find a place that has really good sausage and buy some Eastern European pepper spread: Ajvar. Take that to a potluck with a big hunk of sausage.
Chantrelle: The classic food porn question: What do you consider the sexiest food?
Sxip: [very quickly] Mangoes. Who doesn’t?
Chantrelle: You’d be surprised at the answers I get to this question.
Sxip: I lived in Texas for 3 years. One of my late-night things was I’d walk from my house past Mi Madre’s which had the best breakfast tacos.
Chantrelle: That’s what my friend Adri misses about Texas! She almost didn’t move to San Francisco because of those breakfast tacos.
Sxip: Shredded potatoes, cheese, egg and salsa. God damn I remember exactly what it tastes like. We were poor and my girlfriend would sneak them because we had a budget.
I would walk late at night, buy 2 mangoes for dollar, and sit in the parking lot and eat mangoes with my hands. I never taste mangoes like that here. You can’t get them.
Chantrelle: We had mangoes everyday in Australia. The were unbelievable.
[More toro comes]
Sxip: This is intense because the fish is so cold and the rice is warm.
Oh, there’s one thing that’s sexy. If you share a whole chicken with a woman… My God.
I had a date. I went out with this woman and we had one good date. Advice to young men: ask a woman to tea and they’re charmed by you. Ask a woman to tea and they’ll never say no.
Chantrelle: Coffee, eh… Drinks, hmmm.
Sxip: Tea! If a woman is more interested in you she’ll say, “Let’s get whiskey instead.” Always. We did the tea date. We met at a tea shop, made it adventurous. It throws them off their guard which is what you want to do. Get them out of their habit.
Chantrelle: “He’s so sophisticated, he asked me to tea!”
Sxip: Exactly. This is the kind of thing that even if a woman knows your plan she’s still going to be charmed.
Chantrelle: Brilliant!
Sxip: The next time we met at her house and decided to make a meal and we made a chicken. And then we just started eating the chicken with our hands and then continued with that taking apart of things and consuming them. It was a really good.
Chantrelle: Nice.
Sxip: Probably one of the best dates I’ve ever had in my life.
Chantrelle: Very visceral.
Sxip: It traveled from there. We were on her couch because she didn’t have a dining room table. It was perfect. I’m advising all young men out there: Tea then chicken. No utensils.
Chantrelle: “Oh darn, forgot the forks!” I love the answers to that question because people tend to start at one thing…
Sxip: Then they remember what worked!
Have you ever eaten mofungo? A lump of plantains infused with stringy pork. You can’t eat it more than once or twice in your life because it sticks with you. My two favorite food names are mofungo and muffaletta. You have to try mofungo. Look it up, find a Cuban joint—I think it’s Cuban, maybe Spanish. Super comfort food. Don’t fool yourself, go there and share a plate. If you need more food, order afterwards. I get that and a Cubana sandwich and am always like, “Why the hell did I get the sandwich?”
This was lovely.
Chantrelle: It was so good! No wonder Neil has been recommending us for so long.
Sxip: Man I love eating raw meat. You have to eat foie gras… No you don’t, I feel bad saying that. You know what’s great? Those Vietnamese sandwiches that have liver paste on them…Do like those?
Chantrelle: I haven’t tried them.
Sxip: It’s on a baguette with the liver paste, radishes and carrots, great pork with great sauce. That I love. Look it up but make sure it’s a good place.
Chantrelle: There is a great pho place I go to, I wonder if they have those. They do pho with tripe and things like that.
Sxip: Supposedly stomach/tripe soup when it’s done well is amazing. I just haven’t had it yet.
Chantrelle: I grew up in a little farm town in central California and we had a lot of Mexican influence there but I just never liked tripe soup.
Sxip: I’ve had haggis and I like it okay. But blood sausage/black pudding, God I love it! It’s so good. The best comfort food ever.
Chantrelle: It’s really rich.
Sxip: Not that… I mean it’s oatmeal and blood.
Chantrelle: That’s rich.
Sxip: I love it. It’s the thing I love most about English and Scottish breakfast.
Chantrelle: I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone so enthusiastic about food from that part of the world.
Sxip: I’m pretty enthusiastic about food wherever I go.
Yes, he is. We had such a wonderful lunch with so many stories. There were many times that I’d just laugh at references or explanations like “I was with these pyrotechnic clowns from Canada.” There wasn’t a dull moment and he truly loves food from every corner of the world. Unfortunately, we had to wrap up lunch. I’m glad I could find another enthusiastic eater to chat with and it just so happens he’s also an amazing musician.
Someday, I will try Sxip’s marmite toast…I’m not optimistic, but I’ll try.
Posted in ahi, celebrities, celebrity, crab, flavor, food, interview, restaurant, restaurants, rice, Salmon, snapper, sushi, table dance, tasting menu | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
Every time we go to Chicago I try to go to Alinea. My in-laws live there so we go at least once a year. Every time, something gets in the way. The first time we had reservations and I got sick, my husband went with his dad and they had an amazing meal. The trips since then we seem to always be in town on a Monday or Tuesday, the days they are closed!
Even without having dined there, I’m a huge fan of Grant Achatz. The more I get into his book (I’m about half way through it now), the bigger fan-girl I become. I went to see him at Omnivore Books with his business partner, Nick Kokonas. They were both wonderfully nice, entertaining, genuine and all-around good guys.
They started the talk by pointing out the elephant in the room and explained that yes, Grant’s got his sense of taste back, it was gone for over a year. I can’t imagine what that would be like. It’s unreal that it could happen to a chef like Grant. We’re the same age, he’s actually about 3 months younger than me I think. Not only is he one of the best chefs in the country, he almost died. That’s a real seize-the-day kind of eye opener if there ever was one. What is on my to-do list?
Nick and Grant told an amazing story about being insistently-invited to dinner at Spago in LA. Grant hadn’t yet eaten a full solid-food meal. He was regaining his sense of taste but wasn’t nearly back to 100% as far as eating normally. He said to Nick, “I hope you’re hungry” because he didn’t want to let on that he couldn’t enjoy this food, it’s not good for a chef’s reputation, so Nick was going to have to eat Grant’s portion as well. As it turns out, he didn’t have to. Grant ate and truly loved every course. It was a huge milestone….oh, and they got seated in front of a very annoyed Don Johnson. LOL!
One of the questions that came up was what would Grant have done if his sense of taste hadn’t returned. One of the things he pointed out was that so many of the dishes at Alinea aren’t initially inspired by taste. They come from a smell (which he didn’t lose his sense of) or a visual concept. It would be difficult, but at least for a while, he would have continued to cook.
I am looking at when I can make it to Chicago again. Right now they’re working on launching Next and Aviary. Next is a completely insane concept that will either take off and revolutionize prix fixe menus or totally bomb. Next is selling tickets in advance. You pay for your whole meal, alcohol and gratuity up front. I think it’s genius. They are also changing the menu every 3 months–completely. The first menu is Early-1900′s France. The second is Thailand. Yeah, I meant COMPLETELY.
I had a great time listening to Grant and Nick’s stories and getting to chat with them afterwards. I hope to get to try Grant’s food now more than ever. I have such a tremendous respect for the risks he has taken and the amazing adversities he’s overcome both personally and culinarily. Now, to get back to the book….
Posted in celebrities, celebrity, French Laundry | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
I met Jason for sushi at Ozumo in Oakland on a rainy, rainy Tuesday before a “secret” show he had just announced at a venue that was closing called 21 Grand. It was a place dear to his heart as it was the original location for the first Monsters of Accordion show. The original “Monsters” gathered for one last, grand night of music together under that roof.
So although it may seem odd that there are no pictures of food but pictures of accordions in a FoodPorn interview, well, it is…but I was so enjoying my conversation with Jason, I completely forgot to take pictures of our meal!
Chantrelle: So how was the LA show?
Jason: It was really good. It was a little bit quieter. It was a rainy Sunday in Los Angeles so I guess people don’t go out at all.
Chantrelle: People don’t know how to deal with rain down there.
Jason: But we did really well I think.
Chantrelle: It was a really fun show Saturday.
Jason: Thank you
Chantrelle: It was so great. I got a hotel that night so I didn’t have to drive all the way back to Santa Cruz in the crazy storm. I got back to the hotel at 2am and couldn’t go to sleep. I was too amped from the show.
Jason: It was great to be with that group of people. I had never seen Renee [de la Prade] perform solo. I’ve seen her street perform but not onstage. And I’ve seen her with her band. So it was a little bit of a crapshoot how she’d do.
Chantrelle: She did great!
Jason: Yeah. And then the Petrojvic Brothers…
Chantrelle: I loved them! New favorite band!
Jason: I hadn’t seen them performing except with a bigger band a year ago. They’re getting so much better, so exponentially fast. Booking them was also a risky thing.
Chantrelle: The risk definitely paid off.
Jason: Yeah.
Chantrelle: As soon as they finished their set I went and bought their CD. I listened to it on the drive home. I want to get a copy for my mom, she’s a Squirrel Nut Zippers fan so I think she’d really like them. There’s a huge similarity. That was so fun.
The waitress comes up to talk about menu and specials. Jason and I are both put off by the complicated and trendy approach to the sushi. We had to go out of our way to order simple rolls…just fish and rice…without sauces or crazy colorful toppings. Their special roll for the night was designed for and named after an Oakland A’s player. Yes, seriously.
Jason: I usually like really simple sushi.
Chantrelle: Yes, this seems to be a really hip and trendy downtown thing. Do you usually get sashimi or rolls?
Jason: I usually get rolls and a couple of pieces of nigiri. Fancy rolls scare me. They usually put weird sauces and stuff that I don’t get.
Chantrelle: When I was out Saturday night, we left it up to the waitress. “We’re talking, we’re hungry, just bring us food.” She brought out things I never would have ordered. A couple of things had spicy sauce and I wouldn’t have ordered those but they were still good.
Jason: I like the spicy sauces usually but it’s weird when they start putting mayonnaise-y stuff on them.
Chantrelle: They’re calling it aioli here to make it sound like it’s not mayonnaise but it is.
The waitress returns for our order. We struggle to get the simple things we want. Sashimi starter plate, edamame that’s just warm w/ salt—not sautéed with garlic and soy! A couple of orders of sashimi and tekka maki. Sushi shouldn’t be this hard to order! Then we dive right into the FoodPorn questions.
Chantrelle: What’s your best childhood food memory?
Jason: I don’t know. I think you’d have to narrow it down, like, name some food. Does that make sense?
Chantrelle: You don’t have some sort of…
Jason: …amazing thing that happened with food?
Chantrelle: No..no, like, one of mine is sitting in the garden in the back yard eating peas straight off the vine. Just a fond memory of childhood that you have that involves food.
Jason: The first thing that came to mind was this dish that I haven’t had since I was a kid that my parents used to make. I always assumed it was this standard dish that people ate everywhere. It was called “Broadway Joe.” I don’t remember much about it except that it had spinach in it, and I think ground beef. I’m a vegetarian now so I don’t eat Broadway Joe anymore but I don’t even know what it was. It drifted away from what my parents ever made but I really loved that when I was a kid. If anyone ever comes up with a vegetarian Broadway Joe…
Chantrelle: It probably wouldn’t be the same with the soy-meat substitute.
Jason: No. I do remember eating fresh peas off the vine in my grandfather’s garden too.
Chantrelle: I also remember…the skill that I didn’t inherit, my mom made a lot of pastry things. Cream puffs, pies. I can’t make a pie to save my life.
Jason: One of my grandmothers I think actually had a candy shop for a while. She was kind of famous throughout the family for making these sweets. Everyone raved over them. For me though, even as a kid, they were kind of too sweet. My dad laments about her fudge being gone but it was the most sweet stuff you could imagine from how I remember it. But I really liked peanut brittle and caramely things. I had some of her peanut brittle but I don’t think I ever had any of her caramel. There was this lore about it. At a certain age I decided I wanted to learn to be a candy maker. I had some recipe books and I started experimenting with making caramel. I did probably 10 different experiments, all with this same recipe, but because I didn’t have the right stuff and because I was a little kid, the results were impressively varying from one batch to the next. I’d cook up one batch and it would never harden, it would just be this runny gooey mess. Another batch would just turn into a rock that you couldn’t bite, it was almost impenetrable. I think somewhere along the way I made a batch that was actually chewy, nice caramel. But the most amazing batch, it seemed perfect. It was the perfect color, the right texture. You’d put it in your mouth and be like, “Ohhh” but as you would chew on it, it would harden and become like a rock. It started off creamy and soft and as you chewed on it it would solidify and you wouldn’t be able to pull your teeth apart. Whatever terrible tooth-cement candy you’ve ever encountered, this was…I mean…I remember having to wait until it pretty much completely dissolved before I could move my teeth. I wish I could perfect that. What a great gift! To give those out on Halloween.
Chantrelle: It sounds like something from Harry Potter, the trick candies.
Jason: If only I’d kept better notes.
Chantrelle: There’s some temperature variation that will produce that result that someone has to figure out. The candy thermometer is vital.
Jason: I didn’t have one of those. I had a turkey thermometer that I kept dipping in it.
Chantrelle: That’s the part of baking I don’t like. It’s too precise. I don’t like to measure. I don’t like to pay attention to temperatures. It’s not my thing. We just recently decided that since I cook, my husband makes alcoholic things (beer, mead, cider), that our son should become a pastry chef. He thought it was a great idea when he found out he’d get to make cakes and cookies all the time.
What’s your favorite comfort food?
Jason: Miso soup actually. Not sure it’s my favorite but it’s way up there.
Chantrelle: I eat it when I’m sick so it is comforting.
Jason: When else do you want a comfort food other than when you’re sick? When I think of comfort food I think of being a little bit sick.
Chantrelle: Sometimes you just need something to mellow you out, curl up with a blanket and relax. Or when it’s cold and rainy outside.
Jason: I’ve been traveling with little packets of miso soup.
Chantrelle: Nice. It’s good that it’s convenient as well.
What do you want your last meal to be?
Jason: Late….Rescheduled…A surprise.
Chantrelle: Really? A surprise?
Jason: I don’t know. I think maybe my perspective will shift. There are people who want to die with full consciousness. And I, in a way, want to die with full consciousness. You go back and forth. A peaceful death in your sleep seems kind of appealing but also it’s a big important part of this particular ride we’re on. Perhaps it would be interesting and important to be present for that part of the ride rather than sleep through it. Knowing what my last meal would be means a certain amount of awareness of my fate. A surprise would mean…I feel like one of the big parts of life that makes it so fascinating is there are these huge things we never know about….that being kind of the biggest one. I think because I love this life, I approve of that and therefore would like my last meal to be a surprise.
Chantrelle: I love how everybody’s answers to that are so different.
Jason: What’s one of the most interesting answers?
Chantrelle: They’re all interesting.
Jason: Do most people have a meal?
Chantrelle: Alan Anton from the Cowboy Junkies didn’t want to think about the death part. He wanted me to change it so that you’re being shot into space and it’s your last meal with Earth food. I was at the French Laundry with Mark Van Name and we were having such an incredible meal, he basically said that would do. Everyone has a different way they want to think about it.
Jason: I figure there’s two answers to the question. One is an answer and the other is avoiding an answer.
Chantrelle: And actually, Alan Anton said he really needed to think about it and plan it all with wine pairings and everything but he never sent me the meal.
Jason: He’s still working on that. He’s been spending hours every day revising and tweaking.
Chantrelle: It’s been a year and a half. It’s an important decision though. Someone may actually refer to it.
Jason: He’s worried that once you have the meal planned…
Chantrelle: I may make it come true?
Jason: It would be pretty creepy.
Chantrelle: To make him the meal? Show up at his house with the whole thing?
Jason: Or have someone show up at the house. A group of people presenting him with course after course.
Chantrelle: Wow, I never thought about that. That would be really, really cool. That’s something I’d have to do for someone like Amanda [Palmer]. She’s already planned her death a million ways, she’d just roll with it…maybe photograph it.
It’s your turn to cook dinner. What’s your favorite thing to make?
Jason: I have only a couple of things that I make. I make borscht. I steam artichokes. I make pasta where I modify some already existing sauce by adding more vegetables…It’s usually a vodka sauce. And a salad. Usually a meal from Jason is a combination of some of those things. When I’m really ambitious you’ll know because I will have made all of them. And maybe some soft cheese.
Chantrelle: You go all out.
Jason: Totally crazy. And pomegranates.
Chantrelle: My dad has 7 acres of pomegranate trees.
Jason: Where is this? The artichokes?
Chantrelle: Central California.
Jason: Not artichokes, pomegranates. Artichokes and pomegranates live in very similar parts of my brain.
Chantrelle: Hard to eat?
Jason: No, they vie for the position of world’s sexiest food.
Chantrelle: Really? That’s one of my next questions.
I don’t think Jason believed me. He grabbed my note cards and checked out what was next…It was.
Chantrelle: It’s usually my last question because it’s “the” food porn question. Why artichoke? I can see pomegranate but I don’t get artichoke.
Jason: In my world, the artichoke has defeated the pomegranate.
Chantrelle: Really?
Jason: They’re both delicious. They’re both process foods….not processed, but process foods. You don’t just eat it, you have to kind of slow down and eat the thing. And over the course of eating it the experience changes and that’s wherein I think the artichoke defeats the pomegranate. I think that they’re great because they just are what they are. You don’t have to do anything special. The artichoke is. The pomegranate just is.
The greatest moment of the pomegranate, sadly, is the very first moment. Almost more satisfying than the taste is that first moment when you break it apart and it makes that “crkkk” sound and the little bits of juice hit your face. That’s sexy. It’s a sexy moment. But as you get farther in and eat it, I mean, I think it’s great. And the way that pomegranate interacts with dark chocolate…not eating them at the exact same time but if you saturate your mouth with one flavor then the other, it’s pretty amazing. The problem with the pomegranate is that the bitterness of the seeds has a cumulative effect. You can’t really even make it through a quarter of the way into a pomegranate before your enthusiasm has kind of waned.
| I wouldn’t say for sure that if I give you artichokes I’m trying to seduce you but there’s a strong possibility. |
Chantrelle: And it’s a lot of work.
Jason: It’s a lot of work and the rewards don’t shift. With the artichoke, the bitterest leaves are on the outside. It’s always a little bit of a mystery as to what is going to happen as you go in. No two artichokes are really the same. Sometimes they’re really generous. Sometimes they’re a little more reserved. As you undress the artichoke, it takes time and you learn more about it. Whatever it is it gets richer and richer and at the end is this explosive reward.
Chantrelle: You get the heart.
Jason: You get the heart…yeah.
Chantrelle: That is a perfect FoodPorn description.
Jason: I wouldn’t say for sure that if I give you artichokes I’m trying to seduce you but there’s a strong possibility.
Chantrelle: I never would have put those things together but now it seems so obvious.
Jason: I was disappointed, Isabel Allende wrote a book about foods as aphrodisiacs [called Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses] and it had only about half a page dedicated to vegetables and the artichoke wasn’t even mentioned…I don’t think…maybe I’m wrong.
I checked this out, there are about 3 pages of vegetables and the artichoke has a small paragraph:
“Of a person who goes from love affair to love affair it is said that he (or she) has a ‘heart like and artichoke,’ scattering leaves right and left. This vegetable is eaten with fingers, slowly; there is something ritualistic about the process of stripping the artichoke, removing its leaves one by one to dip them in a dressing of oil, lemon, salt, and pepper and share them with your lover.”
So apparently Jason’s not alone in this thinking.
Our sushi arrives.
Chantrelle: If you were forced to eat food from only one region or country for the rest of your life, where would you choose? Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Jason: I would pick a region rather than a country and say Southeast Asia. Then I can enjoy a lot of nice stuff. I really love Vietnamese food and of course Thai food, Indonesian, Malaysian. I feel like it’s cheating.
Chantrelle: It is cheating. You have to narrow it down.
Jason: Southeast Asia I think most people would qualify as a region.
Chantrelle: It’s totally cheating. I’m always torn between Japan and Italy.
Jason: If I had to pick one I might jump out of Southeast Asia and go to Japan.
Chantrelle: The problem I have with Japan is there are no tomatoes and no porcini mushrooms.
Jason: I lived in Japan for a few months. When you say breakfast, lunch and dinner…I don’t eat a lot of sweet stuff. I wake up and I kind of want lunch for breakfast. So the fact that in Japan breakfast is pretty much what you’re eating for dinner but a kind of lighter presentation…
Chantrelle: I like that too. I’ve never been to Japan but I stayed in a hotel in Honolulu that had a buffet breakfast where half of it was an American breakfast and the other half was Japanese. It was great, I had miso soup and rice and salmon for breakfast. It was fantastic. Not pancakes of French toast or runny scrambled eggs.
Jason: Why would you eat that stuff in the morning? You want something that’s going to give you energy and not make you want to fall asleep. Pancakes? What kind of culture do we have?
Chantrelle: Although, I do make a mean waffle. It’s the closest I come to baking. It’s the only thing I measure. But I don’t put syrup on them, I put fruit and unsweetened whipped cream.
Jason: Wow, you’re even harder against the sweetness than I am.
Chantrelle: I’m not against maple syrup, I just don’t like it on my waffles. I like it on French toast.
I’m a supertaster so, to quote They Might Be Giants, “sweet things taste far more sweet.”
Jason: But salty isn’t far more salty?
Chantrelle: Oh no, I love salt. I’m a total saltaholic.
Jason: I have that problem.
Chantrelle: It’s not a problem! Have you been to The Meadow in Portland?
Jason: No. Is it all these weird crazy salts infused with truffle oil?
Chantrelle: No, well, they may have some of that. But it’s just different salts. It’s a small shop and one wall is chocolate, one wall is wine and one wall is all salt…with flowers in the middle of the shop. Hundreds of salts from all over the world that have different minerals, different flakiness, different crystallization.
Jason: Can you taste the difference in all the salts?
Chantrelle: You can. Some you actually do taste different flavors but with many it’s about the rate at which they dissolve, they way they coat your tongue. Some are pyramid crystals that have a distinct crunch. Some are a really fine flake that taste really, really salty because it’s so fine and covers your mouth more.
I met the guy who runs the shop at a Salt and Chocolate tasting event. Have you been to Recchiuti chocolate here in San Francisco? By far my favorite chocolate. (I go on to tell Jason about my love of Recchiuti and the event where I met Mark Bitterman of the Meadow. I wrote an article about that here). Everytime I go to these taste events I never get what I’m expecting. That’s how I discovered the Meadow. It’s the ultimate salt experience.
Jason: That sounds awesome. I was just in Portland but I was pretty busy.
Chantrelle: I love Portland. It’s one of my favorite places. We have a ton of friends there but I like the weather down here better. Santa Cruz has spoiled me.
It is just big enough to have good food and get some music but small enough that…I came from a little town, I can’t deal with cities, I feel overwhelmed and scattered. We’ve got little places like the Crepe Place…I can’t believe we’re not going to be home for your show there! I could walk there from my house! We’re going to be in Sydney.
As soon as we booked our tickets they announced the Dresden Dolls show in San Francisco. I don’t want to not go to Sydney but I want to do both!
Jason: It’ll be what it’ll be.
Chantrelle: True, I just can’t believe how many things are happening here that I want to go to while we’re gone. I know we’ll have a blast. I LOVE Sydney, absolutely love it. I just wish I could be in two places at once. I do love Amanda.
Jason: She seems to turn up.
Chantrelle: Last time I saw Neil [Gaiman] he said, “You know, you should interview Amanda for FoodPorn.” Brilliant! I’ve been trying to do that for two years!
Jason: I’m sure she’d be happy to do it. It’s just a pity you’ll be gone while she’s here for three days.
Chantrelle: I know!!
Jason: So, you’ve seen me before just on Evelyn Evelyn tour?
Chantrelle: No, I saw you first at Slim’s when you played with the Phenomenauts. I saw you at the Crepe Place. Which was a strange and odd show. Not your part but the opening band was awful.
Jason: This time will be better. Blackbird Raum are quite known in the post-punky world now and they’re from Santa Cruz and one of the guys from the band is doing a solo project and he’ll be opening.
Chantrelle: I saw both Evelyn Evelyn shows at Great American Music Hall.
Jason: That’s too bad.
Chantrelle: Why? I thought they were great!
Jason: I couldn’t imagine going two nights in a row when they were so the same.
Chantrelle: They were similar but the crowd was really different.
Jason: I think the first night was better. There were only a few of those shows that I felt really great about. Seattle was really good. Minneapolis was really good. And DC.
Chantrelle: It was so fun, just such a unique idea…the whole project. I know it got off to a bad start, even before the record was out which seemed really ridiculous. I never understood how people thought that Evelyn Evelyn were real people.
Jason: We made a few tactical errors. In retrospect I definitely saw how it snowballed. There were a couple of early warning signs that we could have taken cues from but we didn’t. And the next few things that were broadcast were full of all sorts of little landmines to make that thing explode. Then when it started boiling over, a few more stupid things were said so…I was freaking out and miserable.
Chantrelle: Awww! It’s such a shame because it was such a cool project and, like I said, such a unique undertaking. I enjoyed it. My son loved it…well, he can’t listen to the whole album…but he put Elephant Elephant on his birthday CD. I wanted to get his first grade class to sing it. If his class ever does that song I think we have to change the “you’re sad and in a cage but that’s irrelevant” line.
Jason: Originally one of the lyrics was: [Jason sings] “See me riding by with this beast between my thighs” but Amanda made me change that.
Chantrelle: I would have thought it was the other way around and you made her change it.
Jason: It’s funny, in a lot of ways I’m more conservative. But there were a number of ribald lyrics that I proposed and she was like, “That’s gross.”
Chantrelle: This coming from the woman who just released “Map of Tasmania.”
Jason: I know. Whenever I collaborate with someone I feel certain freedoms. In my own work I’d never do that but with her…
Chantrelle: My son can listen to all of your music, he can’t listen to any of Amanda’s!
Jason: When working with her…I felt like I was…I don’t know…maybe that’s what bothered her about it. I still sing it that way occasionally when I sing it by myself.
And he did perform Elephant Elephant that night with the ‘beast’ line. I was in hysterics.
At this point we still haven’t gotten the rest of our fish and are getting really pressed for time.
Jason: This is also partly a restaurant review?
Chantrelle: Sometimes.
Jason: [to the microphone] “Don’t come here”
Chantrelle: When I went to the French Laundry with Mark Van Name it was more about the food than the interview. I felt bad when I wrote it up but I couldn’t stop talking about the food.
Jason: What is the French Laundry?
Chantrelle: One of the best restaurants in the country! It’s near Napa, in Yountville. Impossible to get reservations, insanely expensive, but if you’re a foodie, you have to go there at least once in your life. A five-hour meal. (I go on to tell Jason about eating there but you can read about my two visits here and here.)
Chantrelle: I feel bad, I’m making you late.
Jason: You’re not making me late, Ozumo sushi is making me late. Sorry I’m a little bit quiet for this interview. I’m a little bit tired and I was kind of losing my voice the last few days. I’ve been tending towards mime. I should have warned you I’d be miming the interview.
Chantrelle: I’ve been a zombie since Saturday night’s show. I can’t go without sleep. I could never be a rock star, I need sleep…that and I have no musical talent.
Jason: I’ve been going to bed around 4am, waking up around 6. I’m an early riser generally. The beginning of the tour I was getting up around 7 or so and going to bed around 3 or 4. That kind of caught up to me around the time of the show here. My voice wasn’t as strong at the show here. Could you tell that?
Chantrelle: Only when you pointed it out and had the audience since a high note for you. I wouldn’t have noticed it if you didn’t draw attention to it.
Last night at my son’s winter concert I found out this teacher at his school that I’ve had many conversations with plays the accordion! I’m so excited. My son wants to learn to play accordion. He wants that to be his next instrument. I’m pushing piano first, we have a 9 foot grand piano, it should get some use!
Jason: Josh started playing accordion when he was 9.
Chantrelle: I think you need a little more arm strength than you have at 6.
Jason: By 15 he had run away from home to play on the streets. He’s a guy who really grabs life by the reigns right out of the gate. I’m really impressed with him. And he has a sweetness and a quietness about him. Most people who are that driven and ambitious are missing that. Especially if they’re driven and ambitious that early.
I love the way my life has shaped. I can’t imagine a nicer type of a life. But watching him, it’s like, “Holy shit, wow.”
Chantrelle: I was just talking with a friend the other day about how since discovering you and Amanda, my outlook on street performing and busking has changed. I never thought of that as a job or a way of making a living. Hearing someone play on the street wasn’t the same to me as seeing someone in a club even though sometimes the street performer may have more talent. I know I’m not the first to realize this but why will I pay $50 to someone play at a theatre, but I won’t give a dollar to someone on the street? Especially if they’re doing something cool. There was a guy downtown one day playing the uillean pipes, he was awesome. He got my money.
The bill finally comes.
Thanks for making the time to talk with me.
And we were off to the show, it was a great night. I’ve adored Jason’s music since I first discovered him via Neil Gaiman. Seeing him live is a life-changing experience. I’ve seen artists who can enthrall an audience, Jason goes beyond that. I’ve not only seen him get the entire audience to spin in circles 12 times (a staple of his show for “Drinking Song”) but I’ve seen him get everyone to sit down and listen to a story and on the night of this interview, he got the whole audience to tickle each other. He’s a special and magical individual on and off the stage. I am thrilled I got to spend this time talking with him.
Posted in celebrities, celebrity, dinner, interview, sushi | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 14th, 2010
Bouchon
6534 Washington Street
Yountville, California 94599
707-944-8037
The Cowboy Junkies had a scheduled tour date on Friday night in Napa. We’re too far from there for it to be a day trip but I decided to use this show as a handy excuse for a wine country weekend. We drove up Friday morning and picked up Alan (who I interviewed last year) and made our way up to Yountville for lunch.
A couple of other friends met up with us so we had a table for 5 and appetites for about 10.
We all shared a wonderful bowl of mussels. We ate a Bouchon about 3 years ago and had the mussels then and never forgot them. They are just as good as the first day we tried them. The broth left in the bowl is heavenly to soak up with the crunchy bread from the bakery next door. And they are *not* shy with the frites. First with the mussels and then later in the meal with the steak frites. Even between the 5 of us, we didn’t finish them!
I got a salad to start. Salade de Legumes Marinées: salad of marinated garden cucumber, radish and pickled mushrooms wwith crab beignets and mint mousse. Every bit of this salad was interesting. The mushrooms were baby chantrelles; a little vinegary, not chewy…I love mushrooms but not usually pickled ones and these may have been my favorite part of the salad. Well, maybe the crab beignets. They looked like croutons, they puffed into flavor when bitten. A bowl of those would be ok with me!
 I can’t speak to the Salade de Cresson et d’Endives au Roquefort, Pommes et Noix: watercress & endive salad with Roquefort, orchard apples, toasted walnuts & walnut vinaiagrette but everyone at the table completely freaked out over the roquefort. Quotes like, “That’s the whole barnyard in there” and “The cheese is tasting you back.” Sounds horrid to me but they all seemed pleased!
 For a main course, I got the Carré de Porc: pork loin with brown butter pain perdu, toasted pistachios, young fennel and roasted beets with sauce laurier. I just recently jumped into the world of pork products. I cooked pork chops for the first time just about a month ago. Now it was time for me to see how pork should really taste. Wow. Somehow it was light and rich at the same time. I didn’t feel like I was eating a heavy meat but the flavor was staggering. Just to make sure the richness was fully appreciated, it was accompanied by a savory piece of french toast…I mean pain perdu. Really, it’s french toast. Fluffy, intoxicating butter disguised as bread.
 Last time we were at Bouchon I got the steak frites and, happily, two of my companions did this time. They were not disappointed except for in the fact that they couldn’t finish it. Bouchon does not follow Thomas Keller’s law of diminishing return philosophy. It’s all about abundance!
 When we sat down, my friend Nicole and I both noticed the dessert special on the chalkboard behind us: Pot de creme – Peanut butter and jelly. Oh yeah. I went there. Do you remember how good PB&J sandwiches were when you were a kid? PB&J on fluffy white Wonderbread with the crusts cut off. Have you tried that as an adult? It’s pretty foul. Not the childhood flavor. This dessert was that childhood memory. The custard was mild, the peanut butter creamy, the jelly grape. It was unbelievable—especially since I typically hate peanuts in desserts (cheap filler) and grape jelly (Denny’s jelly packets).
What was I saying about abundance? Oh yes…this slice of lemon tart was the size of the plate. It wasn’t a small plate. I think they probably just wanted to finish off the tart since we were the last ones in there from lunch. It was HUGE! When I saw Thomas Keller on his Bouchon cookbook tour, he said the first two things you should cook and master from the cookbook are the roast chicken and the lemon tart. I think I’ll just drive back up to Yountville and have another piece of this one!
I almost forgot the trainwreck comic relief next to us. There was a man eating alone with his huge expensive camera, taking pictures of every dish. Yes, I do too but I have a point and shoot pocket camera and would rather enjoy my meal than get the perfect picture (yep, the photos show that too). He got half way through what I think may have been the leg of lamb and sent it back saying it was too tough. Seriously—HALF WAY THROUGH. He got another main course, the cod I believe, and when he finished, left only a $5 tip. We were appalled! After we finished our food, the waiter came to clear the plates (now practically licked clean) and my husband said, “I’d like to send this back” and we all chuckled. The waiter said, “Oh, was it too tough?” What a good sport he was! He said people have expectations and if they don’t meet them, they’ll do what it takes to make up for it. I’m amazed the man was disappointed. I’m even more amazed the waitstaff handles it so well. True class.
I can’t wait to go back!
Tags: Bouchon, pb&j, pork, Yountville
Posted in alan anton, beef, celebrities, celebrity, cowboy junkies, restaurant, review, seasonal menu, table dance | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Kim Boekbinder is one half of the bewitching Vermillion Lies and is currently recording a solo album. Her voice is unique, her talent amazing. I fell in love with her music when I saw Vermillion Lies open for Amanda Palmer last year. In December, I saw her tweet, “It goes like this: I love food. Food loves me. We both get what we want. It’s been the longest, healthiest relationship of my life.” To which I replied, “I couldn’t agree more!!” and then Kim started perusing this site and wrote: “I’ve never wanted to do porn before. I think I see a new career for myself.” So I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by and I pounced for an interview!
We met for lunch at Ristorante Avanti in Santa Cruz. A long-time haunt of mine who is open for lunch on Mondays! Phew! Not many places are.
How’s this for a brilliant start to an interview….
Kim: What is your site? I can’t remember it.
Chantrelle: FoodPorn.com
But it didn’t remain that awkward, we got along brilliantly and Kim is a true foodie.
Kim: That’s so easy. Great, I’m going to tweet about it right now. Do you have a barely legal section?
Chantrelle: Yes, Barely Legal is the homebrew.
Kim: Right, my homemade absinthe could be in there.
Chantrelle: It could! But to the matter at hand, the menu…So, everything is good. The butternut squash ravioli is great.
Kim: That’s what I was thinking, I also like duck a lot, it’s like bacon with wings.
(This is my favorite quote! I have already passed it along to friends in conversation!)
Chantrelle: It’s really, really rich
Kim: That’s why I like it! That’s the key to my heart, cover it in fat.
Chantrelle: That’ll work! My husband and I were pescatarian. We just lost our taste for meat for years. One day I just woke up and thought, “Steak sounds good… that’s weird” and I had one and it was great! He still really doesn’t like a piece of meat but is really into thinly sliced pork products in everything.
Kim: I think hamburgers are my favorite thing. I’ve been vegetarian on and off my whole life. I was raised mostly vegetarian. Everyone once in a while we would eat one of the chickens that we raised. A couple of years ago I had a burger at a barbecue at somebody’s house that was from a cow that they had raised and I felt so good afterwards.
Chantrelle: I like a good steak. Tender and rare. Really rare…oddly after all those years without eating meat now make it bloody! But I have texture issues with ground beef. The taste is good but the texture not so much.
There’s a burger joint everyone raves about over on Seabright, Betty’s Burgers. It looks really cool, a kitchsy style. I don’t know though, no personal experience.
Kim: I think the only burgers I’ve had in Santa Cruz were at Saturn Cafe so they weren’t really burgers.
Chantrelle: No, that doesn’t really count.
(Our waitress arrives and Kim is still toiling between the duck and squash ravioli. The waitress mentions that the ravioli always makes her think of dessert. Kim runs with that. She orders the duck and a Caesar salad, I get the green salad with no cheese and the chicken cacciatore….and we’ll get the ravioli for dessert!)
Chantrelle: One of the very strange things about me being a foodie is that I don’t like cheese.
Kim: My life would be entirely different if I didn’t like cheese.
Chantrelle: I don’t like cheese, bell peppers, and olives. And they’re in everything. Especially Italian food.
Kim: What about butter? Do you like butter?
Chantrelle: I love butter. I just don’t like milk that’s gone bad: cheese, sour cream, I’m iffy on yogurt. It has to be integrated into dish, not just on its own. I love butter. Butter is a wonderful thing. It makes everything better. If I can’t figure out how to cook something I think, “Fry it in butter! It won’t be bad.”
Then a surprise fact arises, I knew she was a foodie but…
Kim: I used to have a restaurant. In Vancouver, B.C.
Chantrelle: Really?! What kind of restaurant was it?
Kim: It was a breakfast place. And lunch but breakfast was the really popular part.
Chantrelle: A girl after my own heart.
Kim: It was called The Cat’s Pajamas. Vancouver is a good food city. Most cities are good food cities though. I get really excited about going on tour because I start thinking about all the food I get to eat!
Chantrelle: You actually get to eat? A lot of people who go on tour don’t have time to eat between soundcheck, interviews, etc.
Kim: That’s the problem with being successful. You have to stay just unsuccessful enough to have time to eat.
Chantrelle: Enough money to live, enough time to eat. Find that balance. So, did you close the restaurant because it wasn’t financially feasible or you were just moving or what?
Kim: It wasn’t financially feasible. It was in a bad location. It was a lot of work. I was 21 and I was working 14 hours a day and I was all alone. I was in over my head.
Chantrelle: I could never run a restaurant. I love to cook, but that’s it.
Kim: It’s totally different to cook in a restaurant.
Chantrelle: I like to sleep. And I like to eat. Chefs don’t get to do either.
Kim: I look at pictures of myself then and I was so skinny. A painful, unhealthy skinny.
Chantrelle: People ask me that all the time, “Why don’t you open a restaurant?’…”No!” I did this big dinner for my in-laws at the beginning of December. It was 20 people, a 5 course, sit-down dinner. I started the prep the day before. Then got up at 8am and went to the farmer’s market and got everything going and worked all day and was about to collapse by the time everyone showed up for dinner! I can’t be on my feet for 12 hours, it’s just not in me.
Kim: Doing what you love for a living is a great way to stop loving what you do.
Chantrelle: My husband brews beer. Awesome beer. I’m ruined for commercial beer except Guinness when in Ireland. People ask why he doesn’t open a brew pub. But it’s his stress outlet. When he’s brewing, that’s all he can do. He can’t be thinking about whether or not the network is broken, it’s just beer. He has to be focused on temperature and wort.
Now, if I could get FoodPorn.com to make me money, that I could do for a living. But it’s not going to happen. At least not keeping it a site I want to have.
I told my husband that once I get this interview up, if Neil [Gaiman] twitters it, our server will come down.
Kim: You’ll have to Neil-proof your web site.
Chantrelle: When I interviewed him it brought the site down! And that was pre-twitter…7 years ago. He is infamous for breaking sites. He’s gotten so huge in the last year. It’s not like he was unknown before but he’s on everything now.
Kim: He has such a wide range of work and it seems like people are just putting together that this is all the same guy.
Chantrelle: I think my son, at age 5, is as big of a fan as I am. He’s got a Scary Trousers shirt. I love having an author…and the same with music…that we can enjoy together. And then we have a really cool kid!
Kim: What did you want to be when you grew up?
Chantrelle: I don’t know what I wanted to be. I think I changed every year. There was one year I wanted to be a prosecuting lawyer. I wanted to throw bad people in jail. I looked at Berkeley and thought that was nice. But then I decided I didn’t want to be a prosecutor because what if they were innocent?
I always liked to cook though. I use to make deals with my mom where she could go out if she took me to the store and bought me stuff so I could make my own dinner.
Chantrelle: What is your favorite comfort food?
Kim: Hamburgers. Or macaroni and cheese….or sushi.
Chantrelle: What do you put on your burgers?
Kim: Cheddar cheese. Sometimes mustard.
Chantrelle: I always piled my burgers with toppings. Avocadoes, good summer tomatoes… think I liked the condiments more than the burger!
Do you like the crap-boxed mac n cheese or real mac n cheese?
Kim: REAL mac n cheese. I’m trying to think…if I really do need comfort food…..Probably either a burger or sushi.
Chantrelle: Sushi’s a good one for me. If I’m upset it’s very cooling.
Kim: And it’s a lot of protein which I need.
Chantrelle: What’s your best childhood food memory?
Kim: (Long pause…smiling….) I think it was my first burger!
Chantrelle: I’m sensing a theme here.
Kim: Maybe it’s because we’re just talking about burgers. Like I said we were mostly vegetarian, except that we raised chickens. But there was this burger place by our house called Super Burger and they started serving free range meats. We were in rural Canada and this was long before people thought of free range meat as anything. It was all organic. And I think we were renovating our kitchen so our parents took us out to eat. We never got to eat junk food ever. We never got white bread. It was all vegetables and whole grains. It was all farm raised, organic, picking mushrooms in the woods, chopping our own firewood. It was great. Going to a fast food restaurant was huge.
Chantrelle: Of course! Forbidden fruit!
If you were forced to eat from only one region in the world, alcohol included, for the rest of your life where would you choose?
Kim: (Without even a pause) France!
Chantrelle: What in particular draws you to France?
Kim: Cheese! I did a show in the Alps. Right on the border between Switzerland and France. They just ate cheese all the time. Melted cheese fondue at every single meal. I was in heaven. They were like, “Oh my God! I’ve never seen a foreigner eat so much cheese! Do you want something else? Do you need a salad or anything?” And I was just like, “NO! I want the cheese!”
Chantrelle: That’s my problem with France. They don’t understand that I don’t want the cheese!
Kim: But there are so many other things: the bread is good, and just the quality of ingredients.
Our entrees arrive and Kim takes a picture with her iPhone and sends it off to the twitterverse.
Chantrelle: I refuse to use the word “tweet”…it’s my one and only protest to twitter. Otherwise I use it all the time!
Kim: I think it makes a big difference who you’re paying attention to. I’m sure there’s a lot of really, really stupid stuff out there. And there even is with interesting people. It’s stripped down. You can have conversations with people that you would normally never get to talk to.
Chantrelle: If you send someone a message on there you don’t feel like you’re bugging them like you would in an email. If you don’t know them, they can just ignore it and it’s ok.
I sent a twitter to Grant Achatz from Alinea in Chicago. My husband has been to Alinea twice but I haven’t been yet. I was concerned about going there because of the list of things I don’t like. It’s a molecular gastronomy place so they spend days on ingredients and there can be 27 ingredients in one dish so was worried about dishes having things I don’t like in them. So I sent a twitter off to Grant Achatz and he actually replied. He said compared to most people my restrictions are easy! Next time were in Chicago I’m going to Alinea. I wouldn’t have been able to ask him that otherwise.
We are both devouring our poultry. Kim working on her “bacon with wings”, me on my chicken. She reveals that when she likes food she wiggles her toes which is the cutest thing ever and that there is a “food song.” She never sang it, I was sad. I may have to bring her food on stage at a show sometime so I can hear it. She then takes a photo of an oddly shaped potato on her plate and sends it to twitter offering a prize to whomever can identify it. The night before the interview Kim and artist Molly Crabapple had done a webcast together and gave away an absinthe spoon.
Chantrelle: Molly is an incredible artist, oh my God! Wow!
Kim: I know, she’s fantastic. It’s so exciting. She just put so much into every single piece. She’s really dedicated and really on top of it.
Chantrelle: How did you guys hook up?
Kim: I don’t remember who wrote to who first. Either I was looking for someone who had art with girls connected by their hair, because of our song Long Red Hair. Either I found that piece and said, “Hey you’ve got a piece of art that’s like our song.” Or she wrote to us and then I found that piece. Anyway, we found each other and she said, “I would love to work for you some day.” Awesome. So we had her do the cover of our 7 inch. And now she’s doing my paper dolls.
Chantrelle: I want to be a Gorey-esque Victorian pin-up of hers! Have to save money.
Kim: Do it soon while she still reasonably priced! Forget about diamonds. Molly Crabapple portraits are forever!
Chantrelle: What do you want your last meal to be?
Kim: I want my last meal to be my penultimate meal. That’s my final answer.
Chantrelle: No way! Another way to phrase this which I was told by somebody who didn’t want to think about dying was that you’re about to be shot off to another planet, what is your last meal on Earth going to be?
Kim: I don’t mind that dying part, I just mind the not eating again part!!
Chantrelle: I’m assuming there’ll be food in the afterlife… it could be really good depending on where you end up going!
Kim: Well, if I’m going to be traveling at light speed I probably shouldn’t eat too much before I leave.
Chantrelle: Everyone comes up with their own different rules! I feel like your meal would involve cheese.
Kim: Yeah, it might involve cheese… it might be fondue. I recently had my best breakfast ever. We made duck for Christmas with a port-wine reduction. The next day I made french toast with french bread and fried up trumpet mushrooms, the duck and caramelized onions and we had the port reduction on top of that. There was no cheese in it. You would have loved it! It was so good. It was definitely the best breakfast ever. My siblings were dumbfounded.
Chantrelle. That sounds incredible….not light!
Kim: Not light at all. No. I think I ate only raw food for the next week! That could be my last meal, that was really fantastic. Or I would go to Sierra Mar at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur because that food is amazing.
Chantrelle: I’ve never been there. I got married really near there but I’ve never been. I always wanted to stay in one of the treehouses though.
Kim: I used to work there. The best ones are the ocean houses. They’re built into the cliff, looking out at the ocean. The treehouses are really cool but they’re connected. And since they’re in trees, even though they’re connected to pillars, they still sway a little bit, which is fine when it’s the natural swaying, but not when it’s someone walking by on the walkways.
Chantrelle: Well, if I’m to spend $1200 on a room…
Kim: Go for the Ocean House.
Chantrelle: I have friends who have eaten down there but I never have. In places like that I expect people to be kind of pompous. The first thing I do is try to break that down.
Kim: The people who work there? No, no. They’re not at all, I could not have worked there. A lot of the guys that I worked with were surfers.They were professional but really, like, “heyyy.”
Chantrelle: I would love to have amazing food in a setting like a subway station. I don’t need the pomp and circumstance.
Kim: It’s fancy but it’s not overly fancy. It’s not white glove service. And you’re looking out at the ocean watching the whales go by.
Chantrelle: It’s your turn to cook dinner, what’s being served?
Kim: I really like to cook pasta. But the most recent dinner party I had I made French onion soup and then we had gnocchi with sage brown butter. Then we had poached pears for dessert. French onion soup is something I’ve been making a lot because it’s really easy and it’s really good.
(Our dessert of butternut squash raviolis arrives)
Chantrelle: That’s a lot of butter! I love that you wanted this for dessert… that is awesome. But…their Pot de Creme…it’s so good… It’s this dense chocolate….basically a ganache. I love it. I usually get it to go and eat it at home over a couple of days.
This place is consistently good. I’ve been coming here for a lot of years. They do locally sourced stuff but also a lot of wild mushrooms. They serve mushrooms that I’ve never seen any other restaurants serve, like Coccoras. they’re related to the death cap. Even after all these years when I find them I’ll say, “Yep I’m positive that’s a coccora…don’t think I’ll eat that.” But they serve them here. I got them here once and didn’t see it whole first, it just came chopped up in the pasta. I was up half the night waiting to feel symptoms of being poisoned! It’s not that I don’t trust them, it’s just my own psychosis I think. I just couldn’t help but think, “What if they were wrong.” I think I need to see the whole mushroom before I eat it.
Kim: Have you been to the fungus fair in Oakland?
Chantrelle: No. There was just one here in Santa Cruz last weekend but I haven’t been to that one in years either. We usually spend Thanksgiving, most years, at David Arora’s. I learned a lot of my mushroom hunting from him and his forays. This has been quite the chanterelle year. They seem to be nonstop everywhere.
Kim: Are they year-round?
Chantrelle: No, they’re around from about November-January depending on the weather. I don’t think there are any mushrooms around here that are year-round. They’re seasonal creatures.
Kim: My favorite mushroom is the morel. But I pretty much have to pick them myself. I’ve tried buying them or having them in restaurants but that is never the same. When I was growing up in Ontario we would go out and find them in the woods. They are so good. Maybe the best food I’ve ever eaten is a morel mushroom.
Chantrelle: Morels and asparagus such the wonderful springtime pair. They’re the first things that come up… you just know everything is coming into season after that. It was a really good morel year here because of the forest fires in Big Sur.
What do consider the sexiest food?
Kim: Wasabi
Chantrelle: Really? How is wasabi sexy?
Kim: Because the rush from wasabi is like having an orgasm. It’s really intense. It feels intensely private. Like maybe I shouldn’t be having this experience in public. There’s a lot of turning red and eyes watering…
Chantrelle: Maybe some back arching…
Kim: You might have to bite the person next to you. It’s probably better that we didn’t go have sushi today!
(We split the last ravioli floating in a sea of butter…)
Chantrelle: Where do you like to eat in Oakland? I don’t really know anything there.
Kim: À Côté is a little inexpensive place on College. They do smaller portions. I think the most expensive dish is, say, $15. It’s really made for sharing around the table. It’s not exactly tapas but similar. They have a changing menu. And a really nice wine list.
Chantrelle: The only place I’ve been in Oakland is an Italian place…Trattoria di Siciliana. It’s always packed on weekends. It’s crammed with tables, it’s loud and the waiters are really friendly like they’ve known you forever. The food is great. A friend of mine and I were up there to see Tori at the Paramount. We walked along College, stumbled in and have been back a couple times since. I love it…even with out cheese.
Kim: There’s plenty of Italian food without cheese. French food too.
Chantrelle: We went to France in 2000. We had the most expensive, fancy meal of our lives at L’Arpege. And then had to stay 2 extra days in Paris because my husband had food poisoning from it.
Kim: Oh god!
Chantrelle: The Parisians were really mean to me because I didn’t speak French.
(waitress comes to take away the empty ravioli plate…impressed…and we order the Pot de Creme!)
Chantrelle: We can do it!
Kim: Are we going to make it?
Chantrelle: Probably not!
(There are ceramic containers placed on shelves around the restaurant that people have taken to putting notes in, we decide to read through some…)
Kim: reads “It’s my birthday and I got Coldplay tickets and a new phone” I thought this must have been years old but it’s not…oh man! It’s from July!
There’s a lot of stuff about love in here.
Chantrelle: Well, people get intoxicated!
I left for the restroom, Kim kept dictating notes…
Kim: “Today is the day we became fresh meat in the Santa Cruz Derby Girl League.”
“Brussel sprouts love. It’s a strange fetish but one that should be definitely explored.”
“Wrap yourself around a big snack and let the games begin.”
“It must have been my evil twin…seriously.”
This one’s been rubbed off in places: “The sky’s the limit. You….kid…going.”
“Burt Reynolds is Lord Jesus Christ”
(Kim pulls out her phone to see if there are any winners of the mystery photo tweet)
Kim: People are guessing lots of things: pickle, funny looking grape, sausage…a long potato.
Chantrelle: Did you figure out what you’re going to give away?
Kim: Maybe I should have kept the potato….Here’s your prize! A rotten potato! I wish I would have brought my polaroid, I could have sent him a polaroid of the potato. What I need is a sherpa. Not a personal assistant, a sherpa. To guide me through life and carry my stuff.
Chantrelle: Isn’t that still basically a personal assistant? Just in different clothes.
(I get some hot tea, Kim a latte)
Chantrelle: Jasmine green tea used to be my favorite. But something changed in me recently. I’m moving away from the jasmine and more toward just a plain green.
Kim: I don’t really like Jasmine green tea but I love jasmine. The smell of fresh jasmine makes me really……mmm…
Chantrelle: We have pink jasmine and a datura tree in front of our house. When they’re both in bloom, some nights it’s overwhelming.
Kim: I kind of go into conniptions when I’m around fresh jasmine.
Chantrelle: Jasmine and wasabi?
Kim: Whoa…wow. I might have to try that.
Chantrelle: Eat sushi in front of a jasmine bush and your life will be complete.
Kim: I might need someone there with me to pick me up.
Chantrelle: I don’t know if you want to be alone or with someone…Maybe one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” necklaces.
Kim: Probably that would be the way to go. Maybe alone. Maybe recording it. Maybe I can make money off it. Recording myself eating wasabi.
Chantrelle: Not exactly the kind of food porn I do but…it was interesting to see the responses to your mention of Food porn in the webcast last night. People saying things like “sausages?”…No! People always go there!
Kim: There’s a place I want to go to in Berlin. It’s a blind restaurant…it’s completely dark.
Chantrelle: I’ve heard of that. It kind of freaks me out.
Kim: It kind of freaks me out too but I want to do it. The menus are interesting. I’d definitely have to be in the right mood. I’d have to do it. My friends went. While they were waiting in the dark they changed clothes. Which I think is interesting because I don’t think all the waiters are blind. I think some are wearing night vision goggles. I think they thought all the waiters were blind. I mean, some are blind, or sight impaired. And they snap their fingers to let each other know where they are. But some are just wearing night vision goggles and watching people change clothes!
Chantrelle: I don’t think I could do it. I think I’d flip out. I like the idea of going completely by taste, having no preconceived ideas from the look of the food.
Kim: Everything would be about the texture…if you could get over the freaking out part.
Chantrelle: I don’t know if I could do that.
Kim: Maybe at your house.
Chantrelle: But I’m the cook in my house!
Kim: Maybe when your son gets older he can blindfold you and cook for you.
Chantrelle: A LOT older! It’s funny…Since he’s been raised a foodie I go to the farmer’s market every week and every Wednesday I make ahi tartare. It got to the point where he said, “Mom, I don’t want ahi tartare again! Can’t I just have mac n cheese?” What a problem to have.
Kim: He’ll come back though.
Chantrelle: He already has. I went a month without making it and he wanted it again.
Kim: My parents raised me a really healthy, completely without junk food. So when I was on my own I had Mountain Dew every day and french fries every meal.
Chantrelle: I make sure he has access to junk food once in awhile so he doesn’t do a binge. If we’re out and about sometimes we’ll go to Quizno’s and he can have his Doritos and his crappy cookie. He still knows the good stuff. Like with hot chocolate, we get Recchiuti hot chocolate. That was the first chocolate he ever had at, like, a year and a half. He got some hot chocolate at a restaurant the other day and wouldn’t drink it! He just ate the whipped cream off the top. Success!!
Kim: I have a great photo of myself from my first birthday in the aftermath of my chocolate cake. Me sitting in my highchair naked completely covered in cake. Everything around me is smeared. Oooh, maybe my best childhood food memory is from my seventh birthday. My father made me an ice cream volcano. He carved an entire mountain out of ice cream and then poured hot fudge as the lava down the sides. There’s a picture of me looking at my ice cream volcano, my eyes are so wide!
Chantrelle: That’s brilliant!
Kim: The first time I went to New Orleans I knew it was going to be my favorite city because a friend of ours took us to this dinner that happens once a week in somebody’s backyard. It was a chef who had lost his restaurant in the hurricane. He basically spent the whole week sourcing and cooking this amazing meal. They’d set up little picnic tables. It was wonderful.
Chantrelle: Some of the best food I’ve ever had was in New Orleans. But some of the worst food I’ve ever had was in New Orleans!
Kim: They know how to eat!
Chantrelle: And drink!
Kim: The person I hung out with most in New Orleans didn’t drink. So that was probably good person to hang out with. Because everyone else I know I think is a bartender.
Chantrelle: Those are dangerous friends to have.
(Kim decides the winner of the mystery potato picture tweet will receive the label from our sparkling water bottle and one of the notes from the ceramic boxes….Won’t he be bummed?!)
We finished up lunch and managed to waddle our way back to our cars. I’ve never done a formal review of Ristoranti Avanti. This may have to do as one. I’ve eaten there so often I don’t think I could be objective, but having gone there so many times, I think that’s a good endorsement. Thank you to Kim for such a lovely, wonderful, fun lunch…I think I’ll go have some wasabi by my jasmine bush now.
Posted in celebrities, celebrity, kim boekbinder, ristorante avanti | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
I had such a rock star week. It began with seeing Tori Amos two nights, one of which was from front row center seats. It continued with catching up with Neil Gaiman and meeting Amanda Palmer, and immediately leaving them and going to pick up my lunch date interviewee, Alan Anton of the fantabulous Cowboy Junkies. I could get used to this lifestyle. Since the band was playing Villa Montalvo that night, I made reservations at Le Papillon in Saratoga which I’d never been to but had heard good things about.
We were having a lovely conversation when the waiter brought our amuse bouche: Halibut Green Curry Mousse Garnished With Mango Chutney, which went over very well with many “mmmmmms.” Alan and his family left Toronto a while back and now live on Vancouver Island, one of my favorite places on the planet. I reminisced with him about Sooke Harbour House and Point No Point. I must go back!
We settled on ordering the chefs tasting menu and got back into our conversation:
Alan: “Do you ever make terrines and things like that?”
Me: “No, I tend not to do the stuff that takes that much processing.”
Alan: “I used to but then I ran out of time for that kind of stuff. I loved making sauces but it was such a process.”
Me: “I tend to do the grab-the-stuff-out-of-the-garden-and-throw-it-together kind of menu”
Alan: “Do you know Mark Bittman? I really like his stuff. He’s got a video site where he shows the basic steps for recipes. He’s got a great sort of New York, laid-back attitude and everything looks so easy, and it is. He reduces everything down, ‘You don’t need this, forget about this, most people say do this but it just takes too much time…’ and he comes up with some really great flavors that you’d never think of.”
Me: “I’ve been finding that with Eric Ripert’s Le Bernadin cookbook. Seafood is our main protein most of the time. It’s all really simple stuff. There are a few elements to each dish that you still taste the fish. You’re not piling so many things on it. His recipes are all very simple and precise but not complicated.”
Alan: “It’s hard to find a place that cooks fish right, they tend to overcook it. A friend of mine has a boat and we go fishing at home and eating it two hours later out of the water is unbelievable. You don’t need to do anything to it, a little salt and pepper, it’s unbelievable.”
Me: “At the farmers market they’ll have locally caught sardines, which are basically bait. My son absolutely loves them and I’m sure not going to discourage that! I love having a four-year-old that runs up and yells ‘Hey mommy, they have sardines, let’s get some!!’”
Alan: “Does he eat avocado?”
Me: “I think every kid in California eats avocado. It’s a great first food.”
Alan: “Oh right, it’s a California thing.”
Me: “We get these marinated white anchovies, the brand is Dinon, they have them at Whole Foods but we get them at our local market. He just loves them! It always freaks out anybody that comes to our house for dinner parties.”
Alan: “Living in the city, not on the West Coast, in Toronto, you’re just surrounded by processed foods. It’s what your kid is exposed to at school and it becomes so hard to get them to taste stuff. Anything with flavor and texture they don’t want.
Me: “I basically consider food my religion so it goes against everything I believe to go to fast food. I’m a Slow Food person. My son doesn’t like anything breaded. He doesn’t even like things like gyoza, he just wants what’s inside. He doesn’t like breaded chicken, he just wants chicken. It’s great. He tells McDonald’s “The M. place, pleh!” We just go there to use the bathroom on road trips. It makes me proud as a foodie.”
Alan: “The whole food issue in this country is pathetic. It’s got the worst food, and the cheapest food so you’ve got a third of the population living on that. McDonald’s, or whatever, which leads to obesity which leads to heart disease.”
Me: “And these people would never consider picking up fresh vegetables or anything like that. Why would you do that when you can get a hamburger for $.59?
Alan: “I don’t know if you saw Michael Moore’s movie Sicko but it talks about how a large portion of this country’s health issue would go away if we started to eat right which means taking on the huge agribusiness guys. Which can be done starting on a local basis, starting on a small basis, even in the cities. Make sure your kids don’t take crap to school. Get the food out of a good organic situation, or a local situation.”
Me: “I think local is even more important than anything. Organic or not it’s better if it’s coming from up the road than being shipped around the world.”
Alan: “Right, and you’ve got the energy issue in that as well.”
We went on to talk about heat waves, global warming, the fact that neither of our towns have air conditioning. I felt as if we were old friends.
Alan: ” I went to a scotch bar that a friend of mine owns in Denver when we were just there on this tour. It’s got, he claims, the largest selection of scotch in the country by the glass. 260 bottles. While I was in there looking at the list there’s one that is $850 a shot. And I said, ‘Wow, do you ever sell any of these?’ And five minutes later these guys walk in. They’d driven from two hours away with their little books. You know how birders have their books to check off all the birds they see? They had one of these for Scotch. Each of them opened up their books and started looking at the menu and sure enough one of them bought the $850 shot! It was really weird, he said he hadn’t sold one in six months. He paid $10,000 for this bottle. He’d had it for about seven years or so. It was really weird, as soon as I said, ‘Who buys this stuff?’ The guy walks in and buys one.
While we’re waiting for our first course, I pulled out my questions.
Me: “What’s your favorite comfort food?”
Alan: “Any kind of sausage. I love the sausage. Smoked chorizo. Something hard, smoked, little slices. If I’m in a bad mood I have one of those and it’s all gone.”
Me: “What’s your best childhood food memory?”
Alan: “There are so many. I grew up with parents that were East European: Croatia and Serbia. My grandmother moved in with us when we were little and she did all the cooking. I had this authentic cooking from a woman who was doing all the cooking at the turn-of-the-century for her family. She would put an enormous spread on the table every night. Way too much food for everybody. She had seven or eight standard weekly meals and every weekend she would make strudel on this huge table. She’d be stretching the dough until it was paperthin. Waving it in the air and laying it down. She’d make cheese and apple strudel every weekend. We had it all week long. During the week it was tons of meats, stuffed peppers or cabbage rolls. All beautifully done, very rich, heavy stuff. There were always sausages hanging, ham hocks hanging.”
Me: “I guess this is where your sausage comfort food comes from?”
Alan: “For sure, yeah. Every second weekend my dad and I would go to the local Serbian meat store. Everything would come from over there, so it was all smoked and made a certain way. I learned all about the different meats and how they did it. I had my favorites. We’d walk back with a basket full of smoked stuff to get us through the next couple of weeks. I grew up with very rich, heavy, delicious food…nothing like this.”
…Our first course arrived: Hokkaido Scallop Ceviche with Lemon, Sunflower Salad and Browned Butter Powder. A very fresh, sweet scallop, thinly sliced. A wonderful start.
Alan: “I grew up in an environment where my friends were all pretty much eating processed foods so I never had them over for dinner because they didn’t like what I was eating and I didn’t like eating what they were eating.”
Me: “It’s so important that you expose your kids to real food. We always had a garden when I was growing up, I could just go into the backyard and pick stuff. I’ve got this really vivid memory of me, really really little, just sitting in the dirt in the garden eating peas.”
Alan: “That’s one thing I haven’t gotten around to yet, having a garden at home. It’s a lot of work. We have a lot of animals around so you have to build a huge enclosure, it’s a big deal or else it’s all eaten. You have to keep the birds out too. Birds just appear, anytime of the year, just a million of them, they’ll land on your stuff and five minutes later they disappear and everything’s eaten. Lots of deer. And we have a bear right now.”
Me: “That’s got to be scary!
If you were limited to eating food from only one region for the rest of your life, where would you choose?”
Alan: “Anywhere in the world? Any country? Somewhere in Italy for sure. I don’t know where exactly. Not the south, anywhere in the upper half. Is that good enough? Can I have the whole upper half?”
Me: “Sure, I’d say the same thing actually. But I’m torn, because if I choose northern Italy I can’t have sushi.”
Alan: “I’m not really a sushi guy.”
Me: “I go back and forth. David Sedaris said Northern Italy as well.”
Alan: “Well there you go! It’s a popular spot. I think that anyone that goes there and eats just falls in love. It’s amazing.”
Me: “What would you want your last meal to be?”
Alan: “That’s a bit depressing. A much more pleasant way to think about that would be: ‘You’re about to embark on a space mission to another planet so it’s your last chance to eat on Earth.’ That’s a tough one. I think I’d need a week to design the menu and the wines to go with it. It would be a lot of food, many courses, and many wines. I’ll get you a list.”
[I will post the last meal menu when I get it from Alan.]
A second course is delivered: Gulf Prawn and Linguine “Turban” with Brandy-Truffle Cream. I’m always leery of truffle dishes. The truffle tends to overpower. Alan agrees:
Alan: “Truffle is a hard thing to get right. I’ve had really bad truffle in restaurants. This is very good.”
Me: “It’s rich but I thought it would be richer from the looks of it. Yum.”
Alan: “Do you know of any good raw food restaurants?”
Me: “No, haven’t been to any.”
Alan: “There’s a really good one in Vancouver called Salt that I went to recently. There’s no kitchen, you just look around and pick out what you want. They do a lot of meat which is great, sausages and things like that. Cheese, meat, and vegetables.”
Note to self: try that place!!!
Course three is presented: Grilled Medallion of Durham Ranch Buffalo with Syrah Jus, Parsnip Puree And Cocoa Nibs. This was a course I was slightly concerned with since I’d never had buffalo before but it is a hit. In a blind tasting, neither of us would be able to tell this from beef and it is very, very tender.
Alan: “I was trying to think of musicians that are into food, there’s not a lot of them.”
Me: “No, when you tour you don’t get to be. Do you guys get to eat relatively well when you’re touring?”
Alan: “It’s hard. On our days off we look for the good restaurant but the days of shows there’s no time. We’re stuck with either catering or a local restaurant.”
Me: “Do you guys have your rider demands of decent food?”
Alan: “We have a little rider but there’s just not that much stuff.”
Me: “No brown M&Ms?”
Alan: “Yeah.”
Me: “When it’s your turn to cook dinner, what are you making?”
Alan: “It depends on the season.”
Me: “You may answer seasonally. Let’s say it’s right now, July.”
Alan: “July is good. It would probably be a grilled thing. Definitely be a grilled thing. Outdoor. I have to say it would be probably halibut. All the big halibut catches happen in July at home. I get phone call right away, it’s a rare thing. Halibut are huge fish and they chop them up right away, right on the dock. And whoever is down their first gets to buy some. It takes about six or eight hours before the thing’s sold. Its great, we go down and buy, probably, 100 pounds. If we can, if we get there early enough. The fish will come in at between 400 and 1,000 pounds. Then we freeze them.”
Me: “How do you make them, because it’s really easy to dry out halibut?”
Alan: “We have a great little pot this guy gave to me. It’s really thin. We use it instead of aluminum foil. We pack, like, a 5 or 6 pound piece in there, fill it up. Add just a little bit of water and then just pack in all the garlic and seasonings and cook it for maybe two minutes.”
Me: “Nice. I never ever order halibut because it is always overcooked”
Alan: “Salmon is always overcooked as well, even when you ask for it rare.”
Me: “I’ve made some really nice salmon for family before and had them request that I cook it all the way through and that just kills me!”
Alan: “Another good thing… Have you ever done corn on the barbecue where you soak it in water for a while then you put it on the barbecue for two or three minutes. Then you put butter on it and put it back on the grill. Roll it around the grill until it starts getting caramelized and the sugars come out of the corn and the butter starts getting browned. It’s great”
Me: “Corn is just coming into season, I’ll have to try that.”
Our soufflé arrives. They are enormous! Dessert was supposed to be a chocolate-coconut dish. Neither of us like coconut so they substituted dessert for us.
Me: “I plan vacations around restaurants. That’s how I ended up at Sooke Harbour House. When we were in Minnesota earlier this summer, we were heading out to lunch and my husband asked me where we should go…when I didn’t know he was very surprised. I always research the restaurants in towns we’re visiting! We had a terrible lunch. So I went back to the hotel room and researched dinner. Found a wonderful place so I was redeemed.”
Alan: “You never hear of musicians opening up restaurants. Every second movie star does that, every second sports hero does that. I guess writers don’t either.”
Me: “Maynard from Tool opened a winery.”
Alan: “Yeah, I guess there’s wineries. Sting has a winery now too.”
Me: “We have a bottle of Maynard’s wine we haven’t tried it yet. It’s, I think, a 2007 cab so it will little be a while before we drink that.”
Time was running out so we wrapped up lunch and headed off to sound check. I got to drive right up to where the tour bus was parked by using phrases like, “I’m with the band.” I’m such a fan girl!! The show that night was wonderful as usual. You can’t beat a day with excellent food, excellent company, and excellent music. Hopefully when we are in the same town, Alan and I will get together to grab a bite or just chat. He was a lovely lunch companion.
Posted in alan anton, celebrity, cowboy junkies, le papillon, table dance | 3 Comments »
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