A Celebration of Chefs and Others

At first glance, the Hollywood restaurant Kate Mantilini's seems an unusual backdrop for life-sized pictures of Mad Men, a show set in 1960s New York. That is, until owner Marilyn Lewis provides the back story. 

Q: What's the history behind Kate Mantilini's and why did you put up the Mad Men display.

A: It's been 21 years since we opened Kate Mantilini's, which I named after my Uncle Rob's mistress. My mother wouldn't let me speak to her, nobody would allow us to mention her name, but she was a very strong woman and I wanted to name my restaurant after her. My husband was under contract with Warner Brothers, and he did 50 films in the 1940s before we went into the restaurant business.

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It is Sunday late morning, the North wind is howling outside and the rain has changed to half inch hail but the farmhouse walls are more than two feet thick and we are very cozy. We hear nothing, just the sounds of the wood fire crackling, a knife on the cutting board and two friends engaged in a lively conversation catching up on many things since our last visit. We are sitting at a 8 foot long chestnut kitchen table boning out the leg of a wild boar, removing sinew, fat glands and chipped bones from the bullet wound. Alain has told all his neighbors of our visit and one has shot a wild boar for the occasion and foraged for black truffles. It was long decided before the boar was cold that we would make a daube just like his mother made for him in his child hood home in Avignon and it will marinate today and simmer over a wood fire all afternoon tomorrow. Tonight we are having raclette with charcuterie for dinner that they brought home from their skiing vacation in the Alps. Not a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon!

Alton Brown's 18-Carrot Cake

While the name of this cake is 18-Carrot Cake, there are not eighteen carrots in here, nor does it refer to gold in any way, Alton Brown just liked the name.

I make carrot cake every year for my husband's birthday, it's his favorite.  And every year, I make a different recipe for no other reason than to just try another variation.  Why not? This one was quite excellent with a very refined texture.  I love Alton Brown and the science background he puts behind every recipe.  His cookbook goes into deep explanations as to how and why we mix, stir, beat etc.  If you are interested, it's worth the read and gives you reason for doing the things we do in the kitchen.  I like that.

I have always believed many baking failures occur because of mis-measurement of ingredients and over-mixing errors.  I love that Alton's cookbooks give a weight and volume measurement for every ingredient.  I decided to even weigh my spices this time around and it was eye-opening to see how "off" measuring spoons can be in reference to what a certain ingredient should weigh.

A group of good friends, connected by a love of politics and good food, always used to get together every August in Santa Barbara.  Life slowed down; we’d cook together using all local produce – sweet corn, plum tomatoes, Armenian cucumbers, peppers, tomatillos, Blenheim apricots, avocadoes, Santa Rosa plums – and then feast as the sun went down behind rolling hills planted with avocadoes and lemons.

So you can imagine our excitement when we heard that Johnny Apple – the legendary political columnist and food writer at the New York Times – was coming to town with his wife Betsey.  Johnny was (as many have noted) a force of nature. I first met Johnny when he came to LA to do a feature on Asian Pacific food.  We hit three restaurants in four hours one evening, going from Vietnamese to Chinese dim sum to a Chinese restaurant famous for its “pork pump”.  I was so exhausted I begged off the next three days of eating. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone enjoy food and wine more (even that third dinner you have to eat when you’re a critic.)