A Celebration of Chefs and Others

Millions of people all over the world will open a restaurant menu today. They will look at menus for the food and the price and make their selection, then the menu will lay on the table, ignored, an annoyance taking up elbow space.

Not so for Jim Heinmann, whose new book Menu Design in America: 1850-1985 (Taschen) asks that you set aside the hunger pangs and examine the menu, admire its design. Heimann’s book made its appearance at one of the best-catered signings in recent history. Delicacies and drinks provided by Taschen’s Beverly Hills store’s glamorous neighbors: Mr. Chow, Spago, The Cheese Story Beverly Hills, Vosges Haut Chocolate, The Spare Room and Remy U.S.A.

The dress code was country club casual. I was struck by a number of women with seventy-year old hands and faces as smooth as river stones in pretty summer dresses, light layers of lavender and other gentle shades of purple daringly accented with a coral pink or chartreuse accessory.  Their hair was sparse with age but coiffed into cotton candy halos. It was all very Palm Beach or Palm Springs on Easter Sunday, or Beverly Hills before black became de rigueur. None of them smoked, not upstairs at the open-air bar or out on the clean, expansive sidewalk, but their hushed, hoarse voices betrayed a secret habit, some sweet vice recently abandoned.

Once Anthony Bourdain left The Food Network in a trail of acrimonious dust, he started a second television career on The Travel Channel. The show (”No Reservations”) was better (because, among other things, they allowed Anthony to be his acerbic, outrageous self) but he was gone from my life because the Travel Channel was not available from our cable company. We ordered episodes from Netflix, took them out of the library, and once, in a media coup that rivalled the day when my brother and I tuned in what we believed to be “porn”on the TV in the living room by fiddling rabbit ears and vertical hold, we found one episode of “No Reservations” on “On Demand,” and watched it with the fervor and intensity appropriate for a bootleg copy of Tommy and Pamela.

Then, one day, the Travel Channel appeared as I was flipping up towards the Premiums, bearing the portentous channel assignment “123.” (It’s portentous because I can remember it). We fell, that evening, under the spell of a young man named Adam Richman, and a show called “Man v. Food.” We fell hard. It is fabulous beyond all reckoning that we can now see “No Reservations” before the episodes are two years old, and there are a couple of other shows on the channel that we’ve enjoyed, but Richman is a revelation of how a network can combine really smart and really commercially appealing and create something that appeals to a large and diverse audience.

Living in LA is easy. Eating out here is hard. Sure you can wear whatever you want, and reservations for most places aren't necessary, but the high prices for ho-hum food and lackluster service by kids waiting on you while waiting for their big break (this is not a myth) mostly keeps us at home where the food is at least warm, the company enjoyable and (for us) the wine cellar filled with lovely selections. When we want a fix of beautiful, inventive food, we just turn on Top Chef and watch the pans fly. That's where we discovered Nyesha Arrington.

A contestant on the recent season in Texas, we couldn't help but root for her and Chris Crary, another LA chef to win the top prize. They both seemed, not only genuinely talented, but to be decent people as well. Which is not, by the way, a requirement for a chef, though it probably helps in the kitchen and certainly when you're on reality TV. Unless you want to be cast as the villain. They say all publicity is good publicity, but that is surely a double-sword when you're "playing" yourself. Regardless, we would be able to taste their food and, yes, the fact that we saw them on TV did sway us to go to their respective restaurants. Actors are a dime a dozen. Someone who can cook perfect pork belly truly has my attention.

We met Nyesha at LudoBites 8.0 while she was waiting to be seated. We felt a bit silly, nervous and dorky approaching her to chat, but she was incredibly gracious and I think a bit surprised to be recognized. (She was not eating yet. We would never be so rude as to interrupt someone in that manner.) We told her how impressed we were with her kitchen skills, especially during the Last Chance Kitchen segments, and promised to come into Wilshire soon. (She's the executive chef.) We had been there once - before she took over the kitchen - and enjoyed the experience, so now we were doubly excited.

“Please don’t wake me from this dream!” I said out loud to my husband while eating the brilliant meal in front of me, prepared by my live-in chef.  Uh-huh, you heard correctly.  My private chef.

Let me take you back five days.  I received a late-night email.  It was from an old friend, Olivia.  She told me her son was here in Los Angeles from London (where they live) and that the minute he arrived, he had a bust-up with his girlfriend.   She said that he could use a friendly face.  I answered immediately: “Of course, have him call me.”

First call the following day was Oscar, whom I’ve never met.  In fact, I have not seen his mother in thirty years.  Since he was already in Venice, I asked him to meet me at one of my favorite restaurants, Gjelina on Abbot Kinney.  My husband Michael agreed to join us.  Oscar, looking lost and forlorn, told us he had planned to take his now ex-girlfriend to Valentine’s dinner here at this same restaurant the following night.  We offered our home to Oscar for the rest of his vacation.  I didn’t think we would be too intriguing, but later that day he told me that eating lunch with us was the most fun he had had so far in Los Angeles.  And when he told us he was a chef, I nearly screamed.  Actually, I did, but only internally.