What’s cookin’: the famous, the familiar and the 20th Taste of Elegance winner
COOKBOOKS WITH GLAMOUR GALORE…Whoever thought the day would come when a cookbook would be a glamorous status purchase? When I grew up, my mother and my grandmother had recipes cards in a small little box. Our first big cookbook purchase was—you guessed it—Betty Crocker, an all-around basic cookbook for beginners in their classic three-ring style notebook. Nothing fancy, nothing in color. Skip forward to today and the era of the celebrity chefs and colorful, hardcover books with full page photos, so pretty we call them coffee table books—so nice you’re afraid to take them into the kitchen for fear of getting spots on the pages. I’m one of those who are hooked, especially if it’s a chef I know or get to meet with a fun food and drink reception for the book.
I’ve been a real collector since working with Chef Marcus Samuelsson and loved his Aquavit cookbook, which he began working on during his time here. I also loved the Puck book reception we hosted when Wolfgang stopped by some years back (pre-20.21), and the fun interview and reception I helped host at Windows on Minnesota for Le Bernadine’s Eric Ripert. Last year, thanks to the D’Amicos and Peggy Burnett’s Bookcase of Wayzata bookstore, we got to rub elbows at a fun cocktail party at Lurcat for Thomas Keller and take home his huge 350 page, 10-pound Bouchon Cookbook—another coffee table beauty.
So, it was with much anticipation I joined hundreds of foodies and fans during the holidays for two much-touted (and sold out) events with celeb chefs and their new books before Christmas. The notorious Anthony Bourdain held court at Solera and a few weeks later the Chambers Hotel across the street hosted a cocktail reception at their notorious Red, White and F*****g Blue rooftop bar for their top toque, Jean-George Vongerichten. (Hmm. Bourdain could have had some fun with that bar name had he been on stage in that setting, eh?) Both events included the chef’s new books—they were incorporated into the evening event package and paid for online, in advance. I love it! You walk in and give them your name and they give you the book—just like getting a gift, right?
At Solera, they fed us a generous eight-course tapas menu, family style, paired with Spanish wines at tables of 10 that filled the whole room on the third floor of their event center. Bourdain was charming and witty as expected, not as bawdy as usual and went for the casual Q & A format with questions from the floor rather than offering any prepared shtick. I had read and reviewed his first best seller back in 2000, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. It was the shocking exposé of 25 years of bad behavior and haute cuisine. The acclaimed memoir follows the chef from his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown, from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, and from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again.
I met a him few years later in 2004 when he came through town for lunch and reception at Ai with his 300 page Les Halles Cookbook in hand, full of classic bistro recipes and a super glossary in the back to help you pick up French cooking terms. Located on Park Avenue in New York City, and famous for its no-nonsense, down-to-earth look at French Bistro fare (he was the chef there since 1998) they say, “Les Halles matches Bourdain’s style: a restaurant where you can dress down, talk loudly, drink a little too much wine, and have a good time with friends.” I dined there some years back and it truly was a little slice of Paris in the heart of New York.
On this visit to Solera in late November, he introduced his new book, No Reservations: Around the World on An Empty Stomach, and it goes back to his story-telling style with pages and pages of travel photos showcasing his popular Travel Channel TV show of the same name. There are no recipes in this 280-plus page offering, so it truly can stay on the coffee table. The hundreds of photos cover Tony’s travels from five continents with a world map full of red dots showing all the countries where he has stopped, tasted the foods and experienced the culture.
December 13 was a lucky day for foodies who could wrangle a ticket for the sellout cocktail reception to welcome Jean-George Vongerichten to Chambers rooftop with his new book, Asian Flavors Of Jean-George. The colorful cookbook brings us all the best of Jean-George with his fusion favorites and stunning photography of artistically plated food and unique raw ingredients. Currently, he owns 18 restaurants around the world, but if you’re lucky, you can get a scope of his work by a visit to New York. I have tried most of them, from his earliest vision with JoJo’s (a nickname his mother gave him) and later Vong’s, where he added his fusion spirit to the menu, to the fancy Jean-George off Central Park and, of course, the unique Spice Market, located near Greenwich Village in the meat packing district, which he says is the culmination of all his fusion dreams. We sipped ginger margaritas as he explained the thrill it was for him to see this book finally get printed and it seemed everyone enjoyed the Asian tastes from the book. Each time a server emerged with a platter of the crab fritters or lobster summer rolls, they disappeared in seconds. The same certainly was true of the ginger margaritas—Delish! All were found in his book.
Although the book just came out in October, Jean-George explained, “My love of Asian flavors began long ago. I was only 23 when I first experimented with Asian flavors and techniques. Louis Outhier, a phenomenal chef and wonderful mentor, sent me to cook at his restaurant at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. From there, I opened his restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo. In each place, I fell in love with the local cuisine. The unique vegetables, herbs, and seasonings were a revelation. I began cooking with those ingredients then and I haven’t stopped since.”
Jean-George, who is one of only two three-star Michelin chefs in the United States, is the creator of Chambers Kitchen menu here and in New York. On the 13th, he also offered a three-course tasting menu featuring recipes from the cookbook in the Kitchen after the cocktail reception for those lucky folks who could stay.
Me? I had to leave and was just happy as can be to have my signed cookbook under my arm.
SECOND ROUND of ‘FOOD FOR SHOW’…Cheers to the local cookbook scene, and a deja vu on familiar faces as I was reminded the Mt. Sinai Hospital Auxiliary cookbook named, Food for Show—Food on the Go, sold an unprecedented 30,000 copies back in 1983. It was a smash hit then with hundreds of recipes, thanks to more than 250 women donating, testing and sharing their family favorites and a volunteer committee heading up the coordinating and editing. This past fall, the book has been reprinted with a new cover and the line added “The Next Generation.” This revised cookbook salutes the Sholom Home Auxiliary, which is celebrating its 100 year anniversary. It’s a beautiful 235-page, soft-cover book with stunning color photos and chapter dividers by local food photographer Jill Greer. This new edition also has the benefit of the transition of the same editor then and now with Sue Zelickson at the helm and one of the same assistant editors, Delores Sigel on board, then and now. They are both food fans and active volunteers for the cookbook and its cause, plus they love the growing local food scene. As a result they have added a new chapter named “Celebrity Chefs” with more than two dozen recipes from the likes of Spoon River’s Brenda Langdon with her white bean and squash soup, chicken Caesar pasta salad from Linda Quinn at Café Lattée, Andrew Zimmern’s potato pancakes and a turkey osso buco from Chef Paul Lynch at the FireLake Grill House. Bravos all around.
TASTE OF ELEGANCE SALUTES TWO DECADES…Cheers to the 20th Anniversary of the Minnesota Pork Board’s annual Taste Of Elegance and to many talented winners. Since 1989 more than 300 Minnesota chefs have competed in this original pork recipe contest. I spotted familiar names on the 20-year winners list, including local favorites: Joe Kaplan, chef/owner of Joe’s Garage in 1995; Chef Julian Grainger, 1996 winner at Carvers at the Hilton (he now is chef at their SkyWater Restaurant); one two-time winner is Chef Ron Bohnert, who won for the Carousel Restaurant at the St. Paul Radisson Hotel in 1998, and again in 2006 for the StoneRidge Golf Club in Stillwater. In 2001, Chef Tim McCarty won from the Mayo Foundation House in Rochester; Chef Paul Lynch from the FireLake Grill House was the 2005 winner and last year’s winner in 2007, was Chef Bryan Schouten, from Brackett’s Crossing Country Club in Lakeville. In 1992, one winner, John Schumacher, chef/owner of the historic New Prague Hotel, not only won the Minnesota Taste, but he went on to become the only Minnesota chef to win the National Taste of Elegance. Bravo, Chef John.
This year’s 20th Taste event, held at the Minneapolis Hilton Hotel, found 16 chefs competing in the all-day prepping, cooking, plating and taste presentation, judged by three past winners: Chefs Tim McCarty, Bryan Schouten, and guest chef and past San Antonio pork competition winner Chef Johnny Hernandez. After a whirlwind two days here with media visits, an anniversary lunch salute hosted by past winner Chef Paul Lynch at FireLake Grill House and visits to two culinary schools, we took Johnny to dinner at Masa on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.
It seemed the perfect place to share our local salute to Latin cuisine, and Hernandez gave Chef Saul Chavez high marks on the food and presentation. Hernandez, a CIA grad who owns his True Flavors catering business, told us he had attended a meeting at the CIA this past fall where he received some exciting news. First, Latin trends in American cuisine are taking the lead across the nation and replacing Italian as the most popular influence in menus. Secondly, the CIA announced the Center for Foods of the Americas in Texas would become a branch campus of the CIA. They have renamed it The Culinary Institute of America, San Antonio. And even more exciting for Johnny, the CIA announced the formation of a new Latin Cuisines Advisory Committee that will oversee the development of future curricula at the San Antonio campus. Chaired by Rick Bayless, chef/owner of Frontera Grill in Chicago, the advisory committee includes some of the most well-known names in Latin cuisine and four San Antonio residents—including Hernandez. Olé! And cheers to the winners for this year’s 20th Taste of Elegance, topped with the $1,500 first-place prize to Tony Beran, on the chef team at the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant. He goes to the National Finals in San Diego in May. Lets see if he can be the 2nd national winner in 2 decades…I’ll keep my finger crossed. (See the rest of the 2008 winners on the Taste of Elegance summary with photos on page 24.)
