A few years ago I became a head chef flunky at the Culinary Stage of
the Los Angeles Times Book Festival. It was a way to keep up my prep
cook skills, meet some heroes (Suzanne Goin, Lidia Bastianich, Martin
Yan, Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger, Govind Armstrong, Nancy
Silverton) and TV star chefs (Giada DeLaurentiis, Tyler Florence, Dave
Lieberman, Cat Cora). The stage’s consulting producer, Michael
Weisberg, took a leap of faith and allowed me to bring along Patricia
Zarate and a few of her girls from the Homegirl Cafe to assist the
celebrity chefs. This will be their third year at the Culinary Stage.
A Celebration of Chefs and Others
A Celebration of Chefs
The Wagon Train
Francois Truffaut has been famously quoted about the process of making a movie being similar to a wagon train crossing the country. You start out the journey with high hopes and the spirit of adventure and halfway through, you just want to get there alive.
That’s pretty much what my journey with cooking has been like. I seduced my husband with duck breast and wild rice pancakes with apricot sauce. That was nothin’. I really loved to cook. People were always surprised by that and I was always surprised they were surprised. What? Women in comedy can’t cook? Every Hungarian Jewish woman has to be a good cook. It’s biological destiny.
Pinch Me!
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!
To My Brilliant Cooking Teacher Madeleine Kamman
Dear Madeleine,
You probably don’t remember me, but as you read this it may all come back to you after the leagues of students that you have mentored pass by in a blur. You changed my life and I’m sure there is a long line behind me. The first time that I came to your cooking school in Newton Center, Massachusetts with Heidi Wortzel to introduce me, I was where I had always dreamed of being.
The smells on the outside of the entrance pale in comparison to how wonderful it smelled inside. Students were whirling around, busy making puff pastry and tending to their pots on the stove tops all with smiles on their faces. It was magical..I remember thinking you were so busy but so very welcoming as you talked about your school. The brick walls were covered with well-used, brightly-polished copper pots and oddly an upside down framed autograph from Paul Bocuse. It was where I wanted to be and I couldn’t wait to roll up my sleeves and learn all that I could.
Cheese Wiz
When you enter the door at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store - the greatest cheese store in the U.S. of A. (419 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210), the first friendly face and voice you see and hear on your left will always be that of Cheese Wiz Sebastian Robin Craig working behind the counter like a whirling dervish - unless he is jetting off to the cheese caves of Roquefort, France for a tasting; or Stockholm, Sweden to compose more jazz (go to iTunes for his latest CD “Volition”); or just kicking back and learning Russian.
More Articles ...
Welcome to the new One for the Table ...
Our Home Page will be different each time you arrive.
We're sure you'll find something to pique your interest...