Michelle Bernstein of Michy's and Sra. Martinez (photo by Michael Pisarri, courtesy Michelle Bernstein)

At her Miami restaurants Michy’s and Sra. Martinez, Michelle Bernstein seamlessly combines a world of influences—French, Italian, Cuban, South American, and modern American—into a cohesive personal style. (Full disclosure: I coauthored Michelle’s book Cuisine a Latina, and she’s a friend.)

Because Bernstein is so skilled at explaining exactly what appeals to her about ingredients, as both a chef and an eater, we couldn’t think of a better toque to ask to submit to our next Toqueland Ten. (Our first three featured Harold Dieterle, Emily Luchetti, and Sean Baker.)

Herewith, Michelle’s revealing picks:

1. FENNEL. “My mother would shave fennel on salads when I was growing up,” says Bernstein, whose mom was a key culinary influence. “Later, I learned to beautifully braise and caramelize it in restaurants.” For this chef, there’s nothing with more applications: “I think it goes in, on, or under anything. It’s super versatile and my safe go to: Sometimes I can’t come up with a dish, but I have a beautiful piece of fish, or whatever, and I’m just kind of stuck. At those times, my safety is fennel.”  Her customers don’t always recognize the vegetable:  “When I hard braise it with a tiny pinch of sugar to help the caramelization process and then add wine and chicken stock, then bring it down and finish it with a little bit of butter so it’s super-glazy, salty, and sweet, and it has that good balance, that’s when people say, ‘What is that delicious vegetable that I’m going crazy over?’”

2. (REALLY GOOD) SPANISH EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. “I love Arbequina olives and I love using that really good Spanish extra virgin olive oil as a finish to a plate, giving whatever it is you’re finishing that little bit of spiciness, that good mouthfeel, that glaze.” Where most chefs don’t actually cook with the top-shelf oil, Bernstein makes exceptions: “I do spend a lot on my Spanish extra virgin oil, and [generally speaking]  it’s too costly to use it to sauté. But if I’m going to make a great piece of chicken or piece of fish, I’m going to sauté it in that stuff.”

3. MALDON SEA SALT. “At home, I probably overuse Maldon sea salt on pretty much everything. Everything. I’m so in love with it. I love the crunch it’s got. I love salt anyway, so having flakes of it in people’s mouths when they eat my food, as a finisher. .. I almost feel like I’m cheating giving them that extra mouthfeel with something I’m purchasing. It goes great on our foie gras torchon at the restaurant but also goes great on a piece of celery that I might be eating at my house.”

4. CITRUS. How’s this for a childhood memory informing adult taste: “I’m a Florida girl and, in Disney World, they have a part that’s run by the citrus commission. When I was a kid, my father did some work with the citrus commission, and every time we would go there, we would be the VIPs of what they called the Orange Bowl, and they would give us . .. it was almost an orange ice wrapped around soft serve vanilla ice cream. I knew right then that orange was probably my favorite fruit on the face of the Earth.”

More generally, says Bernstein, “citrus opens up your palate to everything. Just yesterday, I got in a box of Buddha’s hand and I made some pots de crème with it and fell in love with a whole new type of citrus. I grow kaffir lime, as well as Calamansi at my house. I use the leaves. I use the juice. I use the skin. It’s one of those things that you can use everything, inside and out, almost the whole plant and it’s just awesome. How can you not love it?”  Extra added benefit for professionals and home cooks alike: “It’s something that you can smell before it gets to the table.”

5. ISLAND CREEK OYSTERS.  The first time Bernstein tasted these oysters, from Duxbury, Massachusetts, “I think I ate a half dozen.. . they taste like the ocean. They couldn’t be brinier, or fresher. They just have the most delicious mouthfeel and taste.” How has she used them? “I’ve poached them with truffles. I fry them. I do ceviches with them. I make sauces pureeing them with potato to make gratins. Their liquor is more addictive than any alcohol I’ve ever had. That just does it for me. Talking about them right now, I’m literally salivating.”

6. AJI AMARILLO. Of the Peruvian yellow chile pepper, Bernstein says, “I used to think that it was just to put into ceviches and puree with seafood until we made a celeriac slaw using it in an aioli, and mixed it with a nage of lobster and shrimp the other day for a warm, Latin-style bouillabaisse. I realized how much depth that chile pepper really has. If anybody thinks that we just use it for heat, they should think again, because the amount of flavor, the perfume . ..  it’s got so many different angles to it, it’s unbelievable. And of course it has the color of the sun. It makes everything so pretty. I wish I could grow it.”

7. ISRAELI COUS COUS. Bernstein uses this one so much that, “Every time I mention it my chefs and cooks roll their eyes.” Along with fennel, this is a go-to for her: “It’s another one of those safeties. If I can’t come up with any other good thing to put on a plate with something . .. if it’s the last minute, or I’m too tired, or just weeded, it’s Israeli cous cous. [Editor’s Note:  Kudos to Michelle for the creative use of weeded as a verb. We’d never heard that one before. When asked if she coined this adaptation of “in the weeds," she laughs and says, “I don’t know. All I know is that I’m perpetually weeded.” Now that’s an honest chef!]

How many ways can one use this ingredient? We don’t know, but here’s a good running start: “When you toast it, it turns into a totally different animal. If you cook it, as a risotto, and you make an intense, let’s say mushroom broth, that cous cous tastes more intensely like mushrooms than rice in a risotto.. .You can make them into a pudding, a delicious cous cous pudding, like rice pudding. It soaks up the flavor of everything. It keeps its integrity, so if you don’t cook it to hell, you taste little round pearls in your mouth. Sometimes when I’m home and I’m tired and I just feel like some starch, I’ll toast it up, really caramelize it up, and add some ghee (see #8, below), and whatever stock I have around, or water, throw some vegetables in it, and it looks like I worked really hard.”

8. GHEE. I’ve used ghee in the past and I really respected it without knowing what its true benefits were. Until I read about this farm that’s doing totally organic, super intensely slow-food-style ghee. I bought, like, ten jars of it within the last three months, and they are really big-ass jars. I’m giving the jars little by little to the restaurant, but always keeping a jar at home. Oh. My. God. The smell. It is probably one of the greatest smells I’ve ever encountered in the kitchen, even better than foie gras if that’s possible. It sears incredibly, you can use it over super high heat, you can use it over low heat, you can braise with it. I haven’t fried with it; that might be almost too intense.”

9. MISHMISH. Bernstein recently met Lior Lev Sercarz, proprietor of La Boîte à Epices, who creates spice blends adored by many chefs. According to Michelle, they have both been recruited, along with other chefs, to consult to Lean Cuisine and inspire that company’s culinary team. ”Lior not only brought his spices to Lean Cuisine and infused their food with flavor,  but also has given his spice mixes to all the chefs as gifts. I just ordered from him for the fourth time. I started off very small and he said, ‘Just wait until you get addicted.’  He was right.

“I think my favorite spice mix is Mishmish. It’s this sweet, almost honey-smelling beautiful, incredibly fragrant spice.”  [Editor's Note: The mixture features crystalline honey, saffron, and lemon.] “I hate to single one out because it really depends what you’re cooking and I love that he actually gives little pointers on what you should cook with each of his spices. But my goodness gracious. I’ve never had spices like his. I’ve never had spice mixes like his in my life. I thought I had always bought the best until I met Lior. His spices turn simple dishes into something truly memorable.”

10. SEA URCHIN. Another favorite driven by an intense taste memory: “The first time I had sea urchin I was in France. We were in the ocean, diving, and someone pulled it out. It was like a movie: they cut it open and slathered it on some hot French bread with butter. It was my first taste of heaven, my first taste of French seafood, and made me realize what I was missing.”

Today, Bernstein says she tries sea urchin, “everywhere I go. It was the first thing I ate when I went to Tokyo, in the markets. ..  Most masters of sushi think the only really good sea urchin comes from Japan but I happen to think that there’s good sea urchin in a lot of places. I’ve had soups made out of it. I’ve had stews made out of it. And now, I puree it into sauces to thicken them and give them that seafood flavor. I’ve obviously served it raw on top of ceviches and tiraditos that we make. I can’t get enough. I think it goes with bone marrow. I’ve had it in sandwiches. In every possible way, shape and form.”

- Andrew

 PS Did you like what you just read? Sign up for a (free) email subscription to Toqueland, follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. Join up between now and March 31, 2012 and earn a chance, or chances, to win a personalized set of The Alfred Portale Cookbook Collection. Details here!

Brooklyn, NY, 1:44am — Toqueland proudly presents a new feature: Shift Drink!  The idea is simple: We join a toque at the bar as he or she savors a beverage of choice and chills out after a night on the line.

Our first drinking buddy: Rob Newton, Executive Chef/Co-Owner of Seersucker restaurant (and its daytime sister establishment Smith Canteen) in Brooklyn, NY.

Presented in video *. .. because it’s too damn late to write:

* Video was a spontaneous decision. Apologies for the sound quality; we’ll do better next time. And thanks to Seersucker’s manager, Jorge Salamea, for his superb camera work on a humble iPhone!

Sweet dreams. ..

- Andrew “Hef” Friedman

PS Did you like what you just read? Sign up for a (free) email subscription to Toqueland, follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. Join up between now and March 31, 2012 and earn a chance, or chances, to win a personalized set of The Alfred Portale Cookbook Collection. Details here!

Timothy Hollingsworth, who's at Per Se this week, back home at The French Laundry (photo by Deborah Jones; courtesy Thomas Keller Restaurant Group)

NEW YORK, NY — Timothy Hollingsworth, chef de cuisine of the French Laundry since summer 2009, has been participating in the first-ever chef de cuisine exchange program between his home restaurant and the other three-Michelin-star jewel in the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group (TKRG) crown, New York City’s Per Se. Hollingsworth possesses some of the deepest institutional knowledge of TKRG, having moved up the ladder from commis (prep cook) to chef de cuisine, all at The French Laundry, and also serving as part of the opening team of Per Se. With a few days left in his stay (he’ll be here through Tuesday, February 28, while Eli Kaimeh is serving as CDC out West), we sat down with Hollingsworth the other morning in Per Se’s Salon, to ask him about his time here, and catch up on issues large and small:

TOQUELAND: There’s always been some cross-pollination among the restaurants in the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, such as periodic manager retreats, but is this chef-de-cuisine switch new?

HOLLINGSWORTH: This is the first time we’ve done it. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. But because of staffing and how busy each restaurant was, it just never panned out. But, finally, we were at a point where we felt comfortable enough that maybe we could move on it. It’s a very natural thing because three out of the five sous chefs here, I worked with at The French Laundry. So I know them. I have a personal relationship with them. It’s the same systems. It’s a very easy transition.

TOQUELAND: You were part of the team that came East from The French Laundry to open Per Se about ten years ago.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes, as far as kitchen is concerned, I was the only CDP [chef de partie] to transfer here, then go back to The French Laundry.

TOQUELAND: Do you notice changes or evolutions here? Things that are different since Per Se first opened?

HOLLINGSWORTH: It’s evolving. You see it evolving. You see the differences between Jonathan [Benno, now at Lincoln] as the chef de cuisine, and now Eli [Kaimeh] as the chef de cuisine. And the managers. And we’re always pushing ourselves to take things to the next level, so, yeah, it’s evolved immensely since I was first out here.

TOQUELAND: But those changes probably aren’t that apparent to guests of the restaurant. Perfect isn’t a word that gets tossed around the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group (TKRG). [As readers may know, Keller opened his The French Laundry Cookbook with the now-iconic assertion that there's no such thing as perfect food; the paragraph is featured on plaques in both The French Laundry and Per Se kitchens.] But most people who have dined here would say it’s been pretty perfect pretty much from the go, since you were already operating at such a high level. So to them, the changes might not be perceptible. Can you give an example of what a significant change is to the team here?

HOLLINGSWORTH: It’s the little changes. It’s hard to state a specific example because little changes are made every single day. You’re constantly thinking of what we at TKRG have defined as The Green Tape Moment: For years and years and years, we labeled everything in the kitchen with green tape and we tore the tape, and put it on a Lexan [durable plastic container], or used it to tape a tablecloth to the pass. We tore it. And then one day somebody picked up the scissors and cut the tape. And then, another day, somebody sees somebody cut the tape and acknowledges that and says, “This is what we’re going to do from now on; we’re going to cut the green tape.” And now, if anybody were to rip the green tape it would be like. ..

TOQUELAND: Nails on a chalkboard?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah, exactly.

TOQUELAND: Did that at some point get passed down from Thomas himself?

HOLLINGSWORTH: That was a defining moment here at Per Se. The day we opened here, Zion, the expediter (now a manager at Bouchon), cut the green tape at the pass. Now, he wasn’t the first person to cut the green tape. We like to think about evolutions as, really, a two-step process: It’s one person doing it and another person recognizing that’s what we should be doing,  and moving on from there. And that’s the philosophy that everybody’s taken. I had cut the green tape before, but it wasn’t policy, not at all. It took Thomas seeing it and that’s what we call The Green Tape Moment.

Now, we inspire the different line members, the different staff members in the dining room as well as the kitchen or office or anybody, to have their Green Tape Moment.

TOQUELAND: So that’s something you talk about?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes.

TOQUELAND: That’s a very small thing. If somebody walks through the kitchen, they might notice that. Or they might not notice that the tape’s been cut. They might just notice it was neat…

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes.

TOQUELAND: So it’s not just that happening, but how it gets transmitted. Somebody who hears that might be affected in any number of ways depending on which team they’re a part of: It could affect plating, how somebody sets a table, or how somebody keeps the podium?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes. All of it. We’re always looking for ways to improve that.

TOQUELAND: There’s an almost symbiotic relationship between The French Laundry and Per Se. Thomas has said something like, it’s the same restaurant but with two kitchens, and of course you have those large-screen TVs where the cooks at The French Laundry can see the team at Per Se, and vice versa. But when you come here, was there a preparation? You don’t have your own farm across the street as you do in Yountville, or Jacobsesn Orchard, to call on. Here, it’s different purveyors; you’re in the middle of a city. ..

HOLLINGSWORTH: No. Not at all. It may sound crazy to say, but you don’t have to prep at all. Because the structure that has been set up here is so strong. You have an executive sous chef, you have a team of sous chefs, you have a team in the dining room, and everybody is so strong at their position that all they do is just support you. It’s the same thing with Eli going to The French Laundry.

TOQUELAND: But you don’t have a Salon (the lounge at Per Se, where menu items are available à la carte) at The French Laundry.

HOLLINGSWORTH: There are two things that are different here than at The French Laundry. One is The Salon. The other is that, at lunch service, they offer a five-course menu [in addition to the longer Chef's Tasting Menu]. What’s funny is that it reminds me of old-school French Laundry when we had the five-course menu as well as the Tasting Menu as well as the Vegetarian menu at dinner. So that was something that, as a line cook, I grew up with. So all of those things that make it harder, like now you’re picking up that with this and this with that, it takes a lot more thought as far as that’s concerned.

So, yes, you have to pay attention to it, but in a good way. It makes me rememeber growing up as a line cook; it’s something I remember Thomas expediting to me.

And then Eli going over there, the kitchen is a lot smaller, so as the expediting chef, not only are you responsible for plating food but it’s more of a physical station, where you’re right there on the stove, you can literally touch the stove. Here, it’s more about the organization where, if you’re going to help somebody, you have to actually walk over to them. At The French Laundry [without walking anywhere], you’re turning around here you’re cutting the foie gras, you’re slicing something, you’re differently involved. They do more covers here but they also seat later, so everything kind of equals out.. . it’ll be interesting to talk to Eli and see what he experienced. It’s fun.

TOQUELAND: We think of the kitchens at The French Laundry and Per Se as serious kitchens: there’s no music, etc. and everybody is very focused on their work. To visitors, it seems incredibly quiet. But I wonder if you can share a moment of irreverence, specifically having to do with those television sets that let the teams in the two kitchens see what’s going on across the country.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah, definitely. It could be a moment of somebody holding up a sign saying “Go San Francisco 49ers.” Yeah, we’re at work, but there is a comaraderie, too, and a friendship, I’ve worked with these guys and they’ve worked with us. .. there’s that kind of joking around, there’s the zooming in on the pass. Like if Per Se gets an accolade or French Laudnry gets an accolade, we’ll support them by taping something on the pass like “3 Michelin Stars.” Or when a chef de partie came from here at Per Se to work at The French Laundry, he was working meat, so they zoomed the camera on the meat station for the whole service.

TOQUELAND: You mean you can control the camera in the other kitchen?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes.

TOQUELAND: So the shot isn’t fixed: You can pan, you can zoom? Like a security camera?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah. It’s cool.

TOQUELAND: The weather in New York today is mild: there’s a light misty rain, temperature is in the high 40s. It’s like a winter day where you come from, so you probably feel a little at home. But when you’re here, are there things you miss after more than a week?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah. New York has so much to offer. It’s really a fantastic city. But I miss walking my dog and just walking. .. not that you can’t walk here, but that small-town walking. I miss the garden [The French Laundry's farm] across the street. I miss a lot of my staff and working with them, that constant working with a team and developing them and watching them grow. It’s great to be here and to understand their staff and to get to know the different cooks and dining room managers and everybody, but I miss my team.

TOQUELAND: You started so young at The French Laundry, as a commis [prep cook] in your early 20s. You’ve staged at a few other places, but you’ve basically been there your entire adult life. Do you ever feel fully matured? Do you ever feel fully removed from the kid who started there more than ten years ago? Do you even want to move on from that person entirely?

HOLLINGSWORTH: It’s been a natural evolution. I’m asking guys to do things that I did in the same environment that I did it. I can relate to them and tell them stories about it. I can say, “I know it’s hard. I was there, in your position. I know. Trust me, you’re going to get it one day. It’s going to click and you’re going to get it and be successful”. You can really tell somebody from a firsthand experience and have them believe in that.

TOQUELAND: Where have you eaten during this stay in New York?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Corton, Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, Dovetail, Boulud Sud, Minetta Tavern, Employees Only. That’s pretty much it. .. so far. (laughs)

TOQUELAND: General question: what do you see the role of, for lack of a better phrase, “molecular gastronomy.” What do you feel about it as a category or genre unto itself?

HOLLINGSWORTH: It’s a fad. It’s a phrase that’s thrown around like “foodie.” What does that mean? Does it mean that you’re using different techniques like hydrocolloids? I mean we use it, but we use it to allow us to use certain techniques or elevate the food or do something better. Never is a dish begun by our saying, “Oh I want to use this technique, so let’s design a dish around wanting to make a sphere out of this.”

TOQUELAND: You mean that it starts with the flavor?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah. For me a lot of that molecular stuff mutes the flavor. I’m more about the product than I am about the manipulation of the product. So, to add something that you don’t need goes somewhere that I don’t believe in, that I don’t naturally go to. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t enjoy it. I just don’t prefer to cook that way a lot of the time.

TOQUELAND: Do you think in some ways this dividing line that’s been drawn between, let’s say, “conventional food” and “molecular food” is a fake line? I think guys your age – you’re in your early thirties – all of these relatively new techniques are just there for you, the same way that, say, I didn’t have a computer growing up, but my kids know how to use an iPad. It’s not a choice between molecular or not, it’s just that there are all these things cooks can now can avail themselves of if they choose to, whether in an avant garde way, or a traditional way.

TOQUELAND: I think it’s very true. But I would add to that that I feel comfortable in both areas. I grew up in the fundamentals of cooking and now these things are available, so I can do this, or I can do that, but I still firmly believe in those fundamentals in cooking and the ability to do something right and correct and that you understand how to do it before you take a product that allows you to do something. ..

These young cooks, so much information is available and they can learn and read, but a lot of these molecular techniques are just an equation – you put these certain ingredients together and this will happen. But there’s not that physical connection of saying, “I can cook beef to medium-rare” or “I can glaze an onion,” or “I can glaze carrots.” They don’t know how to do that anymore. That’s where the generation gap is. You have people who are maybe in their 40s who are real fundamental cooks who don’t understand new molecular processes; then you have people who are my age who may understand both sides, hopefully; then you have people who are younger who only understand the molecular side and they’re very intelligent about it but . ..

TOQUELAND: They don’t have the classic cuisine reference points or the fixation on the flavor, or on getting where classic cuisine would take you?

HOLLINGSWORTH: That’s why somebody like Grant [Achatz], he’s so amazing because he has those fundamentals of cooking. I’ve never eaten at any of his restaurants, but I’m planning on going very soon. But it’s interesting to see him and what he does. I know that he understands physically cooking, that he has that foundation.

TOQUELAND: So you think the danger is that people get too hung up on the science and the cosmetics and then, at some level, you’re creating art, you’re not creating food?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes, and it’s, like, okay, I can cook a piece of beef to medium-rare in a bag and sear it and serve it to you and you’re going to think it’s great. But can I go to a barbecue down the street in the park and barbecue a steak? Can I really cook? Do I know how to cook a piece of meat?

Or with braises. Are they just put in an oven and you just push a button and it has a certain program that’s set inside of it? Or do you sear it and make your own stock and that kind of thing? There’s always the fear of that. But it seems that most diners these days are going back to the product. They’re very smart. In California, and here, too, they’re so product-oriented, they know the purveyors around them and they want that simple food.

- Andrew

PS Did you like what you just read? Sign up for a (free) email subscription to Toqueland, follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. Join up between now and March 31, 2012 and earn a chance, or chances, to win a personalized set of The Alfred Portale Cookbook Collection. Details here!

by Percy Whatley, Toqueland Contributor

[Editor’s Note: Toqueland is proud to present our first guest contributor, Percy Whatley, Executive Chef of The Ahwahnee in Yosemite National Park, California. Percy is preparing for one of the most grueling challenges a toque can attempt: the Certified Master Chef exam. The exam is notoriously difficult (just watch the embedded video below to get a sense of what he's in for), and there is no certainty of passing (only five of twelve candidates made the grade in 2010), so, I’m especially grateful that Percy has agreed to put it out there and chronicle his CMC training for Toqueland over the next year and a half. Herewith, his first monthly installment.- Andrew]

February 2012

Greetings, residents of Toqueland.

I am writing to you from the Denver airport, on my way back to Yosemite from my first training session for the Certified Master Chef exam. This journal entry was begun in a Cleveland hotel and finished here in Colorado. I’d have done it back at my desk at The Ahwahnee, but this is an extracurricular activity and my “normal” life will swallow me up the moment I return to The Ahwahnee, so it’s now or never.

A few years ago, Kevin Doherty, chef of Boston’s TD Garden, which like the Ahwahnee is a Delaware North Companies  property, and I were nominated by Chef Roland Henin, our corporate chef and mentor, and a Certified Master Chef (CMC) himself, to be the “chosen ones” and  be supported in the venture of training and developing with the goal of passing the Certified Master Chef exam. The CMC exam takes place over eight days and 130 hours, and includes challenges in disciplines ranging from Classical Cuisine to Buffet Catering to Freestyle to Global Cuisine to Bakery and Pastry. (Read more about it here.) Only 66 people have attained the level of CMC: one is Roland himself, who famously mentored Thomas Keller; another is Richard Rosendale, who just became the US candidate to the Bocuse d’Or 2013.

We hadn’t been able to find the time to start down the CMC path in the intervening years, but not too long ago, our corporate bosses sat us down at a long and important-seeming table and explained that the time had come: They wanted us to dig in and start prepping for the CMC, the plan being that we’d tandem train, meeting up periodically to cook together and critique each other while offering moral support and, when necessary, commiseration.

Who were we to argue? Let the adventure begin!

January (Preparations)

Kevin and I are typical chefs in that we are ever-mindful of costs. Usually, we’re talking food costs, but in this case, we were trying to minimize travel expenditures, so we presented a plan in which we’d take turns visiting each other’s professional homes so that during each training session, one of us would have a “zero distraction” environment. The committee went us one better, suggesting that we identify a “neutral” ground where we could both be free of daily concerns. We took them up on the offer, resolving to spend a week per month some place between our two coasts, where we would cook, develop, and train together.

For our first session, we settled on Cleveland’s Progressive Field, a DNC property and home of the Cleveland Indians. We both arrived in Cleveland on February 1, after long workdays and complicated travel itineraries, mine involving a two-hour drive and two-connection flight plan. We were dazed and confused, but we rented a car and snaked our way downtown to the hulking Progressive Field. Since we are between baseball seasons, Progressive is what’s known in the industry as a “dark building,” meaning there are no events or games scheduled there. It’s cold and dark and the cinderblock corridors are eerily empty and quiet: We could hear the electric hum as each light we flicked on warmed up. We felt like we were starring in a post-apocalyptic action movie or zombie saga, except that we were the walking dead… and we hadn’t even sliced our first onion yet.

This was NOT the scene during our visit to Progressive Field, which was "dark" this month. (photo courtesy Delaware North Companies)

We unpacked our tools and equipment, and arranged the ingredients we planned on cooking according to the day that we were going to work with them. Then, we realized that we had nothing left to give. We split, and, over a light dinner, discussed what we were going to cook over the next two days: We had chosen Classical Cuisine as the discipline to work on this week because it’s the most challenging area, requiring you to cook directly from the most famous cookbook of all time, Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire. As its name indicates, it’s not a cookbook, but a guide; it doesn’t spell out techniques or presentation. I liken it to sheet music: Escoffier is the composer; you are the musician.

In the Classical Cuisine portion of the CMC exam, you have four hours to cook and 30 minutes to serve 10 portions of a consommé, a fish course, and a relevé, or main course. That probably doesn’t sound very difficult, but consider that you need to present six portions in Russian-style (platter) service and four composed plates for the stern-faced judges, guys who wear the CMC initials you covet on their white jackets, to evaluate. (A number of chefs also patrol the kitchen making notes as you work; see the video featured above for a look at that and other aspects of the exam.) You try keeping all that in mind and not second-guessing your palate, or keeping your hands from trembling when the moment of truth arrives.

To maximize our time together we agreed to cook two “poulet sauté” (sautéed chicken) preparations. Amusingly, though we decided separately, we both chose the same first preparation: Poulet Sauté à la Hongroise (Hungarian-style, the sauce finished with paprika and tomato). For our second  preparations, I chose Poulet Sauté Doria (accompanied by cucumbers stewed in butter), and Kevin chose Poulet Sauté Stanley (sauced with onions cooked in stock, then finished with a little cream and pinch of curry). We also chose, though would not be cooking this week, a soup, a lobster course and a salad, all from the great book.

February 2
We had breakfast at 8am in the hotel and made the two-block walk to the field. This would be our life for the next two days. The wisdom of selecting a neutral location was already apparent: our universe had been whittled down to this little pocket of Cleveland where all there would be was cooking, sleep, and more cooking. It felt like we never left those tunnels at Progressive, and that’s a good thing. (We scarcely even needed to shop because one of our Regional Chefs counterparts at DNC is James Major, a buoyantly funny guy with a heart the size of Lake Eerie, who had his team prepare some stocks. The rest of the food, Kevin had shipped from Boston and a quick trip to the local Whole Foods provided the rest. .. or so we thought.)

To say the least, there are some things lost in translation when putting practical cooking to the test of what Escoffier intended. If you’ve read Le Guide Culinaire, then you know what I’m talking about: The day presented one challenge after another, and not just creatively. Because Progressive was dark, anything we forgot to ship or shop for was simply not there—we kicked ourselves for not having shallots or parsley, two things you’d be able to help yourself to in any functioning kitchen. Also, since Progressive is not a fine-dining venue, there was a real dearth of small cooking vessels: the smallest pot on hand was a single four-quart saucepan, which presented some problems in, say, micro-reductions, which require you to employ an ever-smaller series of saucepans. (Going forward, we’ll both have an equipment box that we ship from training site to training site.)

Work in Progress: Kevin Doherty's Chicken Saute Stanley (photo courtesy Percy Whatley)

We managed to pull our platters together, but didn’t come anywhere near a Master Chef-level presentation—our techniques and flavors were sound, but the service window, especially the last five to ten minutes, really tripped us up. When we looked back over our stations at the end, we also realized that we’d left a mess. “What happened there?” I thought. No CMC proctor would be impressed with the state of our kitchen at the end of service.

Nonetheless, it was a great day: We both run huge enterprises at which we’re the boss, the chief, the chef. By the end of this session, we felt like utter newbies, like we were back at our first day in cooking school, getting oriented, learning the ropes, trying not to embarrass ourselves. It’s a good feeling. It’s important to shake up your world every now and then.

February 3 

The following day went much better and we felt much more comfortable, though not near the level the test will require. We decided to focus on some of the required dishes for the exam, such as a consommé classically garnished according to Le Guide, a Consommé Princesse, garnished with a royal custard enriched with sweet pea purée, a shrimp omelet (you have to make a shrimp butter to finish the creamy sauce at the last minute), and guinea fowl with Suc de Mandarine (a jus reduced to a glace, then enriched with Mandarin juice).  Because we will be furnished with a commis (assistant) for the actual exam, we shot for six hours of cooking and a 30 minute window of service, which we accomplished, though not to perfection. When it was all over, we looked at each other and searched for a way to express our status. We agreed that we were 100 times better than the day before, but 1,000 times removed from where we need to be. Not the most comforting thought, but we all need to start somewhere.

I’ll write to you all again after our next session in March, where we’ll stage a mock Classical Cuisine exam at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Acting as our judge will be Roland Henin himself. It’ll be tough cooking in front of the master, but that’s what we’ve signed up for and that’s what we’re going to do. Between now and March we’ll each be taking every opportunity in our own kitchens to sharpen our skills, focusing just a little bit more intensely on everything we do on a daily basis.

See you next month . ..

- Percy

PS Don’t miss out on future updates from Percy, or on any of Toqueland’s chef-obsessed content. Sign up for a (free) email subscription to Toqueland, follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. Join up between now and March 31, 2012 and earn a chance, or chances, to win a personalized set of The Alfred Portale Cookbook Collection. Details here!

Marcus Samuelsson at the Bar at Red Rooster Harlem (photo by Paul Brissman)

More than anything, Red Rooster Harlem reminded me of the sand.

About ten years ago, I asked Marcus Samuelsson, then the chef of Restaurant Aquavit, if he’d grant me an interview for use in a proposal for a book I had in mind. He happily obliged, inviting me to the one-bedroom apartment in the West 40s where he lived at the time.

I had first met Marcus during my short, unhappy life as a restaurant publicist in the 1990s. Aquavit‘s owner, Hakan Swan, had recently appointed him, then just 24, the chef, then hired the agency for which I worked to rep the place. Marcus’ celebrity is such that nobody thinks anything of his name anymore; his story–orphaned in Ethiopia at age 3, adopted by a Swedish family thereafter–has become common knowledge. But when he first turned up at Aquavit in Midtown Manhattan, he was incongruity personified: a skinny black kid with a Swedish handle cooking Scandinavian cuisine in a townhouse once occupied by Nelson Rockefeller. Customers who didn’t read the food section flirted with whiplash as they panned along with him whenever he passed through the dining room and it slowly dawned on them: “That’s the chef!”

I’d say that Marcus and I came up together except that it’s a pretty absurd statement given how far he’s ascended. But that’s how it felt at the time, and still does in retrospect, in part because he was so supportive of my own trajectory. It’s not easy making the switch from publicist to professional writer; generally speaking, people want to keep you in whatever box you shipped in. But it can be done; just ask Peter “Lucky Peach” Meehan. When I was first going for it, Marcus was immensely and uncommonly supportive. After my first foray into professional writing, the next few times I saw him, he’d flash a warm grin and say, “You’re a writer now, Andrew.”

He was also always eager to share what he was up to. Years after we stopped working together, he rang me up and asked me to come in and taste from a new menu. (He had just introduced, and was incredibly excited about, a foie gras ganache, a decadent savory spin on the molten chocolate cake first cooked by Michel Bras, then famously adopted by Jean-Georges Vongerichten here in New York. Years later, Marcus made it on the finale of Top Chef Masters, which he won.) When I asked him if he’d give me a story for the book Don’t Try This at Home, he had just relocated Aquavit to its new space on 55th Street, and insisted that we do the interview over dinner.

But back to that apartment in the West 40s: After interviewing in his living room, he told me to follow him into the kitchen. It was a narrow and unremarkable New York City apartment galley with a long counter on one side and appliances on the other. Why did I need to see this? I wondered. But then he pointed down to the ground, where his bare feet were half buried in sand. The entire floor of kitchen was covered with the stuff.

He explained to me that the sand was there to loosen him up, to keep him from feeling too constrained by convention or dogma, an invitation to himself to stir things up when he cooked. He then pointed out the colorful little murals he’d created on the wall using various spices he’d mixed with (I assume) water to fashion a kind of paint. “Why not?” he said, smiling big.

How things have changed for Marcus since those days. Not only was he the victor on Top Chef Masters, but he’s become a ubiquitous presence on cooking shows, has an autobiography coming out, and is an in-demand advertising pitchman. Plain and simple: He’s a star.

Marcus’ primary professional home now is Red Rooster Harlem, where I had plans for dinner last week with Jimmy Bradley and Steven Eckler of The Red Cat and The Harrison. We met outside, and headed in where we were greeted by David Pogrebin, a young front of the house veteran whom I first met at Cascabel (now the home of Osteria Morini) in the 1990s, then reconnected with when he worked at Jean-Georges in the early 2000s.

Red Rooster Harlem, as seen from the street.

We were seated, ordered drinks.  Ten minutes into our stay, Marcus breezed into the dining room, pulled a chair up to our table, and sat. We talked for a bit, then he asked if he could give us a tour of the restaurant. He walked us up to the bar, jam packed on a Monday night, and pointed over the crowd to a band jamming in the corner.

“On Monday nights, waiters perform!” he shouted over the din.

Then he took us downstairs and gave us a sneak peek at the renovations being done on the sizable space below . We were just hanging, so it wouldn’t be right to spill any of the details, but it was terribly impressive and exciting, and he conveyed his plans with that trademark enthusiasm. At one point, referring to a slightly unconventional touch he had in mind he said, “People keep trying to put rules in front of us and we keep going around them.” He laughed, joyously, at the idea of anybody silly and provincial enough to apply rules to something as personal as a bar, or a restaurant.

Upstairs, on the way back to our table, Marcus leaned into my ear and said, “You know, The Red Cat was a big inspiration to me. I told Jimmy that. The way it feels when you walk in there, the way it fits into the neighborhood. It just feels right.” As he pulled ahead of me, and I watched him glide through the space, heads turning after him as they always have, it occurred to me how unusual it was that, unlike just about every toque I know, Marcus didn’t bother with the pretense of donning a chef’s jacket for his pass through the dining room. It’s nothing more or less than an honest gesture: He wasn’t cooking, so he was in his street clothes, although it must be said that Marcus’ street clothes are fashionable enough for a front-row seat at the Grammys.

In just a few minutes, I had been reminded of all the things I used to appreciate about this guy: the sincerity, the generosity of spirit, the willingness to acknowledge a bit of inspiration, the zest for life and for work. It also occurred to me that his early support of my dream was an extension of his own “no rules” philosophy; he sure as hell wasn’t going to be put into a cubby hole, why should anybody else?

He visited with us for a little while longer, then somebody tapped him on the shoulder, he turned around, and that was that: he was gobbled up by the scene, greeting one table, then another and another until suddenly, he was at the other side of the room, and then, he was gone.

Jimmy, Steve, and I sat and ate, both what we’d ordered and quite a bit that we hadn’t. The food was delish: I had Dirty Rice and Shrimp and “Helga’s Meatballs,” a Swedish dish complete with lingonberries and dill-stewed potatoes. I also got to taste gravlax,a peanut soup (with surprising bits of avocado), jerk bacon and eggs, fried Mayan shrimp, and much more.

Musicians roam the dining room at Red Rooster Harlem.

It was a fun night:  At one point, the saxophone and horn players from up front came around the bar and into the dining room, passing right by our table. I thought again of that sandy kitchen: Why not let the waiters jam once a week? Why confine the musicians to the bar just because that’s where the performance area was? Why not serve Swedish meatballs alongside jerk bacon and eggs and fried Mayan shrimp?

On the long subway ride home to Brooklyn, I found myself thinking of the old days, and how badly I’d fallen out of touch with Marcus over the past five or six years. Why did that happen? I wondered. The obvious answer would have been that he got way goddamn famous during that time. But Marcus isn’t the kind of guy to let something like that go to his head, and I realized that it was me who had drifted away. I hadn’t made it to his last few ventures, hadn’t reciprocated for all that generosity of spirit and inclusion he’d shown me. I’d never even finished that book proposal.

Oh, sure, I had my reasons. The same reasons many of us have in New York: work, kids, life. An abundance of ambition and shortage of time. Some people come with us on our journeys, others–before we know it–slip away.

Sometimes, I manage to keep it together: Red Rooster was my second dinner this year with Jimmy and Steve, and we’re already planning a third. We used to dine together regularly, then didn’t for a time. But I want to see these guys more and guess they’ve decided the same about me. This is how it should be–what life is all about, if you will–but I’m sorry to say it’s become the exception rather than the rule. For every Jimmy, for every Steve, there are ten guys I’ve fallen out of touch with, and vice versa.

I got back to Carroll Gardens at about 11pm. Climbing up out of the subway station toward moonlight drenched Smith Street, I heard somebody call my name.

It was a neighbor, and relatively new friend. He’s a brave man: In his 40s, he switched careers last year to pursue a film industry dream. We talked for a moment, then went our separate ways. On the short walk home, thoughts of my own transitional days top of mind, I scolded myself for not supporting him enough. I resolved to call him up, buy him a drink, give him some precious encouragement.

It’s a week later. I still haven’t found the time.

And the beat goes on.

- Andrew

PS Did you like what you just read? Sign up for a (free) email subscription to Toqueland, follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. Join up between now and March 31, 2012 and earn a chance, or chances, to win a personalized set of The Alfred Portale Cookbook Collection. Details here!

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We want you to subscribe to our email updates, follow us on Twitter, and to like us (to really, really like us) on Facebook.

That’s why we’re excited to announce our first-ever Toqueland Fan Contest offering subscribers/followers a chance to win a set of all three of Alfred Portale’s cookbooks (coauthored by yours truly): Gotham Bar and Grill Cookbook, Alfred Portale’s 12 Seasons Cookbook, and Alfred Portale’s Simple Pleasures.

Win the contest and Alfred will personalize all three books as you like, as will I, and then we’ll ship the books off to you, wherever you may be.

The More Ways You Follow Us, The More Chances to Win

Here’s how it works: For every way you subscribe to/follow/like us, we’ll enter your name in the contest. Do all three, and get three chances to win.

To those who already keep up with us: Your early support has not been forgotten! We’ll take the liberty of entering you the appropriate number of times. To increase your chances, just subscribe to or follow us in additional ways.

This edition of the contest will run through March 31, at which point we’ll draw a winning name out of a suitably large vessel. The winner will be contacted privately so you can tell us how you’d like the books inscribed and to where we should ship them. It’s that simple.

Again, you can subscribe to us by email, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. (You can also follow our RSS feed, but we can’t track that, so it doesn’t count in the contest.)

We hope this gives you an extra reason to keep up with Toqueland. In the meantime, we promise to keep the content coming and make you glad you chose to keep in touch.

- Andrew

Sean Baker, pondering the plate, at Gather. (photo courtesy Carmen Troesser)

Sean Baker, executive chef of Gather restaurant in Berkeley, California, has caught a lot of people’s attention in recent years, most notably when Esquire magazine named him Chef of the Year in 2010. At Gather, omnivore, vegan, and gluten-free items peacefully coexist on the menu, in dishes that Baker dreams up largely based on treasures presented to him by area farms.  Toqueland caught up with Baker in Northern California recently, and asked this thoughtful young talent to become the third chef to share a Toqueland Ten. (Our first two came from Harold Dieterle and Emily Luchetti.)

1. SEAWEED. “I cook vegan food and I can use a lot of different seaweeds. There’s so many different varietals and so many things I can do with them. It’s just a real versatile ingredient.” Some ways Baker deploys seaweed include a vegan tonnato sauce, and a smoked seaweed-fried oyster puree, which brings us to Item No. 2 . ..

2. OYSTERS. “Just because I enjoy eating them so much, with lemon or maybe some shallot. They have a lot of possibilities: They’re a great emulsifier, and I like to use them with meat dishes that need the briny acidity that some oysters possess.” By way of example, Baker offers up the (perhaps Portuguese inspired) pairings of oysters with sausage or pork belly.

3.  THISTLES (artichokes, cardoons, etc.). “Bitter appeals to my palate. The more I’m thinking about thistles, the more I’m doing with them, cooking them differently. We’re brining them now (with garlic and onions) to get flavoring into the cardoons and artichokes to compliment them because they have that allium flavor. .. they’re very complex vegetables. ..”

4. SOUTHERN ITALIAN CHILE PEPPERS.  A variety of peppers are grown for Baker at an area farm. “Cigariella peppers, Calabrian peppers . .. all sorts of interesting and amazing peppers that you can get from the South of Italy. Some of that food really speaks to me:  the rusticity, the way they eat there.”

5. BITTER GREENS (i.e., chicories, radicchio). Wait a minute: Of his first five answers, three are categories rather than specific ingredients. That’s fine by us; our mission is to gain an understanding of how chefs think, not confine them to our box. Of bitter greens, Baker says that he uses them a lot because, “bitter flavors can amplify different flavors, just like lemon does in a lot of recipes. .. when you pair a chicory with, say, the sweetness of fennel, or a really big white bean that has creaminess. .. a bitter green brings out a lot of personality from those other ingredients.”

Another illustration: “Bitter greens with tuna is really good; the oceanic flavor kind of plays off the bitterness.” But those are just two of countless possibilities: “It really depends on how it’s used. It can be used with a lot of finesse (throw a handful of chicories in with white beans and tuna), or you can just put a little bit on a plate with lemon, or make a vinaigrette that has the stems, or make a dandelion pesto or a puree of chicory. ..”

6. PORK. “Whole animals make new dishes,” says Baker. What he means is that not all pigs are created equal, and he makes spontaneous decisions based on what each distinct specimen presents him with. “Every time, or a lot of the time, I cut a pig, I cut it differently. ‘The loin looks a little different, we should do it this way.’ I think it brings a lot to the table.”

7. EGGPLANT. “Oh, man, this is one of my all-time favorite vegetables,” says Baker. “It’s bitter. It has a real meaty texture. And it’s versatile; there are so many different things you can do with it.” Some of his favorite ways to cook eggplant up include fried, grilled, roasted, braised, confit, and sous vide. “I also like to use eggplant for its creamy texture alongside other vegetables or legumes, and to cook and marinate it for use in cold salads and appetizers.” Maybe it’d be easier to list ways he doesn’t like to use eggplant. But if we’d done it that way, we wouldn’t have discovered this vegan-inspired gem: “I put it through the meat grinder to achieve a complex and meaty ragout.”

8. TAMARI/MISO/SOY. Yet another category, or family, of ingredients, rather than a stand alone pick. The reason for this one is not hard to figure: “They help a lot when you’re cooking in the vegetarian kitchen. They add a lot of umami.”

9. WILD MUSHROOMS. ”Mushrooms are a big part of our kitchen and what we do and how we do it. We live in one of the best areas for wild mushrooms: porcini, Matsutake, chanterelles, black trumpets. The mushroom thing is huge for us now that I think about it. .. they’re a meaty presence,” he says, again underlining the special needs of a partially vegan kitchen. Considering the mushroom, Baker names Matsutake as his favorite, then elaborates on the importance of foraged ingredients in general at the restaurant so aptly named Gather: “The foraged ingredients: the pine shoots and the sorrels and the mushrooms and the nettles are a huge part of our cuisine.”

10.  CITRUS. Another category from a chef who thinks in terms of them: “Category-speaking, there’s nothing else we use as much where say, ‘Oh wow, there’s this and that, and we can combine this with that to get this flavor,” says Baker of the mix-and-match potential of this family of fruits. “They’re able to do amazing things. The best way I can put it is: They help so many other ingredients to become finalized.”

- Andrew

Rick Moonen worked for a number of the best restaurants in New York City, including a star-making stint as executive chef of Oceana, before taking his rm seafood concept to the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where he’s been thriving for seven years. Toqueland caught up with Moonen in Yosemite National Park, as he cooked a memorable guest dinner, tried to win over every guest in sight to his longtime cause of sustainability, and made a few minutes to share what was on his mind:

Rick Moonen in the dining room of rm seafood in Las Vegas (photo courtesy MGM Resorts International)

TOQUELAND: First of all, just catch me up, what are you excited about these days?

MOONEN: I think I’m at a crossroads in my career. I moved out to Last Vegas seven years ago, became part of the drive to make Las Vegas dining more legitimate, which I’m proud to have been a part of. Doing things in a manner in which I believe, holding true to my core values, my mission statement of being sustainable still stands strong. That continuously evolves as to what it really means, because the conditions of different species of fish always changes. So it’s kind of fun.

That being said: the economy, turning 55, getting a divorce, just kind of thinking: “What do I want to do?” Getting people to understand sustainability. We’re hitting a tipping point where that seems to be happening, which is great. I’m surprised. There was no guarantee I’d ever get to see anything happening and here it is, shifting before my eyes. It’s great. Pretty cool . ..

That being said, how do I get to the masses in [this] economy? I’m going to start pushing toward opening up restaurants that serve more really good, delicious, well-balanced, flavorful food. But not fine dining. Not the fancy-schmancy fanfare to the few who can afford it. I want to start hitting deeper and affecting more people.

TOQUELAND: Would this still be seafood focused?

MOONEN: Yeah. But I’m going to say “upscale casual,” if there’s such a thing. Because fine dining kind of took a dip. It had to be redefined . ..

TOQUELAND: What are you going to do? Where are you on it?

MOONEN: Simple stuff . .. I’m thinking of opening up in Waikiki, Hawaii. There’s a good chance I’m going to open there. [Toqueland Note: Moonen floated a concept for Waikiki last year.] I’ve got an LOI [letter of intent] out. There’s no dealbreakers that I can see in the further discussion to get to a contract. I’ve got the money, the funds, and the location. So, looks pretty good. This has been going on for eight months, this discussion with Hawaii. People who are in the know in my organization are tired of hearing about Hawaii. But it had to be the right deal, you know, and now it is. My risk is to a point where I’m comfortable to move. So, that’s it. Build a brand. Open up in other markets and diversify. I’ve got one space and it’s in Las Vegas in a casino. That’s too risky.

TOQUELAND: It’s a huge space in Vegas, though. How many seats?

MOONEN: Downstairs is close to 300 seats, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You’re obligated to be open for the casino. Upstairs, my fine-dining floor, is open five nights a week only, no lunch. Closed Sunday and Monday. It’s run like a French restaurant. 

You know what? I can cook. I can hit everybody. I can talk to any crowd and get them to understand what I’m talking about . .. Someday when I’ve got five upscale casual restaurants cranking out food, making people happy, they get it, it’s all local ingredients, it’s delicious, well-seasoned, then maybe I can open up my own little place and I’ll be cooking behind the stove. Or not. I don’t know. We’ll see.

TOQUELAND: You’ve been in Vegas for a while now. What do you most miss about New York at this point? Do you even think about it that much?

MOONEN: I don’t think about it as much as I thought I would. What I miss is the camaraderie; knowing how to do business. There’s a certain connection with the northeast, New York mentality of doing business. There’s a deeper respect, you know? What I call integrity. But that’s my definition of integrity.

TOQUELAND: Which you define how?

MOONEN: Well, it depends in which arena you’re discussing it. When it comes to building a team and holding and retaining a team in Las Vegas, well, you know, there’s a mercenary mentality that goes on out there [in Vegas] and it’s not as loyal. You’ll have a manager from another restaurant sitting at your bar, who you know, who you are friends with. “Eric, how you doing?” “Moonen! Good to see you!” Sitting at your bar, interviewing your bartender, ’cause he needs a bartender, and he waits til you walk away to continue with his interview . ..

In New York, if somebody came to me from another kitchen, say Daniel Boulud’s right-hand person, came to me, and I’m really needing to bring on somebody, I’d call Daniel – and this didn’t happen, this is, you know, just making it up – and say, “Buddy, you know Johnny came over and said he’s interested in working with me, and I need somebody, and I need your blessing.”  He’ d be like. [French accent:] “Oh, yeah. I knew that was going to happen. I kind of knew it. You know, I’m going on vacation next week for two weeks. Perhaps can you give me three weeks so I can keep running?” [shifts back to Moonen voice:] “Sure no problem, man!”  That’s how you do business. That doesn’t happen in Vegas.

TOQUELAND: Chefs have told me, “Somebody comes to work for me, I expect them to stay at least a year.”

MOONEN: Yeah, of course.

TOQUELAND: Is that what you expect yourself?  Do people stay even less than that out there?

MOONEN: They can, they can. You know, it’s frustrating. But it’s going to be an ongoing theme for me. I’m going to go to Hawaii . ..

TOQUELAND: You ever call people out on that or is this something that you just privately simmer away about?

MOONEN: No, I’ll call people out on that. I’ve gone to people that have left me, and it’s obvous that they’re stealing other people to help them and enrich themselves. Guys they worked with on the line, they go take a job somewhere, they need some people to work with and–guess what?–everybody’s giving notice and going to the same restaurant. So I’ll go to the bar [at the other guy's restaurant] and have a drink and I’ll tell the guy, “You should stop that. Stop taking my people.” You know? I don’t care. That’s me.

TOQUELAND: We had a quick talk at the US Open two Opens ago and I asked you how the Top Chef Masters thing affected your business . ..

MOONEN: It really enhanced it dramatically.

TOQUELAND: You could trace that directly to the show?

MOONEN: Sure. Not immediately. You have to last a little while for people to really get to know you more and better and become more of a fan. And that happened because I made it to the end and being so close to California, and Las Vegas is California’s playground, so there’s quite an influx of fans coming in as a result. And people started to come to Mandalay specifically to eat in my restaurant. It was great, tremendous for business.

TOQUELAND: Based on that, are you thinking about doing a series, or hosting something?

MOONEN: I would like to do something that involves . ..  if I can get a sustainability message hidden in there, Trojan-horsed in there. The Trojan Chef! You know, get it in there. Don’t make a big deal out of it.

- Andrew

Richard Rosendale's gold-winning meat platter. (photo courtesy Bocuse d'Or USA)

January 30, 2012 — Toqueland dragged itself off the mat this morning after Sunday’s round-trip excursion to the CIA in Hyde Park, followed by a late night of optimistic summation, and trudged up to a press conference at the Sofitel in Midtown Manhattan.

A few urgent matters await us elsewhere, so with apologies for the bullets, here, in no particular order, are some leftovers from yesterday’s competition and news from this morning’s presser:

Toqueland Exclusives and Other Breaking Stuff:

• You Heard it Here First: POSSIBLE SWITCH TO PARTIALLY SPONTANEOUS FORMAT IN LYON: Last week, Gavin Kaysen told us about a possible new format in Lyon, involving plates rather than platters for one “course.” Florent Suplisson, Executive Director of the international event in Lyon, hinted at the possible change in this morning’s press conference, opting not to reveal it there. But Toqueland can report the change that’s being pondered: The Bocuse d’Or is considering replacing one of the platters with plated dishes made from ingredients and techniques that are revealed over time: the proteins several months out, the ingredients to be used in the garnishes closer to the event, and the techniques that must be employed the day before the competition (these would possibly change from Day 1 to Day 2). None of this is decided yet; the organization will continue to discuss, and enlist some chefs to conduct some dry runs to see how it actually plays out, then will likely make its decision sometime over the next month. This would be a dramatic change for a competition in which knowing all the parameters in advance has always been a defining trait.
• YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Don’t Make Fun of My Spud, Bud! Bocuse d’Or USA 2012 Champ Richard Rosendale really did use a Mr. Potato Head! As he was plating his meat platter yesterday, an observer (not sure if it was the emcee or not) joked that Rosendale’s chicken looked like it was being presented in the shape of a Mr. Potato Head.  Well, guess what:  IT WAS! Here it is right from Rosendale himself: “Somebody was joking around that we used a Mr. Potato Head mold; we actually did. That was inspired by my son, Lawrence. He’s three and a half years old… it was pretty quick, I didn’t have time to make a mold and I playing with my son one Sunday and I looked over and I was, like, ‘That Mr. Potato Head is almost exactly like a chicken if you turn it upside down.’ So that’s what I used. I cut it in half and I cleaned it out with a dremel, and I just used it, it didn’t come in contact with the food. It was just to shape it. And then I cooked it all sous vide and then I flash fried it.”
• We’ll Get Back to You: Proteins for Lyon Not Being Announced Until “Early Summer”: At today’s press conference, Bocuse d’Or USA Chairman Daniel Boulud asked Supplison when the organization would make the proteins (meats and fish) for the 2013 competition known. Supplison replied that, because not all teams have yet been selected, the organization will likely not make the proteins known until early summer to keep the playing field level.This is later than in past years, and takes a bit of the wind out of Coach Gavin Kaysen’s plans for a turbo-charged start up, but there’s plenty of more general ideation he and his team can begin, and of course, newly minted USA candidate Richard Rosendale needs to get going on creating a training kitchen at The Greenbrier.
• Bocuse d’CIA?: This is un-comfirmed, but Toqueland heard from a reliable source on Sunday that the CIA is renaming its Escoffier Room the Bocuse Room. Given Bocuse’s intense and public admiration of the school, and the Institute’s deep respect for the toque, whom it named Chef of the Century last year, it’s not hard to figure why this might be in the offing.

Other Notes and Postscripts:

• Best Bad Ass: Jeffrey Lizotte, chef of ON20 in Hartford, CT, took silver yesterday, despite the fact this his commis, Kevin Curley, sustained a finger wound so serious that organizers almost sent him off to the hospital. Curley cooked most of the day with a corn-dog-sized, duct-taped wrap in place on the damaged digit, and stayed right through to the awards, where he and Lizotte won silver and Curley was awarded Best Commis. I was sorry not to get to spend more time with these guys–I really admire them, and the way they hung in there. I often say that I was first drawn to the Bocuse d’Or by its mix of cooking and sports and Curley’s saga exemplified this for me.
• Maybe that’s Why My Twitter Connection was Fritzy on Sunday: At today’s presser, Bocuse d’Or president Thomas Keller mentioned that Bocuse d’Or was one of the top topics on Twitter during Sunday’s finals. Keller also mentioned that at his and Daniel’s restaurants, they’ve added an extra gratuity line on all checks where patrons can donate to the Bocuse d’Or. Makes sense to us; every little bit helps.
• You Can’t Judge a Book…: William Bradley of Le Cordon Bleu, who took the bronze along with his commis James Haibach, is a big, imposing guy, who moved around his poor little competition kitchen with a ruthless authority. I didn’t know quite what I expected from him, but the downright artistic meat platter he sent out stunned me with both its delicacy and its sophisticated use of light and dimension.
• Taking note: After the competition, which I thought was immensely successful from a logistical standpoint, Gavin Kaysen commented that he was glad that all four candidates would be noticed and remembered by the judges. In recent years, when 8 or 12 chefs competed, Kaysen felt that the lowest scoring dishes all started to blur together for the judges. But with just four competitors on Sunday, he believed that each of them made an impact and an impression.
• On the other hand…: You’ve got to feel for Danny Cerqueda. Dude came back to the battlefield after competing here in 2010 and placed fourth, despite his cool, calm display under pressure and good looking if not ultra-complex cuisine. Last time there were 12 competitors, meaning 9 non-medalists; on Sunday, he was the only one, which had to be a lonely business. Danny took it well (we traded emails today, but they were personal, so no quoting) but I’d like to call for a virtual round of applause for the man and his commis, Marianne Elyse Warrick, whom I’d like to, quite presumptuously, suggest be unofficially awarded the Copper Bocuse, 2012.  (PS: A nice moment: At the end of the competition, as the candidates were cleaning their stations, Lizotte came into Cerqueda’s kitchen and the guys shared a big embrace. Not many people know what it’s like to be in that box for 5 1/2 hours. It builds bonds.)
• The Mensch Chef: Personal note: I’ve yet to attend a Bocuse d’Or press conference at which Daniel Boulud doesn’t go out of his way to point me out to the attendees and mention my book, Knives at Dawn, about the 2009 Bocuse d’Or team, even a year after the paperback debuted. Thanks, Chef.

This concludes Toqueland’s coverage of the Bocuse d’Or USA, at least for a while, although I might Tweet about anything that catches my eye.

Quick aside: As this site, 2.0 version, approaches its three-week birthday, we’d like to thank everybody for tuning in and treating us to such a successful launch. We’ll keep it coming with more news, commentary, and some terrific interviews we already have in the can. Look for it all here in the near future. (If you haven’t already, scroll up above the masthead on the top of the page and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS feed, or go ahead and sign up for a free email subscription (we don’t do junk mail, just one update a day when there’s a new post or two to share).

See you soon!

- Andrew

Dream Team? Coach Gavin Kaysen (left) and 2013 Bocuse d'Or USA candidate Richard Rosendale (right)

January 29–The Bocuse d’Or USA created something of a monster for itself in 2008, when Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud, in partnership with Jerome Bocuse, took over the leadership of the organization. With their culinary savvy, fundraising ability, and deep bench of human resources, most people figured the mere involvement of the two most respected fine-dining moguls in the United States would be all it took to field a winning team and reverse two decades of US disappointment in the world’s preeminent culinary competition.

But most people are casual observers. They don’t know the first thing about the Bocuse d’Or; don’t realize just how exacting the standards are over there, in Lyon, France, where the global competition is held; don’t appreciate how hard the other teams train or how most of the judges’ palates tilt toward Europe. Even Keller and Boulud didn’t fully understand the dragon they were attempting to slay their first time out, not having ever attended the event themselves; they learned the hard way that it’s a big dragon, as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and that it breathes fire hot enough to melt the hopes and dreams of 21 (out of 24) teams every year. All of which created a delicate scenario when the organization’s pr team whipped up a frenzy of great expectations heading into the 2009 competiton.

And so, when The French Laundry’s Timothy Hollingsworth placed 6th out of 24 teams in Lyon that year, journalists and foodies recoiled, spewing snark and sarcasm. Then, in 2011, when Eleven Madison Park’s James Kent finished 10th, the wheels really came off–all the old complaints came flooding back: “Why can’t we win this thing?” “Why do we bother trying?” “What’s wrong?!?” The moment seemed to have passed the new guard by, as evidenced by the relatively scant media coverage leading up to this weekend’s finals. When I emailed a recent Bocuse d’Or USA finalist late Saturday night to ask if I’d see him at Hyde Park Sunday, he wrote back that he didn’t even know the event was this weekend.

But life is full of surprises, and today, Sunday, January 29, might just go down as the day that the Bocuse d’Or USA, under its current leadership, finally showed signs of reaching its full potential and having a shot of really, truly, finally–yes, I’m going to say it out loud–landing a candidate on the podium in Lyon.

There are a few reasons I’ve come to this conclusion. First of all, the organization is clearly learning as it goes and it’s made some significant changes this time around: Gavin Kaysen, the former USA candidate, has shifted into full Herb Brooks mode. Rather than working in the background as he has for the last two teams, Kaysen will officially assume the mantle of coach; it’s right there in his email signature, under where it says Executive Chef, Cafe Boulud. Brooks, the coach of the USA 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Olympic Hockey Team made leg strength and stamina his signature focus; Kaysen’s will be time: He’s going to get the newly selected team training out in Yountville by mid-February, and be sure they’re ready for full-on practice sessions by October, neither of which has been the case for the two most recent teams. (See my interview with Kaysen for more on this. Sunday’s Bocuse d’Or USA finals were also a much-improved event for a number of reasons that I’ll touch on in a subsequent post of miscellaneous observations and interviews on Monday, by which time I hope to have a release and photos from the Bocuse d’Or USA as well.)

Something brewing: A crowd assembled outside Rosendale's kitchen for much of the day Sunday.

More importantly, the Bocuse d’Or USA has found themselves a candidate who both wants this badly and, as a former culinary Olympian, has the competition chops to hit the ground running, without needing to be schooled in the fine points of competition, platter presentation, and so on. Richard Rosendale, Executive Chef of The Greenbrier, who took silver at this event in Orlando in 2008, won the gold today (along with his commis Corey Siegel) earning the right to compete for the US next year, and it was a spectacular display: He was preternaturally calm during the competition, and his kitchen was astonishingly clean throughout. His food was stunning and, based on the morsel I was lucky enough to taste after plating (shhhh, don’t tell), delicious. (Kaysen emailed me tonight that full scoring sheets will be posted on the organization’s website; will be interesting to see how close the other teams came.)

I vividly remember standing with Rosendale after the competition (but before the results were known) in 2008 as he shook his head, hoping that the organizers and judges understood that the Bocuse d’Or wasn’t a restaurant competition. I quoted Rosendale’s comments at length in my book Knives at Dawn: ”It is not restaurant food… The Bocuse is the ultimate in French finesse and, if we want to win that, then we need to beat them at their own game, and that is just an unbelievable amount of creativity and visual impact and big flavor profiles.”

In 2009 and 2011, the Bocuse d’Or USA selected restaurant chefs, but this time out, there weren’t as many in the hunt: only silver medalist Jeffrey Lizotte currently runs a restaurant: the other three candidates came from a hotel (Rosendale), a cooking school (bronze medalist William Bradley), and a country club (Danny Cerqueda). These are the venues from which competition chefs traditionally hail in the US, and we’ll now see if that background, combined with the resources and hard-earned wisdom of the new guard produces the desired result.

The candidate sure thinks it’ll work: I caught up with Rosendale moments after he won today. Here’s what he had to say: “You know I’ve been wanting to do this for a long, long time and to finally have the opportunity, I’m going to home in on it as a goal like crazy. What we did in here, we did the best we could do under these conditions, meaning the timing and the [training] kitchen [at the Greenbrier]. But to know we’re going to be in Lyon and to get a duplicate [Bocuse d'Or competition] kitchen at The Greenbrier, I know we can bring it on and take it to another level from what we did here. This is only the first phase. We’re excited to continue on… We want to get on the podium. We don’t want to just go to Lyon to say we went to Lyon. We want to get on the podium. We want to get the gold.”

So, to all those who checked out on the Bocuse d’Or over the past few years: it might be time to tune back in, because that fairy tale story, the one that so many have left for dead, may yet be alive and well. In fact, chapter one might have been written today.

- Andrew