Clark Wolf's Rants, Raves, Diatribes...and a few other Thoughts

Hungry Money and Mario

There’s no doubt that the oft-beloved Mario Batali made a Rick Perry-like blunder when he put an evil couple of faces on some very bad behavior by some very big and sometimes faceless companies. Banks are not Hitler and Stalin.

But this whole kerfuffle brings up some truly difficult issues for anyone who wants to own one or more high-end restaurants.

I’m all for capitalist success. I help people build businesses, for goodness sake, and I’m happy for people to be successful. That’s why it’s frustrating when we have an economic mess like the one we’re in and systemically flawed publicly traded and tax-payer supported institutions aren’t more carefully regulated and punished — and rewarded — for specific behavior.

When a restaurant caters to folks with pots of money — or anyone at all — you simply have to have the good manners to leave your opinions at the door. Lead by example. Use organic and sustainable foods if you can. Impose your values on some Masters of the Universe palatably. Maybe change a few minds and hearts at the table, or with a fork. Use the seductive powers at your disposal for the better. There are plenty of good people with money.  And plenty of people with money who may well do good.

It’s a little easier out here in the West where pots of cash have been made by high techie wunderkind billionaires who roll up on their Vespas to have major meals and let us all dip into some world class wines.  They’re rolling in it because they’re creating new possibilities, whole new industries, and along the way have helped get a lot of us out of suits and ties at so-called fancy restaurants.  They’re likeable for a lot of reasons.  It’s tougher in New York when some of the people in the dining room might be Bernie Madoffs in training, or just hyped up barbarians selling questionable “financial opportunities” and celebrating the demise of competitors.

We in the food — and yes, hospitality — world simply have to speak another language. When making strong statements, it’s important to be specific and careful. I know how easy it is to toss off a catchy, bitchy, mean snap but now that chefs have reached daytime TV notoriety, the game has simply changed.

Tell people what you’re FOR and how it might be good for them and everyone. Hitler is not a helpful food group.

I forgive Mario — and those angry Wall Streeters would do well to do so, too. He was just expressing the frustration of many about the excesses of the few. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and an emotional and philosophical bail-out.

C’mon guys. You want great food don’t you? Otherwise, why have all that money?! Don’t punish yourselves by punishing him. Bankers should not advocate boycotts of any kind. That’s a very last resort kind of thing that should rarely, if ever, be trotted out. Like comparing someone to Hitler.

Full article here

Foie Gras and the Ban’s Fight Against Finesse

The foie gras ban is about to kick in, on the first of July 2012, so this is perhaps the last FFF (freely flowing foie) holiday season in California. It’s a good time to reflect on food, politics, what feels like (or passes for) luxury dining these days and how it all connects to the greater focus on farming and cookery.

I have good friends and trusted colleagues who used to be vegetarians (I was, for a while in college, but just got cranky and sick), but they are now practitioners of a sensible nose-to-tail sort of thinking that makes good sense and good business, especially in these more difficult economic times. I haven’t asked them specifically about gavage or the coaxing of birds to eat like teenagers (which they do in preparation for serious migration in the wild, as the Egyptians discovered thousands of years ago), and I know things change – even in Egypt – as we make different choices and have evolving priorities. But I can’t imagine they’d want to waste any part of an animal sacrificed for food.

In fact, I’ve always been a very pro-choice kind of a guy, so this one has been a puzzle. From what I’ve seen myself and from what others have written (including Dr. Marion Nestle, as quoted in The New York Times on 10/15), the birds in question seem to head towards the feeding tubes, a fact that obviously offers something on the plus side of a complex equation.

I do appreciate that the bill gave farmers time to figure out how to get out of the business and into something else, or find a “more humane” way of treating what are not humans, but I still find the whole thing beyond ridiculous.

And if you’re an animal activist who sees this as part of the march to an all-veg diet, feel free to sign off now. You have the right to eat — and even advocate — what you want, but stop strong-arming and showing off. Have a piece of cheese and let others be.

Thing is, there has always been a need for luxury foods, even in tough times. It’s nature’s reward for hard life. Now, many types of caviar are deeply problematic, foie gras is controversial at best, and culinary pyrotechnics seem slightly unseemly, but just how much pizza can we eat? We have truffles, but even there, people are now trying to grow what for generations has been hunted. We really do seem to want to capture and control everything.

Along with taste and texture, some of the luxury of very special foods will always be the difficulty, the rarity, the challenge, and even the danger of bringing them to table. It’s why wine from a beautiful stemmed glass is more appealing than from a plastic tumbler. It’s why puffer fish appeals to some daredevil folks who hope the poison has been properly trimmed away.

And it’s why we’ll all probably head over to Las Vegas for foie gras. I’m thinking about a duck farm in Northern Nevada right now.

Full article here

Don’t Take Wine and Cheese Pairings Too Seriously

They’re actually kinda lousy together. Here’s why, and how to deal.

by Clark Wolf August 23, 2011

Wine and cheese make a lousy match. There, I’ve said it. It’s sad, Iknow, but it’s what science tells us. I had to confront this unfortunate reality when I was writing a book about American cheeses. My editor wanted me to add wine and cheese pairing notes, and I had to tell the truth: That our obsession with the perfect wine and cheese pairing was always a kind of well-intentioned mistake.

 

Look at it this way: The end of a great meal, when the cheese course is served, is no time for new, big decisions. The best wine to round things out is almost always whatever’s left in the bottle already on the table.  

But here’s the bigger issue: We harbor the assumption that finding the right wine for your cheese will make them both sing. But really, much of the nuance and many of the most treasured flavor dimensions of a wine—berry, dried fruit, oak, mushroom, vegetal and bell pepper aromas—are actually greatly diminished (if not lopped off totally) when your mouth is full of butterfat. The proof comes from a 2006 study done at UC Davis, thrillingly titled, “Sensory Effects of Consuming Cheese Prior to Evaluating Red Wine Flavor,” which asked a panel of tasters to describe a variety of wines before and after tasting them with cheese. All the wines pretty much flattened out after getting cheesed, so a fine (and expensive) bottle tasted much closer to a cheap, decent one.  

And it makes sense, too, when you learn how cheese-folk learn to taste cheese. A classic English way to introduce yourself to a pushy, stinky washed-rind or blue-veined wheel of something sexy is to slather some black bread with unsalted butter, top it with a tangy chunk, and scarf. That is: Calm the wild beast, then chew, swallow, and repeat with less butter each time as you get acclimated to the cheese. The extra fat from the butter smoothes things over and makes nice, so you can ease your way into the cheese’s flavors. By that same logic, why wouldn’t cheese itself, which has 50 to 75% butterfat in the solids (not counting the water, which is about half of most cheeses) have a flavor-calming influence on a fabulous wine? Ask your favorite winemaker if he’d like you to try his vintage baby in a way that significantly diminishes the delicate details. Then duck.

So what does pair well with cheese? Beer, ale, hard or soft cider, pear juice, smoky single malt scotch…plenty of punch to go around. And port. The cheaper the better. In fact, toss a few walnuts into the mix and those hard edges get smoothed and the bargain porto gets silky and becomes a sexy two-stepper for a pungent, creamy blue.

That’s not to say that wine is never OK with cheese. Sauvignon blanc with goat cheese, oaky chardonnay against an aged sharp cheddar, sparkling wine with a creamy triple crème all work well enough, and there’s a broad range of combinations that anyone can enjoy. But it would be a shame to go all American Express Platinum on some extraordinary collection of handmade artisan cheeses, sport for a major bottle of world class deliciousness, and diminish both in the process.

Wine and cheese have gone together for hundreds of years, mostly because it’s what was on hand in the rustic agraria still living large in our fantasies of simpler (read: dead at 35) times long gone. Most wine is just fine with most cheese, but exhaustive, precise, and expensive pairings? Let those pass gently, if not quietly, into history too.

Full article here

An Homage to George Lang and Larry Bogdanow

In recent days we’ve lost a couple of dear people who worked hard and created possibilities for all of us.  Very different folks, they were both long standing members of the world of restaurant folk we can’t help thinking of as extended family.

 

In recent days we’ve lost a couple of dear people who worked hard and created possibilities for all of us.  Very different folks, they were both long standing members of the world of restaurant folk we can’t help thinking of as extended family.

Larry Bogdanow was one of the very first restaurant designers who was willing to work with any sort of materials and all manner of spaces, sometimes with minuscule budgets.  He had humor and warmth and accomplished some truly notable achievements in restaurant design, including the original work on the Union Square Café in New York City, the recently shuttered Savoy in Manhattan’s Soho and a whole lot more.  He was a thoughtful political activist, taking progressive positions, rather publicly at times, way ahead of the current curve towards responsible and sustainable food business.  He will be missed.

George Lang was a survivor, an original, and simply one of a kind.  He escaped the horrors of the Holocaust and made his way through the byzantine kitchens of New York’s 20^th Century.  He helped the legendary Joe Baum create restaurants like The Four Seasons for Restaurant Associates and created new life and major benchmarks at the (recently) late and lamented Café des Artistes.  He brought the old world grandeur back to Gundel in Budapest.

Full article here

How good press can happen, just by doing a good job

 

We snagged us a cover of a magazine!  A good one, too.  Travel + Leisure.  The Food issue.

This is the story of what is truly a favorite part of my professional life: Collaboration. It’s the story of a lot of good folks in a beautiful seaside town called Seaside, Florida. It’s the story of how success often happens when the sum of a number of people’s parts come together to make more than there was before.  A lot more. (Didn’t know where that was going, did you?)

I was brought to this beautiful town, an award-winning New Urbanist Design community perched on a near pristine stretch of sand at the Gulf of Mexico, by the visionary developer Robert Davis (who, it should be noted, spends a good deal of his time with wife Daryl living, working and eating in San Francisco). It’s the very town used as the setting for a surreal futuristic cautionary tale starring Jim Carrey called The Truman Show. Davis’ charge to me was to strategize and coach, conceive and corral, advise and support (with a little cajoling tossed in) institutions and practitioners of the town into making and offering better food and drink.

We’ve had some nice success.  A 9% jump up the first year, maybe 17% the second, in the happy neighborhood of 34% this next.  All through the Great Recession and the disastrous Oil Spill that have laid many low. The town is now heading towards $20 million in food and beverage sales, almost all of it really very good.

Full article here

The Big Cheese has left the building — and a heck of a treasure trove in his wake

 

The Robert Mondavi and James Beard of cheese-making has died.

Ig Vella, longtime crusty sweetheart of Sonoma (the town and county), mentor and friend to every honest food lover he ever met, and the greatest American cheese maker of the last couple of generations has left a heck of a legacy.

 

The man just had the magic, to which he added tenacious hard work and a kind and generous heart. He loved to teach, not just cheese-making but leadership, stewardship, and partnership as well.

We lost him, but he’ll always be with us — in his brilliant Dry Jack, in his father’s tart Oregon Blue (and its delicious progeny), in the zip of his raw milk Cheddar and in the milky sour of Mezzo Secco, and a whole lot more.

And in the tradition of good dairy and cheese and farm folks everywhere, he’ll be a benchmark and guidepost for us all.

Thank you Ig, for all you gave us, left us, and taught us. And for your crusty and tangy sweetness, full of warmth and sustenance.

Full article here

Summer Farm Forum

The sun came out unexpectedly and warmed the crowd at the Early Summer Farm Forum, second in a series co-hosted by Marcy Smothers and Clark Wolf.  The lovely garden of Studio Barndiva offered tabling space for the Luther Burbank Home and Garden (of Santa Rosa), the Gold Ridge Farm, otherwise known as the Luther Burbank Experimental Gardens in Sebastopol and the Guerneville School Garden, home of the first Luther Burbank School Orchard.

The group was welcomed by Healdsburg Chamber President Mo Mc Elroy who later spoke about what food means to that community.  "the fact is," she said, "people come here to eat! And we have plenty of great food to offer."

Each of the speakers gave a three minute recap of what they do and are involved in that connects to good food in the community.  People learned how easy it is to start a farm (no permits necessary, unless you start processing food), how the County Parks department has started a Garden program on their land and is exploring other County lands for possible small farming, how schools can start School Orchards, how a new market - called Big Bottom Market -will open soon in Guerneville, fed by the gardens of the co-owners who also have Boon Eat + Drink in that town, how the SRJC Culinary Program which is getting a new $28 million  facility in Santa Rosa gets most of it's produce from the 12 plus acres of organic gardens at Shone Farm, how CAFF - Community Alliance with Family Farms - helps small and medium sized farms survive or get off the ground, and what folks should think about and do in preparation for the next Farm Bill due to be reviewed next year.

Publisher Dan Imhoff told the audience, a group as interesting as the panel (including ledgendary wine maker and farmer Lou Preston, award winning preserves maker Merillee Olson,  Relish Culinary owner Donna Del Ray, Farmes Market manager Paula Downing and many more) to "think big and make a difference" 

If Wolf and Smothers have their way, they will.  The duo plan another forum in the Sonoma Valley area in the fall, followed by a month long Late Harvest Festival honoring Luther Burbank's many contributions throughout the month of November.  Details are sure to follow. 

As Wolf said in concluding, "it's great that a farmer can be on his Blackberry out in the field - selling to market while tending his crops.

Modern technology working with ancient wisdom.  Makes for some delicious life.  

Local Boy Makes Good … Dinner

 

Over the Beardfest Awards weekend I got to have a meal with a dear friend at a cozy hot spot and had some stellar food I’d been missing since chef  Eric Korsh de-camped from his sweet garden roadside resto just outside Sebastopol –  the late and greatly lamented Eloise.

 

Eric is the new (well, a quick year it seems) chef at The Waverly Inn, owned (and strategically seated each evening by remote control) in part by Vanity Fair master editor Graydon Carter.

What a good choice for everyone.

The Waverly has been around forever but got brilliantly refreshed, with a kitchen launched by John Delucie (he of black truffle topped mac and cheese fame) who has gone on to his own equity at The Lion nearby.

That’s why Korsh, who is a bit deeper, nuanced and more classical in his style, is so perfect.

Faith Stewart-Gordon, long time owner of the legendary Russian Tea Room, used to say “you have to make the restaurant the way folks remember it – not simply as it was …” Which means better and deeper every time. She added braids on waiters’ jackets, mirrors and molding, to name some of my favorite flourishes.

Eric adds butter.

Well, clearly, that’s not all. He’s a wonderful cook with a broad range and delicate hand. His rabbit with tagliatelle is tender, rich and sweet. The burnt caramel panna cotta is shockingly delicious.

He’s got his head down, working hard. He’s glad to be back in his home town, feeding Manhattan swells with the scratch to support this totally down-to-earth but completely-worldly effort. We miss him in California, but delight in having spoiled him in the Sonoma sunshine for a while, filling his mouth and memory with true, clean tastes to which he can add a little New England butter in New York…

Full article here

Ubuntu: Devouring Veggie Benchmarks is better than Concept Dining

 

 

Wow, there really is a difference between eating a plate of ideas and enjoying a plate of actually delicious foods.  I’ve just gone to Ubuntu, that bastion of all things wholesome and vegetal, in the town of Napa, with a yoga studio upstairs, and I’m here to report that the new chef, Aaron London, who has actually been there in the kitchen – off and on – since the start, does indeed make some truly delicious and memorable foods that, while achieved with intention, are totally focused on making satisfying, nurturing and delightful plates of food I can’t wait to revisit.

I was at The Big U as I call it a while back with Marian Burros who was writing for the New York Times.  Needless to say, it was a no holds barred vegstravaganza.  The last time I’d had a meal that elaborate and protracted all vegetable focused was with this same Marian at the original (or first) Bouley where we had a fairly brilliant four hour meal of only veg foods that made me realize that Bouley wasn’t really good at meat.

That first U meal from aspiring celeb chef Jeremy Fox had some thrills and chills. When Fox and owner Sandy Laurence visited me in New York and talked about the possibility of opening a Manhattan outpost I tried to dissuade them, reminding that in the town of Napa, with Sandy’s own garden nearby, they had not only the brilliant ingredients critical to such a venture but the audience for the kinds of efforts that I felt where still in development.  A polite way of saying they’d flop here, for all the right and wrong reasons.

It didn’t surprise me when I read that Jeremy had moved on to the land of Tyler Florence  – now since departed that too. I wish him well but it’s nice to eat food that is the point, and not just a stepping stone to somewhere else.

And so back to Aaron.  The kid’s up for a James Beard Rising Star Chef Award even as I write this.  I’m guessing the Momofuku dessert person will win but this 28 year old with the hilarious haircut is happy and excited to be making some first rate offerings in concert with a charming, dedicated team and I not only salute him, I’m gonna go back and eat me more – once I’ve filled up on Black Pig Bacon at Zazu in Santa Rosa.

Oh, and Aaron’s personal pedigree? He’s from Graton, right outside of Sebastopol, so with all of that travel and stage time in Michelin starred European temples of gastronomy he also has the taste of real, peak Sonoma County grown food in his mouth and mind.  A winning combo if I ever heard one.

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Charlie Trotter Trounced in a Cautionary Tale

 

Not so long ago, when Chicago chef Charlie Trotter was defending the rights of geese and ducks to hold onto their engorged livers, a short term ban of foie gras ensued but I kept thinking, “I’ll listen to what he says about bird care when I hear he’s nicer to his line cooks.”

 

Really, the man’s a talented chef who has done a lot for his community but a recent profile by David Kamp (author of The United States of Arugula) was both fair and fairly devastating.

Chef Trotter is beloved by many of his colleagues and respected by many who have been through the ranks of his kitchens but he seems not to have outgrown that very last century notion of chef as humorless dictator and very loud screamer.

Or just rigid control freak.  Even those offered up to defend and promote his mellowed modern self seemed under pressure to please Chef. Add to that a pair of failed expansion attempts in New York and two more in Vegas and you begin to wonder – does he play well with others?

These days, and forever after, being a chef/restaurateur means many things, among them, master collaborator.

At the StarChefs Chef’s Congress a couple of years ago I got to lead a conversation about what American Cuisine might actually be.  My three panelists were Emeril Lagasse (with 11 restaurants, lots of books, those TV shows and, yes, that unfortunate but lucrative Crest commercial), Norman Van Aiken (with a couple of restaurants, some books and years of varied success) and Trotter.  Each was asked by a young aspiring chef where they got their inspiration and fresh knowledge.  Norman gave a studied and thoughtful answer about books and travel and tasting. Emeril gave an engaging, populist and modern nod to farmers, cheese makers, bread bakers and their artisan like.

And Trotter, true to form, talked about how he goes within (himself, that is) and searches until he finds the right answer.

His method is important from time to time, especially at the start of a career, as a person works to define and refine his offering, and occasionally important to refresh and reexamine.  But I couldn’t help thinking how much he might be missing by putting himself first, and always.

Is he stuck or just holding true?  Is his time passed or has he just not grown up, opened up and truly blossomed? Is he nicer to his cooks?  Gee, I hope so.

Full article here