mountainspigsandfood

[mountainspigsandfood]

Breakfast/Pondicheri/We’re all connected

breakfast is my favorite meal.  It’s true.

I don’t really indulge in THAT kind of breakfast that often but when it comes to travel and eating I’m always most obsessed with seeing what kind meal every culture indulges in to start their day.  

And I will tell you nothing gets you into the swing of a new place like eating what it is they eat there for the day’s first meal.  It’s true.  Feeling out of place or jet lagged or still pissed it’s god-knows-what time at home and in your body but 9am where you are and you’re still all dry from the airplane air?  Lost your luggage on top of that?   Eat their breakfast.  Sure, you can eat their lunch if it’s time for that but I’m talking breakfast now because I just love it so much.  

Costa Rica has a strong, strong breakfast game.   They even know how to seriously rock the granola and yogurt in the middle of the jungle.  And not “eco-lodge middle of the jungle” either.   Carambola juice that glows like the sun.  You know what?  I haven’t been there in easily 20 years and I remember how great my breakfasts were there.

Italy, the barely there lingerie of breakfast holders---still epic if you’re there just steps from Piazza Navona with an espresso and cornetti.   

When I had Lassi we had a great time coming up with breakfasts.   We didn’t open for breakfast for that long.   It wasn’t the neighborhood or street for it but the cooks and I started making each other breakfasts from then on.   Great paratha and egg curries.   Savory rice puddings with mango.   Carrot parathas with raita.   I always say the part of Lassi I miss most was the food.

I recently became friends with Chef Anita Jaisinghani.  After two successful restaurants in Houston she has come to New York with Pondicheri.    I never go out to Indian restaurants.   But I go to Pondicheri.  So good.  A great review from the New York Times as well.

AND THEY DO BREAKFAST AND IT IS GLORIOUS.  I’m going to have to go back 1000 times to make sure and eat EVERYTHING.

This is the breakfast Thali.     I can’t even look at it and stay sane I enjoyed it so much.

That’s a carrot paratha with a fried egg. Between 12 and 1 that’s a potato cake with strawberry preserves. To it’s right is uppma, a thick porridge made from semolina.  After that is lamb keema and salad and raita.  It hits the soul.   

This may sound nuts but I remember the first time I went the Loveless motel in Nashville.  Sweet Jesus I never recovered.  Literally.   The amount of whiskey from the night before plus the drive plus the biscuits bigger than my head.  There was also a truck stop outside of Sewanee with insane biscuits and gravy and it’s own prostitute named Debbie with glitter all over her shoulders.               I digress but Pondicheri brings me that kind of excitement.  And those things really excited me

I have to confess it’s really hard to write about breakfast when so much in the industry I call home and family is threatened right now.   Everyone I work with is an immigrant, a person of color, a woman, someone just trying to stay afloat while the numbers in restaurants are going down, a small business owner, a student, someone with or without health insurance.   If my writing seems different or not as quirky or restrained, it’s because the business pressures are immense right now.  If you can, support your smaller guys.  Your businesses that are owned by the gal behind the counter.  The one that’s run by your neighbor.  

And don’t forget to have breakfast. It’s the most fabulous meal of the day if I have anything to say about it.

#breakfast #paratha #biscuitsandgravy #no ban no registry

[mountainspigsandfood]

Jewish Law/Cultured Meat/Support the guy next to you/Happy New Year

I started taking this class at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  Long story on why but for now let’s talk about food.  The class is called “Creating A Living Torah”.  It’s about how traditional Jewish law gets applied to modern living. For example, as the LGBTQ community has been able to finally have rights straight people take for granted, a minion of rabbis came together each with a paper that is written as a law paper proposing the acceptance of such rights.

When these papers are written rabbis consult specialists around the world or in any field that might have something to do with it.   The rabbi teaching this course is Rabbi Daniel Nevins who was the first to propose equal rights recognized by the temple.  He consulted with many of his students who were a part of that community so he could fully understand and be sensitive to the needs expressed by the entire community.  In his words, “I’m a straight white guy. What do I know?”

**Interesting fact. Our law system is designed after the structure of Jewish Law.  Go figure.

The first class was about cultured meat. Yup. The meat product developed in a lab from a biopsy of skeletal stem cells taken from a live cow.  I think every few food talks/think tanks/presentations brings this up. This and the printable food guys.   I think chefs dig the topic because we need/want to have a hand in anything related with food but some of us squish up our faces at this because really, without farming where is history?

 The questions the paper could answer is: Is this kosher? Could it potentially be an opportunity to have meat all time?  Think about it:  No cloven hooves.  No blood. No animal suffering.  Big possibilities here to the kosher communities.  On an everybody level:  No hormones or antibiotics.  No salmonella or E Coli contaminants.  No polluting of the environment from industrial farms.

The paper also brings up ecology.  “The vast tracks of land and quantities of fresh water currently dedicated to livestock production could instead be used to cultivate diverse fruits and vegetables”  and “fields could be fallowed and returned to nature”.  Which is a good point if we’re looking directly at the questionable principles of industrial farming as opposed to organic livestock farming.

In the big picture, it’s all a little Soilent Green for me.  Really not knowing where it comes from.  AT ALL.  

But it’s an interesting thought process.  To bring your culture up to date enough to embrace such concepts and how your people fit into it.    In some ways, no rock was unturned.  Is it “meat” or is it “parve” (neutral) to the laws of keeping kosher?   My thought was that Pringles are also parve but very little of that food product is food.  At what point do we stray so far from what “God” had put on the Earth that we risk our health and long term ideas for ease and immediate gratification?  Rabbi Nevins also spoke about losing components to the Jewish culture when you can have such parve versions of traditionally treif, non-kosher, food.   The two sets of plates at home---one for meat, the other for dairy---would be lost.  We’re already seeing that with the rise of vegetarianism.

Do you only use the cells of a kosher cow?  The answer would have to be “of course” but then you are hurting a living animal and kosher law doesn’t accept the suffering of animals.  Probably easy to get around that one.  

The paper is long and of course full of a lot of very different views from the other rabbis in the minion.  Some reference specific biblical passages, some reference scientific points make by other rabbis and the Talmudic Encyclopedia.

One of the things I find fascinating is that many of the people consulted for all the papers that are written by rabbis who propose the possibility of approaching a law are not specifically jewish. They are professionals.  People who specialize is the social/medical/political issue being dealt with.  

What turned out was a far more comprehensive and complex conversation about food and what we put into our bodies.  It was interesting to see how much of the class agreed with me until they realized that time and ease was something they’d have to give up.  It is so much easier to eat and deal with the process of fake food.

I think we’re all going to have a lot to think about when it comes to this in the coming years.  We’ve made great strides towards closing food deserts as well as educating the masses on food and sugar and disease.   But we’re up against possible policy change and even steeper cuts against farmers and kitchen workers.  

It’s a key time to concentrate mostly on immediate community.  Support those in direct relation to you, feed those that need it, educate some and listen intently to others.  Wendell Berry said that “Eating is an agricultural act.”  Be aware of what you eat and who it is you support.

Happiest of New Years.  It’s going to be a fantastic one.  Really.

#jewish study #wendellberry #jewish law #meat #culturedmeat #rabbi #foodactivism #farms

[mountainspigsandfood]

Who is going to cook your eggs now?

To be honest I was looking for ways to start getting more political on this blog.  But I thought, do I want to get all political on a mostly food based blog?   Sure, lots of people are talking about food and politics these days.  To be honest, I was doing that long ago with a very small, unknown group of people.

But now it’s all different and I feel that we need to speak of important things everywhere.   After this election I find it amazing that so many people who voted for Trump still think it’s a Democrat/Republican issue.

It’s not.  The KKK endorsed him and he didn’t rise up to say he would have no part of it.  His supporters didn’t seem to have a problem with it.   He degrades women and yelled at children during his rallies.  He has made fun of the disabled.  His vice president is one of the most dangerous men to our rights as women, the LGBTQ community and anyone who isn’t white.

I’m tired of hearing about how no one foresaw the anger of the white lower classes.  I’m not buying it.  There are plenty of good, kind white lower class citizens who are angry but not eating up all the hate speech.  They’re not racist. They’re not cruel.   Racism is everywhere.  Rich, poor, man, woman.

And that’s what racism is. Cruelty. 

As far as the restaurant business goes, I cannot imagine what will happen.  Every kind of person from every place on Earth works in the restaurant business in America.  Every kind.  

When taxes on the middle class go up and education goes down and people stop feeling safe, which has already started,  jobs will go down.  The disposable income people use to dine out will diminish.  This happened during the recession.  So many restaurants closed.  Everyone lost jobs, life savings.

And now, the one industry that runs solely on a diverse population---not the ones you see on Food Network.  That group is mostly white. But the people that everyday are running any kind of hospitality business---is under attack.   Both documented and undocumented workers are integral parts of every business in food.  Restaurants, bakeries, hotels, bars, clubs, farms, factories.  Even supermarkets and other food based retail.  These are all hospitality based businesses.  You know what hospitality is?  Kindness.

I have forever had to step around fellow restaurant employees on a prayer rug in the dry goods room, back alley or wherever while they take their time for daily prayer.   Or be understanding that during ramadan it may be difficult for a fellow cook or waitstaff to work under the pressure of a busy night.   It does nothing but raise the cultural understanding of others and create compassion. 

And what about the disabled?  A majority of people in the restaurant business carry with them the suffering of some anxiety, depression or addiction.   We must remember that these are disabilities.   The world to come is not planning to be kinder to these people.  

Note: I include myself in this group.

It is hard enough to be a woman in the world without being a woman in the kitchen and let me tell you, that is not a smooth ride.   As is already being seen it is considered by some to suddenly have carte blanche to act as we’ve seen our president-elect act toward all these people.  The disabled, the veterans, people of color, women.    If you’ve lived through running a business during the last recession you will understand that bad behavior be it financial or social does not benefit the masses, the waitresses at truck stops, the housekeeper, the mechanic or appliance repair guy.   We all go down with it.  

(Dr. Martin Luther King marching to Montgomery with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshel)

When people demonstrate everyone benefits. It educates, it expresses rage.   It is one of the most important forms of democracy.  Not one constitutional progress has been made without demonstrations.  From the times of pamphleteering to the march from Selma to Montgomery.

Let us remember:  where there is activism there have been atrocities.

Where there is food, there is unity.

#equality #equalrights #democracy #restaurantwork #freedom #food foodworkers

[mountainspigsandfood]

Would you rent a restaurant space from Donald Trump?/Food activism/An awesome wedding cake/There was a Jordan Almond Bar and it was glorious but that’s for later.

On FB I'm "friends" with a lot of people I don't know well if at all.  I'm sure everybody is.  A lot of them are chefs or other food professionals or just foodies.I'm noticing a lot of people are giving David Burke a lot of crap for opening his next venture in a Donald Trump property.   This is especially interesting since Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zacharian recently backed out of the same space at the risk of getting sued by Trump.  Trump is really good at suing so, you know, bombs away.   Chefs Andres and Zacharian were touted for upholding their beliefs after Trump has made his thoughts on immigration and women and the health care system known.  And hey, how do you not do everything possible to separate yourself from white supremacists when they endorse you?  I would have backed out too.  I'm the child of an immigrant, a woman and someone who holds her health insurance close to her heart.  I also have a daughter who's father is an immigrant. Hell, everybody here is an immigrant if they're not from a native tribe.  I also move fast and free in my opinions of feminism, free speech, race relations and the love of small business....no surprise there. But let's get back to David Burke.  I'm not here to judge him.  Business is business in many ways and Chef Burke came up in ranks just as I was and it was a different world. We must remember that at that time the only space to make great, creative food was for people like Donald Trump.....who, to be clear, was a social phenomenon. He was a socialite.  He lived off his father fortune, married beauty and said little.  That's right. He didn't talk very much in the press.  We didn't have reality shows or computers.  He was the rich guy building buildings with other people's money and ate out at Le Cirque and La Caravelle.  Jean-George was a young buck.  Back then Democratic and Republican politicians spoke to each other with respect and understanding.   They dined in these spaces together. You know the way we can see nothing wrong with Rene Redsepi and Massimo Battura? Well at one time in the late 80's, no one had seen the likes of David Burke.   He broke rules and adored food and creativity like not many others at the time.  He won awards only given to the French chefs until then (Google Meillieur Ouvrier de France). Chef Burke came up at that time with Young Trump and his new bride Ivana in his dining rooms.  I imagine though that he will be hiring women and immigrants and people of color and people in need of health care when this property opens. But now there's an argument about his decision.  I can't blame people.There's the "This isn't about politics. It's about delicious food." group and then there is the "How can you possibly do business with that man?" group. Burke is responding to everything lightly.  Thank yous and I appreciate that, etc.   I'm opening up this post to opinion.   I'd like to hear what everybody thinks of this one.  I will not bite your head off.   In my heart I may want to but in the spirit of the way politics once was, I'd like to hear your opinions.  If you'd like to PM instead of posting, that's fine too. I'm going to lead this post into more politics. It's the politics of food.  It seems to be quite the thing now.  I'm cool with that.  I've been doing this for a while.   I was a founding member of Chefs For The Marcellus.  I take great pride in the fact that CFM was the first group to educate the food world to the dangers of fracking and how it was affecting the farms that we supported.   We started before a lot of other people and I've heard recently that our work influenced a lot of people in the food industry to look closer at the world our food comes from.  That’s all we ever wanted. I will tell you that the real activism work is HARD.   It is not just a few photo ops and a couple of events and befriending a bunch of farmers at the farmer's market.  Seeing what goes on in the state capital is difficult to stomach.  The anger you carry with you when you're knee deep in that work is exhausting and the burn out is palpable way before it happens.  I've been eviscerated on Fox News (I was lied to about the show and sorely under prepared and then yelled at by the host after shooting stopped because I caught him in a lie.  The camera man had to walk me out because he was afraid I'd get hurt) and have stood out in the freaking crazy cold during protests. You know what?  It worked.  Not me but all the thousands of amazing people that get out there and really hit the groud running for food and water rights in New York State (Of course it was just a small step but it was huge for us). I'm bringing this up because we're at a time when everything to do with food is politics.  The big guys that control big food and big agriculture made it so.  Otherwise people like me would be happy doing my crazy weekend covers and my not so great Monday night football covers and prepping and coming up with more specials. I guess it's me saying that we can't be "it's only business" right now.  I've seen what happens in Albany and it's scary.  It's scary because it's a microcosm of what the bigger picture really is and I will tell you it's damn infuriating.   So when you see people at rallies that you will never attend but are happy to pose for the poster, give those people a high five. Your picture on the poster helps shed much needed light on issues for people who have no idea.  That's really cool. But give the love to the people that work their asses off for NO MONEY and to make sure we live.  

Better school lunches?  The people that work that one work like monsters.  Clean water?  Just ask everyone outside at Standing Rock.  I thought for a while that I would go into Food Policy but that is heart break on a silver platter and I’m not strong enough for that.

There is activism only because there was an abomination.  Period.  Realize the weight behind the work.

There is my rant.

Now, something I've been wanting to bring up for a long time.  This summer I went to my cousin's wedding in Sicily. It wasn't a destination wedding.  My family is from Sicily.  And yes, it was amazing.   My cousin married a wonderful man who rebuilt his family's run down vineyard into a beautiful ecotourism hotel.

here's the plug:

www.masserialachiusa.it I wanted to write all about freaking everything about it when I got back but life happened. Also, I didn't get the best pictures.  My other cousins did.  I was too busy just being really into it. BUT I have to show you the wedding cake.This is not a good picture to say the least.

But you see the green and white sections?  The sections that aren't fraise de boise and whipped cream?Those are flower boxes with plants.  I know, right??? The walls of the flower boxes were made with the stand.  Which I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to share the back of a car with on a rainy night while driving the Sicilian mountains.  I have mixed feeling about that stand.   But I loved the cake. At another time I’ll tell you all about the Jordan Almond bar.  Yup.  A bar of assorted Jordan Almonds.  Epic.

#wouldyoudobusinesswithtrump foodactivism chefsforthemarcellus weddingcakes

[mountainspigsandfood]

What do Muhammed Ali, Edna Lewis and Pierre Franney all have in common?

Well, if you guessed my dad you win a year supply of Turtle Wax.   My dad came to the United States in 1970.  He won a photography contest sponsored by Canon in his home country of Belgium.

At a time when Chelsea was a bad neighborhood and real estate was cheap (yes, please Google) my father set up shop and started to take on clients.   

He ended up becoming a food photographer.  Believe me, that was not considered cool or glamorous back then.  It was to creative types but really not to the main stream.  When I got into culinary school and became interested in his career I started looking through his portfolio.  

“Dad! You got all the covers!”  “Heather, it was between just me and another guy.  And if one of us was on vacation, well, the other guy got it.”  How different that is from today.

My folks sold that place in Chelsea in the last couple of years and high tailed it to the Canary Islands.  I now have the storage unit full of a career of a photographer based on analog (Google that too).  I’ve been finding such treasures among the slides.

I’m going to just show you a few outtakes. 

First up and most likely the biggest is from the shoot for “Cooking With The Champ” by Lana Shabaz.  Lana was the personal chef to Muhammed Ali.  He was a big believer in nutrition and Lana was a big part of his life.  My dad got the gig to be the photographer for the cookbook.   

I love these of him getting his make up done.  I think this is his wife. 

There was a shoot for Country Living magazine about the grande dame of Southern cuisine, Edna Lewis.  I know there are many more shots deep in the heart of the storage unit but here is the one that I found most easily and I very much wanted to have her included in this post.  This gives me the chance to do a post just about her when I come across the rest.

For the real food enthusiasts out there, these next photos slay me.  This is a shoot of Pierre Franney cooking with his grandchildren.  I think we are way passed most foodies knowing who Franney was but he was such a star in his day.  A man of cuisine and a man of the press.  

If anyone knows these kids now, let me know.

I’ll have more photos and more stories as my dad gets wind of this and corrects and adds to what I find.

I leave you with this:

All photos by Andrè Gillardin.

#muhammedali #ednalewis #foodphotography #pierrefranney #cheflife

[mountainspigsandfood]

Politics and food. Period.

I wrote a post on my Facebook account saying that I would only post this one political post and then I’m signing out on that.  I’m actually thinking of getting of FB for a while any way.  Sometimes, and you know what I’m talking about, it gets stupid and now we’re in probably the most insulting election year ever.  That can only mean one thing:  more eye rolling than my sockets can handle.  People are amazing.  

I wrote the post.  And because my friends are my friends I got a lot of likes, a record number of shares and one guy who I don’t know who apparently didn’t agree with me.  That’s okay. I unfriended him because in this year with all the mean comments he was not so bad but I’m thin skinned.

I’m bringing up politics because even though more people think about or claim they think about food than ever before, there is still little talk about the politics of food.

The politics of food doesn’t always fall under climate change though that’s part of it.  It doesn’t always fall under farms, though thats part of it as well.  The politics of food reaches in every direction.  Hunger, health, environment, work ethics, monetary.  There are more.  

No one talks about food.  Not in the real grown up way we should be. I love Michelle Obama and her food and fitness mission but not one word on hunger and the horrible stuff we’re fed and how sick we’re becoming.  

This isn’t a “gluten intolerance argument or no carb/no fat/it’s sugar that’s the devil no it’s not it’s lard” type of argument.  It’s a serious “let’s challenge the status quo that IS NOT WORKING” type of argument.  

It’s an argument based on corporations and big pharma and industrial farms and food deserts and the affordability of fresh produce AND the system that doesn’t give us enough time to cook for ourselves.  We can’t even afford to work a regular work day and go home and cook real food for our families.  Wonder why we’re sick and uneducated about that? Wonder why we eat fast food and suffer from inflammation and make people feel like crap for not being thin and rich?

Yes, it’s also about kids not knowing that vegetables grow in the ground and all the other things Jamie Oliver brought to light. Thank you, Britain.  It’s about jobs and humane behavior toward the animals we eat and the respect for the land.  It’s about money and poor people.

And it ends up being about people not nourishing each other.  Not living in a cohesive, intelligent way.  

You know what happens when people aren’t given the support to take care of themselves?  They become distressed.  They hit bottom because they can’t take care of their families.  They can’t afford health care for the diseases that have become them.  There is no more preventative medicine once we become more American as our bloodlines are here longer.  In other countries they take naps and cook AND do business.  In a world where the dysfunctional rules and supports other countries, we all lose.

And thus we live in fear and we make irrational decisions.

So yes, all of politics is about food.  Why don’t we bring this up?  Why is it always the happy, vegetables with kids photos?  Our leaders need to be getting really deep in there.  Stop obsessing over the symptom and dig in deep.

Feed us.

#politics #politicsoffood #electionyear #jamieoliver #inflammation #farms #industrial farming #health

[mountainspigsandfood]

a serious rant. you can assume this means whatever you need it to.

I have a ton of random stuff on my brain these days so bear with me.

I’d like to talk today about culture.  It’s a deep word these days as we’re seeing under a magnifying glass how the DNA of our country is showing up in our everyday culture.  It’s some bad stuff.  And it’s always been there.  Some of us have to contend with it as we live and breathe and some of us live in a bubble and all this is new to us.  As we’ve been hearing “It’s not the behavior that’s new. It’s the cameras that are new”.  Yes, it’s true.

I’m not going to attack this as I would if we were all sitting around a table talking.  I’m going to sort of bring this in things I’ve noticed lately.  Not the big, bad brushstrokes of media but in the little things that show just as much.  Things we may not see or take for granted.

At the end of June I took my daughter to Sicily for my cousin’s wedding.  I still have quite a bit of family there and I have not been able to return for over 25 years.  Needless to say the excitement around this trip was huge. I’m still feeling it.

When you go to another country, even if they speak English and you have some deep spiritual roots there the fact is the culture is different and if you’re not wearing blinders you tread differently.  Maybe not lightly either. Maybe you tread with more comfort just because your roots are there (that’s me I’m talking about) or maybe it’s all new and magical and you’re open to it (that’s my 8 year old) or maybe you just don’t get it but you don’t want to upset the flow (that’s the guy at the airport). 

I love being a person of the world.  I love going places and accommodating the culture around me and seeing how to experience it wholeheartedly.

This also really shows what perhaps you’d like to see in your own home. In your own country.   First thing I noticed---which was a biggie for me---was on line to board the plane leaving JFK.  We flew out on an Italian airline.  Everyone on the line was Sicilian.  It was surprising. Not Italian. Sicilian. There’s a difference.  Please google. 

Anyway, you know at the beginning of boarding where they ask for people who are disabled or working armed forces or people with small babies to board first?  Well, my eight year old was included in that. Not only that but she’s crazy tall for her age and could easily pass for 10 years old.  She’s still falls under “bambini” in this situation.  And it was awesome.  She may not be super small and I may not be mentally and physically overloaded with strollers and diaper bags but the fact is that traveling with any one that is your charge and young is work.  I also happen to have one of the good kids.  That’s doesn’t matter the work is always heavy on my heart because it’s a big job.  And I was thrilled/relieved in a way I really didn’t expect.  People barely hold the door open for strangers anymore or thank you when you do.  And not just in the middle of New York.  It’s a bit of an epidemic. So I danced.  In the aisle. All the way to our seats.

And that right there is cultural.  That right there is kindness and understanding that certain things are easier if they’re accommodated. Like mothers with children.  Or people with disabilities.  

This makes me look further into American culture and how we work.  Lack of accommodating days off and health benefits and people who will work better with a little break (siesta).  We seem not to have kindness as part of our immediate culture all the time.  Yes, we come together when the shit comes down.  We pull together for certain things.  But the fact is we’re the young stupid frat brother who has to be smacked over the head sometimes.   

This all started with our DNA.

So now----as I bring this back along to food----we are unkind to the masses and feed them and ourselves with crap.  Now we’re scrambling to understand self preservation and health.   And at the very soul of health is feeding ourselves nutrition.

In professional kitchens we’re seeing in in the need for celebrity without learning how to handle food in a clean manner.  We’re seeing lack of respect for our century old kitchen culture.  

We seem to have to be reminded to be kind only when the things are bad and someone is already crying.  

Not everybody but the overall position of business interaction is now the takeover---not the act of good business.  This is seen in the astonishing rents and the lack of kindness to small businesses.

I consult for a lot of small business as well as large and the one thing I hear most is that every small business owner is in need of a break.  Not another fight up the hill.  There’s no fear of hard work, there’s just a lack of fair chance in our governing standards.

We demand commerce and great food and strong teeth and bones but we’re not meeting anyone half way.  We’re kissing up to the people that give nothing. We’re not letting our mothers by with their kids.  We’re not helping the community minded restaurant that employs people and brings new people to the neighborhood.  We’re not supporting the cook that just wants to cook for a living wage.

We’re good at many things.  Apple pie is one of them.  Keeping the light on for the night shift is not.

I didn’t end up staying in Sicily though I think about it often.  We make fun of other countries for not being us.  They’re older and know that they have what it takes to survive as a culture.  Slow and steady.  Not everyone is as threatened as our culture is sometimes.

go kiss someone. twice. 

More on food and Sicily next post.

#kindness #government #culture #food #politics #siesta

[mountainspigsandfood]

One more thing on the Food Lab/Paying your dues/A Broadway mention on Tony night

If you are one of my four audience members of this blog you know that in recent times I have been looking elsewhere for inspiration.  The creative of other mediums, the business of other concentrations.  I find it all inspiring only because I’ve found the decades of the food business has given me insight to full blown business structures as well as an understanding of lots of different creative processes.

For a while when I was contemplating life outside of restaurants I couldn’t comprehend what on Earth I was going to be doing for work.  Turns out once you’ve got years of food experience under your belt, you know way more than you think.

This is because our business is HARD.  On my best, most golden day it was never easy.  On my shortest day, it was long. 

A young woman at the Food Lab raised her hand during the Q&A at the end of our panel.  She told us about a few people in her life who had a dream of a career in food but that they all left after they went into their first job after culinary school.

She wanted to know what was essentially wrong with our industry that her friends couldn’t make it.  No one felt valued.  No one felt welcome.  She wanted to know why this ancient pyramid structure of power was still in place.  I wanted to know why we were getting blamed.  

She mentioned that she worked in a news room and that when she came into it she felt welcome and that her opinion was a part of something bigger and that why couldn’t the restaurant world update itself.  “Couldn’t you use more computers?” is something she asked.

I will say that when she said their seemed to be this pyramid of power, I interrupted with “Absolutely!”.  I love that pyramid.  So my opinion was obvious and in all honesty more people came up to me after the panel about her than most anything else.

Eric Ripert asked me if I wanted to answer her and I let him answer.  He explained that water still had to boil and food still had to be prepped and that at the base of what we do we are craftsmen and it takes years to move up the ladder.  He also said that creativity is an honor.  Which I loved. I think any of us would have said the rest of what he mentioned but that one sentence won me over. Creativity is an honor.

At any one time you can hear serious restaurant people talk about the disservice that has been done by the glamorization of our industry.  I agree with that woman.  We chew up and spit out a lot of people.  It is not easy. 

What is easy is watching it on TV or reading about it in a book or magazine and saying to yourself “I would have handled that better.”  In real life it’s a hard call to make when you’re in a 90 degree kitchen in a poly/cotton blend and orders are coming in at an alarming rate and no one is doing what you’ve told them or what they’re paid to do.

The fact that she said she worked in a newsroom and that the state of American journalism is going to hell in a hand basket did not go over my head.  

I felt for her.  Nearly everyone that came over to me said the same thing, “Could you believe that Millennial?”  They had already branded her “millennial”.  I looked for her after the panel but I didn’t see her.  I wanted to be a bit more gentle.  If I had answered the question I would have brought up that at least now there are so many more options our there for people who really love food and want to work with it.  Test kitchens, magazines, start ups, teaching.  The world has really opened up.

What made me write about this and bring up the Food Lab again was that in my search for other inspirations, I was listing to an NPR podcast Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She was interviewing the Broadway and movie producer Scott Rudin.  He’s a known name in New York and Hollywood but since I’ve been nose down in a kitchen for so long, I’m just learning that he’s produced SO MUCH.  

He talked a lot about starting in low jobs as a 15 year old.  By 18 he was a big part of the casting for the original production of Annie.  I don’t remember who he was talking about but in expressing his dedication to the mentor relationship he talked about working for a Broadway producer who wasn’t the best at treating him well but he learned more from that man than any day since.  This man had a prosthetic leg. He took it off one day, handed it to Scott and told him to go get it fixed.  He wouldn’t give him cab fare. He had to get on a NYC bus with a fake leg for this guy.  He pulled worms off of his tomato plants (that is not a metaphor). He said that may have been the greatest day of his life.   

I freaking loved that.  Working your way up is what gives you character and love and guts.  It makes you find out what it is you really want from work and life. And in the best way it’s what gives you STORIES.  Who wants to get everything on a silver platter?   That doesn’t give you stories to tell.  Telling stories is what brings us all together.  All the time.

I highly recommend listening to it.  Here.

#thefoodlab #scottrudin creativeprocess restaurantwork chefslife

[mountainspigsandfood]

Anyone in Orlando or has followers from the area please!

AB, O+ and O- blood donors needed ASAP!!! Due to the shooting overnight, the hospital and blood bank is critically low right now for donated blood. If you are able, please go this morning to donate at one of the locations below. This valuable gift you can give is a direct way to help those injured from this tragic incident. The Orange, Osceola, and Seminole locations open today are:

Orlando - West Michigan Donor Center 345 West Michigan St #106 Orlando, FL 32806 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Orlando - Main Donor Center 8669 Commodity Circle Orlando, FL 32819 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Apopka Donor Center 131 North Park Ave Apopka, FL 32703 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Kissimmee Donor Center 1029 North John Young Pkwy Kissimmee, FL 34741 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Oviedo Donor Center 1954 West 426 #1100 Oviedo, FL 32765 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Lake Mary Donor Center 105 Waymont Ct #101 Lake Mary , FL 32746 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM

[mountainspigsandfood]

The Food Lab/Too Authentic /I fit Robin Byrd into my post/I can’t say enough.

One of the big things for me about leaving restaurants was the question of what on Earth would I do from now on?  I’ve always been a dyed in the wool restaurant rat.  A rat, perhaps, of a certain level but a true restaurant person no less.  It’s been tricky keeping myself out there.

I don’t particularly fit into a TV producers dream personality.  Everyone always assumes I do.  I’m outgoing and funny and I like people.  But I suffer around what TV wants from food people.  A producer once told me after an audition that I’m “too authentic”.  Which I think means I can’t hide my opinions and I curse too much.  Perhaps I’m more fit for 1980′s cable TV when 17 people would watch you but you’d still have a show on for a decade.  Perhaps the slot before Robin Byrd.

I don’t particularly want a life of teaching. I love to teach.  Really love to teach. It’s part of a chef’s job.  But I like doing it sporadically. I like putting my all into it, remembering not to do it all the time since I’m so exhausted and then decide it’s not fun every day.  I enjoy it everyday when it’s part of my job. When I have to also do 80 million other things to make a restaurant run.  I can’t explain this one.

So it’s nice to say that this weekend I was on a panel at the Food Lab.  A conference held at the Stonybrook campus in Southampton.   It reminded me that even when 25 year old foodies don’t know you, the rest of the industry remembers what you’ve done, who you’ve helped up the industry ladder and that you’re still doing cool things even when you can never remember to tweet them (I never remember to tweet anything).

The Food Lab is a new conference so it’s comparably small to other conferences these days but it is mighty.  Each panel was smart, informative and thankfully purposely funny.

Geoffrey Drummond, the producer for both Julia Child and Eric Ripert, is the creator of the conference so the line up is a bit more mature.  Not in age either.  There were professionals of all ages there---which I really appreciated.  There’s usually a lot of one generation and little or none of the other.  By mature I refer to the professionalism everyone brought to the table. No one was too serious but everyone could hold their own.  It was relaxed.

Funny thing is that Carla Hall was the key note speaker and she specifically spoke of realizing that her success on TV came from her being her “authentic self”.  Which tells me that Carla doesn’t embrace the curse words like I do.

Nonetheless, I really liked her.  I hear everyone does.  I don’t watch any food related TV.  I think I will now.

The audience was filled with both food professionals and also a good number of people interested in supporting anything local.  Whether it be Stonybook University, Long Island farmers or just their friend who was starting a new snail farm or their own jam business.  

This conference wasn’t overblown with sponsor messages.  There were plenty of sponsors but nothing was bigger than the message.

Anyway, look into this conference. I found it impressive.

I’ll leave you with this picture.  It’s our panel.  That’s me with Deuki Hong, Cesare Casella and Eric Ripert.  Our moderator was Matt Robard.  Google them all.  Google everyone on the website.  I can’t say enough. 

#thefoodlab #ediblemagazine #foodprofessional

[mountainspigsandfood]

Cronut/Trends?/It’s business

I was invited recently to speak on a panel of other food type, professional-ish people.   It’s a panel on trends.  We get that a lot in my business.  I suppose everyone does nowadays as we seem to live in a world in which common folk use sayings like “on brand” and “you need to brand yourself”.

But trends are weird.  I think in my career I’ve thought of a number of things that later became trends.  Was I the first to think of it?  Probably not.  Ideas seem to go from person to person without obvious communication.  And like restaurants we never really know which will take off.

(I’m calling b*llsh&t on this one.  Molasses, peanut brittle and dates for an espresso blend.  Go home, label makers.  You’re drunk.)

Did Dominique Ansel know that the cronut was going to be a trend so big that no matter where you go someone has fried a piece of layered dough with a hole in it?  No he didn’t.  I haven’t even asked him about it and I can still tell you that he had no idea that I’d be standing at a deli counter in Lee County, Florida watching someone slice their version of the cronut in two and put a fried egg and bacon on it.

He had no idea.  Honestly, I can tell you you can’t unsee that.

Sure. He thought he was onto something.  As chefs of a certain level of fine food, we know when we hit one out of the park.  

But this craziness? Nope.  It’s anyone’s guess.

If someone foresaw food trucks, it most likely meant it was already working somewhere.  Because it’s a business plan and business is a working person’s bet.  I’ve been knee deep in business consulting for a few years now and it’s amazing when you sit back and really look at the economy, the politics, the true culture of an area how you can foresee what comes next.

(How to make it as anything really.)

And, you can quote me on this, unless you’ve lived through the business ownership world of any kind, you cannot see clearly what is coming.  Unless you’ve been a victim of the economic insanity, the volley of energy in dealing with government offices that deal with independently owned businesses, the ordeal of staffing, firing, insurance laws and the general business DNA of this world, you cannot make an educated forecast.  You can only make a lucky or unlucky bet.

Nobody can hit the nail on the head all the time.  Shit happens.  It can happen at an alarming rate.  But do not bother with trend forecasts that are not made by those who have been in the trenches of being responsible for their employees well being.  Not a shiny magazine. Not a blogger without any business acumen.

I’ll probably say a lot of things at that event that I’ve said here. I’m hoping for a really dynamic moderator.  Panels sound horrible but can be wildly entertaining if everyone is on board. I tend to say some bad words and embarrass myself with abandon.  You should totally come.

Anyway, here’s the event.

#cronut #food trends #thefoodlab #forcasts #cheflife

[mountainspigsandfood]

Not working/I gave in/Kat Kinsman brought it/Excuse the font freak out.

I’ve spent the three weeks back in New York City thinking about work. Largely because this is the first time in my adult life I haven’t been working.   

While I was working in the residency I was having a conversation with a couple of the artists and we were talking about what would happen when I got back to the city and what I would do for work.

One of the artists said, “Don’t you think you should take some time to process what you’ve been through?” 

(work in progress by David R. Harper.  “Thanks Bob” print by Andrew Jordan and Ty Defoe)

This was a small revelation for me. No. It was a huge revelation.  Ground shaking, It hit me that for my entire adult life I’ve been working.  For the few days that I hadn’t been working in that time I was panicked that I would never have another job.   Of course, I always had a job a few days later.  

This brings me to the Jubilee.  A few days after I got back Cherry Bombe Magazine held their annual Jubilee.  Cherry Bombe Magazine is a magazine that “celebrates women in food”.  It’s a really pretty magazine.  Truth be told, I’ve never read it.  

It’s not a personal or political statement but after so many years in food and so much of my daily life trudging through the business of food, the people of food and the food of food I now rarely read about food unless it’s something that has to do with a friend or is something that someone has emailed me.  Anyone that knows me knows I also don’t watch any food television.  None.  It’s more than a busman’s holiday.  It’s a saturation that is so pervasive, so intense,  so palpable that it makes me think that when people in my industry talk about what they watched on food TV it makes me think they’re not doing their job correctly.

Ridiculous, yes.

I will now read Cherry Bombe.  First, because this is the first time ever that I have time.  Second, because after years and years of chef events and panels and other such get togethers it was an intelligent, thoughtful exchange of ideas and serious conversation.

Kat Kinsman, editor At Large at tastingtable.com talked about a website she started called Chefs With Issues.com.  

(David R. Harper)

#cheflife #rauschenberg #artistsresidency #katkinsman #chefswithissues #cherrybombemag #art #foodasart 

[mountainspigsandfood]

Nearing the end of this part/Not much to say about Jungle Road dinner/Collaboration is big/Mole recipe and I still have more than this to say about this gig.

Life is easier when you’re kind. And breathing is easier when someone is being kind to you. The air is lighter. And art becomes something that changes the world.

I’m in the last week of my work at the Rauschenberg Residency. It’s been a lot of paperwork and organizing and taking stock of the things I wanted to get done and did and the things I didn’t.  There are things I did that I didn’t see coming.  There’s the welcoming of the next chef and mentally parting way with such a big and passionate project.  Making sure the systems work and documenting it. Trying not to take self blame for things that don’t work not because of you.

Passionate projects are full of poor logic but great reason.

It’s been a brainful observing myself cooking in a communal living situation. I don’t think this situation highlights exactly what this would be like everywhere.  Group dynamics fit in perfectly with some groups, not so much in others.

The ask of eating together from the residency is so much of the experience. The chef in this place is always lucky.  The residency embraces the artist and the artist embraces all the different arms of the residency. 

Third week freak outs aside.

There is a definite choreography that happens here. The artists rarely notice it and I’ve heard a few saying it’s all about the group and how awesome they are.

But being treated kindly brings out the best in everybody.  All the time.  So reliably.

The groups can see each other in their best or their creative worst/best in the kindest possible environment.

I put on another pig roast.  It was more about dining on Jungle Road and the collaboration of the artists.

And the artists were very kind.

The collaborations included a bag with a fired plate and napkin.

That’s a silkscreen print on silk of a bird of paradise.

The tablecloth was printed with edible weeds found all over the property.

There was a flag.

And grace was sung.

Closing was played.

I had hoped the artists would find themselves taken with the idea of collaborating with me.  Yes, it all depended on the group.  And I assume it depended on where I was.

I was in the right place.

And I made mole.

Robert Rauschenberg Residency 18 Mole (vegetarian)

INGREDIENTS

4 ounces ancho chiles 

4 ounces guajillo chiles

1 thick slice day-old brioche or challah

1/3 cup pecan meats

1/4 cup blanched almonds

1 large or 2 medium unpeeled onions

4 unpeeled garlic cloves

1 large ripe tomato

4 ounces tomatillos, with husks

2/3 cup (about 3 ounces) sesame seeds

7 tablespoons olive oil

One 6-inch piece canela 

1/2 bunch or 1 small bunch thyme (about 2 dozen sprigs), or 2 teaspoons dried, crumbled

1/4 cup dried Oaxacan oregano or 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano, crumbled 

16 whole cloves

14 allspice berries

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1 cup dark raisins

2 to 4 cups homemade chicken stock, or as necessary 

PREPARATION

The day before beginning the sauce, remove the stems and tops from the chiles; carefully shake out and reserve the seeds. Rinse the chiles under cold running water. Spread them out in a single layer where they can dry completely. Let stand until the following day, turning occasionally and checking to be sure not a drop of moisture remains.

Crush the bread to fine crumbs or grind in a food processor. You should have about 1 cup. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Spread the chiles (they must be bone-dry) in one layer on a baking sheet. Toast them in the oven, turning frequently, until crisp and deeply blackened, about 20 minutes. Let the chiles stand at room temperature until completely cooled.

Spread the pecans and almonds on a baking sheet. Toast them in the oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Place the crisp toasted chiles in a food processor and process until finely ground. Set aside.

On a griddle or in a small cast-iron skillet, heat the reserved chile seeds over high heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until thoroughly charred and black on all sides, about 5 minutes. (Because of the fumes, this is best done outdoors if you have the means.) You can speed the process by sprinkling a few drops of vegetable oil over the seeds and igniting with a match, standing well back from the flame and taking care to shield your face, clothing, and hair. Place the charred seeds in a bowl, cover with at least 2 cups cold water, and soak for 1 1/2 hours, changing the water twice. Drain and set aside.

Heat a griddle or medium-size cast-iron skillet over low heat. If using 1 large onion, cut it in half crosswise (leaving the skin on). Place the onion, individual unpeeled garlic cloves, tomato (stem side down), and tomatillos (in the husks) on the griddle. Cook, turning frequently. The onion and garlic are done when they are somewhat softened, about 8 minutes for the garlic and 20 to 25 minutes for the onion. The tomato is done when the skin is blackened and blistered all over, about 15 to 20 minutes. The tomatillos are done when they are lightly softened all over, about 10 to 15 minutes. (Handle them delicately so as not to squeeze them and pierce the skin, and turn frequently to avoid scorching.) Remove each kind of vegetable as it is done and set it aside in a separate small bowl.

When the vegetables are cool enough to handle, remove the husks from the tomatillos and peel the rest, making sure to save the juices. If using a large onion cut in half, scrape the black bits off the cut side.

Place the sesame seeds in a medium-size heavy skillet over medium heat and toast just until golden (about 3 minutes), stirring constantly and shaking the pan. Immediately scrape out the seeds into a small bowl to stop the cooking. Set aside.

In a small, heavy skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat until rippling. Add the canela, thyme, oregano, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and ginger. Fry the spices, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

In a small skillet, heat another 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat until rippling. Add the raisins and bread crumbs; cook, stirring, until the raisins are puffed and the bread is lightly colored, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

Now you are ready to purée all the ingredients, using either a blender/food processor combination or a blender alone.

If using both machines, place the pecans, almonds, sesame seeds, bread-raisin mixture, ground chiles, and drained chile seeds in the food processor (working in batches as necessary). Process to a smooth purée. Next, place the fried spices, peeled garlic, onion, tomatoes, and tomatillos in the blender and process to a smooth purée. Combine the two mixtures in a large bowl.

If using only a blender, line up all the prepared ingredients next to the machine on the counter, place some of each in the blender container, add a few tablespoons chicken stock, and process until smooth, adding more stock as necessary to facilitate blending. (This method requires great patience; small batches will be well puréed in 1 to 2 minutes while large ones may retain coarse bits of the spices. If thoroughly processed, the mixture will not require sieving, so try not to rush things.) Pour each batch into a bowl as it is done and proceed with the next batch.

In a large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the remaining 4 tablespoon oil  over high heat until rippling. Add the purée, all at once, watching for splatters, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and cook, stirring frequently, until the harshness of the chiles is mellowed, 35 to 40 minutes.

The mole should now be a heavy paste like a thick frosting mixture. It can be stored in the refrigerator for at least 4 to 6 days, or in the freezer for up to 6 months. In either case, it should be thinned before further cooking. Place the paste in the blender when ready to thin it; add 1 cup chicken stock (or as necessary) and process to combine thoroughly.

[mountainspigsandfood]

the new artists are here/it’s always all about the hospitality/I bought another pig

The new artists are here.  It’s a very different dynamic than the last group.  I foresaw the fact that 5 out of the 10 of this group are collaborators.  What I didn’t consider were the ages of these artists.  This group is considerably younger.

Which triggers in me the hospitality professional.  It’s interesting the dynamic of a client group depending on so many things.  There is a composer, a costume designer, a choreographer, a dancer, a visual artist, a storyteller/trans activist, an installation artist/dancer/forager, a visual artist and two other collaborators are arriving soon.  Another dancer and a musical director.

As a group they’ve arrived gently and started working immediately.  Little adjustment period needed.  Could be youth.  Could just be the personalities/habits of these artists.

The conversation about art and how we all came to it is as fascinating as ever.  The work I’m seeing is so inspiring and gut wrenching and everywhere.

I’m on the last leg of my time here.  So I’m in gear with deadlines and working on making what I leave behind as cohesive as possible. 

It’s taken a lot of work.  This definitely didn’t make an easier three month life. I’m still at work an average of 11 hours a day.  The commute to work is lovelier than the one in New York City but there is a lot of driving and the connections with farmers is a tough one to meld together.   The market for sustainable foods is just starting and the farmers that are putting it out there are working so hard.  Seasonality of clients, the ridiculous weather conditions of this year on top of the usual small business woes.

It’s also a matter of what we’ll order.  When you’re cooking for the same 10-16 people every day, twice a day, you’re not going to order cases of produce.   There’s a lot of farmer’s market visits and keeping my fingers crossed that the small but noble organic section of the local supermarket is stocked.  

One of the great things?  The people that are working toward a better local food system are really into it.  They’re busy and smart and working on it all the time.  And to top it off there is a client base for this.  The farmer’s markets are busy and interesting and full of fervent supporters.  

There are local fairs about permaculture and food systems.  There are really good restaurants out there in Fort Myers.  Insanely good, authentic tacos.  Dream worthy Greek food.  It’s taken me a little by surprise since the only real estate out there is in strip malls so that’s where you find these places.  I so don’t come from the land of the strip mall.  You live and learn.

I think in the most basic place you have--wherever you can feel it---art, hospitality, service come down to vulnerability.  All of these things have become a form of economic purpose.  But the people that are willing to make the art, be hospitable, be of service were originally the ones willing to open themselves up and comfort the rest of the world.  We forget this too often as we struggle to do things that will pay rent or buy a car or pay for a doctor’s visit or buy something you don’t need but will impress others.  We forget this as we watch the things we do become something to make others money.  A lot of money that perhaps they just don’t need.  We lose the art form.

For me I see it as we quickly lose the professional waiter who knows that even his/her hair is part of the theatre that goes on every night in a fine restaurant. Their clean shirt, neat shoes and dress pants.  A restaurant of great caliber was not a place that was a money maker on a grand scale.  It was a place where the owner could support their family and keep up a long tradition of service, of art, of community. A place of special occasions no matter who you are.  

As we begin to embrace and share this love of food that now has taken over our culture, if feels as though we’ve lost the love from where it was born.  Not everywhere and not all the time.  We’ve just become a bit careless.  With food and art and music and the things that make life insanely worth it.  

Perhaps it’s the feeling of the election year coming up and the strange tension in the air because of it.  But the simplicity of what we do seems more precious.

And oh yeah, I bought another pig.  An artist will cast the head.  I will feed the masses

#rauschenbergresidency #slowfood #art food

[mountainspigsandfood]

The environment you create in/A lot of art/Pig Mountain Captiva

There is something very specific about the environment you create in.  It stands out now at the residency as everything is there to support art.  White walls for days. Quiet spaces. Sky and trees and water. Dark spaces and sound spaces.  Work areas.  People to assist.

As I look at the works of art coming up I realize how lovely it is to be able to look at a sculpture in the nurturing space it was created in.  You can see it, spend time with it.  

(artwork by Robert Tannen  A-RT)

Would I feel the way I do about it if I came across it in a gallery or museum?  I don’t know.  What about the rest of the world?  I think it’s clear that without the right setting it’s really a crap shoot as to what sort of response you’re going to get.

And looking back, it’s a bigger crap shoot what you’ll come up with when your environment is a constant battle for you.

I know that in kitchens it’s always a challenge.  You can have good days and bad days but they always have to coincide with training cooks and hiring dishwashers and paying quarterlies and all the day to day crap you have to deal with just to keep the machine running.  Do I really want to deal with my food cost?  Hell no.

I think we learn to make those times a fertile ground for our creativity.   We’re mostly trained to because that’s what building a restaurant/bakery/bar is all about.  What about the fact that most of us that go into a certain area of the food world are dyed-in-the-wool creatives?  

And that in the quiet moment in the kitchen a dish or other concept might be pristine?  and it could be that once faced with an audience of lesser knowledge it could be panned?

I hate to be constantly brining up these points about critics and customers but we no longer support environments that help the best of minds come alive.   Kind and gentle is more often than not the way to go.  This is why the people in the industry we often remember most fondly are those that are unconditionally supportive toward your work.

They show up to your dining room.  They always have a kind word for all your work.  They remember dishes of yours that they had 10 years prior while celebrating their son’s graduation.  You know that person.  There are tons of them but they seem few in the light of everybody else’s opinion.

(artwork by Mick O’Shea)

We’re coming to the end of this residency. It’s been interesting to see how each artist works.  There are a few that make art out of anything they see in front of them.  It’s like they can’t stop seeing art to make and they keep going.  Piece after piece after piece.  It’s inspiring and hopeful.  There’s an un-jaded confidence in it.  Like a great cook who can’t stop putting out quality that never looks for the stars, the reviews.   Humility.

(artwork by James Weingrod)

As my own happening I decided to do what I do best.  Bury a pig in a pit and cook it. Pig Mountain Captiva.  To pay homage the work that the residency does about climate change and the fact that in 50 years the waters will rise and Captiva will no longer be here, I said that I’d like to cook foods from the island that won’t be here anymore in the land that will also not be here anymore.

When you say you’re going to do this at an artist residency, it looks like this:

(pit deluxe by Matt Hall)

And the studio coordinator makes you awesome tools like this:

(outside cooking awesomeness by Carrell Courtright)

The wood from the area burned faster and cooler than the wood we use up north so I finished the pig in the oven but it was a success.  Foil pouches of fish and vegetables roasted in the ashes.  Banana splits that had nothing to do with climate change but everything to do with this guy 

(Robert Tannen)

were for dessert.

#robert rauschenberg #residency #artists #pig roast

[mountainspigsandfood]

Leaving summer camp/Wrapping it up until next week/In Florida of all places

The first residency with the new food program just ended.  It was a sad moment in some ways.  The artists had to leave camp.  I so remember what it was like to leave summer camp each year.  To leave the place where you were free but protected, could be yourself without the watchful eye of parents.

In this case, without the rest of life getting in the way of your art life.  No kids, no partners, no a lot of things.

For the staff, there’s a duality.  Love you as people but now it’s time to go so you can move on to the next new shiny bunch of artists.  It’s not always easy to deal with the creative types---when it’s not yourself--especially when there’s a week and a half left until it’s time to go home and panic sets in.  

 How do I make the most of this time left?  How much more art can I make?  Will I complete the work I’ve already started? Holy crap, shipping all this art is expensive.  How can I take this dedication to creating combined with the peacefulness and spirit of a beautiful location with a staff of professionals only there to support my love of art?

For the farewell dinner, each person (artists and staff) got to say a thing or two or sometimes seven about their time here.  A lot of artists talked mostly about the magic of the chemistry of the ten of them.  One of them asked if they were the best residency ever.

When it got to me I spoke about what they experienced and  what goes into making sure everything was seamless. No amount of chemistry between artists could make possible the level of hospitality that went on every moment of every day.

Not to take anything away from the artists.  It truly was a great batch of human beings.  

But having your sheets changed weekly, having your own groceries provided for you, a chef cook for you, assistants trained in your chosen medium, beautiful grounds kept as natural as possible---is all part of what makes life magical for those 5 weeks.

Before this residency was over, I was already interested in hearing about what the next batch could or couldn’t eat.  What are they like in person as opposed to just the link on the residency website.  Most importantly, what I’ll be doing different this time around.  

(my ode to Ryan Tate)

Every residency is full of people who have never been here before (usually) so as we go, we can change the rules.

A few things were key to this last one:

-No one is allowed to use the main kitchen for breakfast.  It is now someone’s studio.  Time and space need to be considered for the chef to work on lunch, dinner and for me, the work needed to create the structure of the program.  Which as we know is why I’m here in the first place.

(artwork by Jane Hirshfield, poet)

-In the main kitchen aka The Weeks House, no one is going clean up after you. If you use the kitchen on the weekends, it needs to literally look exactly the way it did when you got there.  Spotless.  Every house has a kitchen, if you can’t pull off cleaning the Weeks House, you can host everyone at your own.

(artwork by James Weingrod)

-I started cooking 5 lunches and 5 dinners but narrowed it down to 4 lunches and 5 dinners.  With this next residency I’m knocking it down to 4 lunches and 4 dinners.  It’s too much to do any other work than that on that schedule.  The purpose of the Chef In Residency program is to give a chef time to work on something else in their life.  A cookbook.  A concept.  Other food.  Artwork.  I’ll see how 4 and 4 work.

(I made this with James)

I wish I had been more fastidious about keeping track of the meals I made.  Too much going on.  I tried for a couple of days but like writing up a weekly menu beforehand, it’s just not in my blood.

I tried to write weekly menus. It lasted literally 10 minutes.  Much easier and natural to me to just see what I have and cook it.  Keep some things in the house, pick up a few interesting/usually unrelated other items and see what comes out of it.

What else can I tell you?

I got close with a couple of people.  I got some art.  I got to find something kind of extraordinary where all my skills are put to use.  I think that has been the greatest thing.  Everything has come really easily.  It’s still a hard days work but it’s nothing I haven’t mastered before.  I’m open to tripping it up but there’s such a lovely feeling over me when I see that nothing is ragingly unfamiliar. 

  All those years in kitchens and dealing with crazy group dynamics and being vulnerable about all the food you put out into the world and giving them hell because you know what you’re going to do is going to end up in print----has actually paid off for three solid months in Florida of all places.

[mountainspigsandfood]

Losing it/Getting reviewed/Questions I can’t answer because it’s late

I wrote a post I was quite proud of.  I was proud of the photos that matched each paragraph and felt strongly about my feelings and how I expressed them. I felt what I had to say would easily reach people and a conversation could get started.

And then tumblr sadly decided to get in my way of posting.  There was a glitch. I had patience but as these things happen, I lost the damn post and to be truthful it hurt for a few days.

I realize that this explanation of things brings me to what I was saying in that lost post.  I’m not sure it’ll be as eloquent or if really the post was that great but it had some good points.

I opened up talking about reviews.  It’s occurred to me lately that the people who review, especially now with online opinions popping up every second of every breath filled day, have no idea how far down we dig to create. To get it out to the public. To get anything creative and truthful out of our minds and onto the plate. The canvas. The space.

Many years ago I received a bad review. It was at the beginning of my career.  The reviewer was from New York Magazine.  He came into the restaurant where I was a pastry chef and from the minute he sat down he started drinking cosmopolitans.  A sweet, strong drink.  And he drank them all the way through the meal. It was about 4 cocktails all together.  We thought that perhaps it wasn’t a review visit but a night out with friends.  Though it was under a fake name, it was a table of five and they all ordered everything on the menu. 

These things aren’t strange for food people having a night out.  We sent out great food.   I remember that night very clearly.  When the review came out the next week it was clear that he was talking about that night.

He said my flavors were like a computer dating service with glitch.  He couldn’t find one good thing to say.  The whole kitchen felt insulted to have to give power to someone who walked in with a firm goal of getting drunk and killing his palate with vodka and fruit juice.   I was to leave for a vacation to the now required pilgrimage to San Sebastian, Spain.  That review tainted the whole trip no matter how hard I told myself it just didn’t matter.

Two weeks after I returned from that vacation our review from the New York Times came out.  The New York Times far trumped New York Magazine.  Remember there wasn’t the internet back then.  We relied on perhaps a couple of hopefully educated people and in many ways we worked as a team to bring better food, hospitality and art to the people.

The Times review changed my career.   It spoke of clean flavors and sophisticated concepts.  Within the year I was to become a favorite of that Times reviewer.  (I’m avoiding naming people to make sure you see the point and not the trend or gossip)

You can never trust an opinion.  You can never truly put your heart in those anonymous hands.   Critics now understand commerce and power and what is in favor.  And things can turn on a dime.

Then of course, what experience do we have with those artists, those that always seem to be lauded?  Those that may work hard but don’t seem to really ever get crushed?  What results from that?  And why or how do each of them get there.

Looking back at my long stretch in the restaurant industry, I’ve had a lot of great reviews.  I worked really hard.  No one remembers that NY magazine review anymore.   Look how damn clearly I do.  

I think we honestly forget that art, craft, skill is a humbling, gut wrenching process.  

#robert rauschenberg #artist residency