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Bogota Foodies Meet

October 31, 2011 in Events, The School, Travel | No comments

We were invited by LaSalle College to participate in a gastronomic fair in Bogota. We were so lucky. Tens of thousands of locals and many cooking school students attended. We spoke together the language of food. Words such as sustainable, technology and delicious were the worldwide ubiquitous catch phrases.

Academics and practicioners from all over South America attended. It was a wonderful chance to learn and explore what is happening in the food scenes in the Latin countries. Univerisities from Brazil to Columbia have added gastronomy programs. School food is an important topic. Native fruits, vegetables and historical cooking are passionately defended.

It was great to walk around the food halls and bump into famous Mexican chefs. We got to drink coca tea and find out that the acai berry from Columbia has more anti oxidants than any other. Once again the array of fruits boggled the mind. Stay tuned, you are going to hear about Columbia as one of the next big food countries.

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SF Chefs…So Fantastic!

September 6, 2011 in Events, Restaurants, The School | No comments

Cesare, Emily, Dorothy and other luminaries at Opening Ceremony

SF Chefs was an event held the first weekend of August in San Francisco, celebrating the finest restaurants in the city. As the International Culinary Center of California we joined in the fun and had a table at the Union Square tent. We were thrilled to be side by side with such dynamic restaurants as Boulevard, Waterbar and Frances!

Melissa Perello of Frances

Nancy Oakes (Boulevard) and Joyce Goldstein

Cesare Casella, our Dean of Italian Studies happened to be out at our school that week, and became The International Culinary Center of California’s main attraction at the event. We served his scrumptious food to alert all that our west coast campus will be adding Italian classes to its roster.  We were honored to be asked to give a demo to the crowd.  Cesare kept it simple making Pasta al Pomodoro but even with something so simple, I learned a new technique. Cesare always uses canned whole Marzano tomatoes (they are sweeter) and crushes them with his hands.  He adds them to sweating white onions and lets it cook a while.  Then he throws the spaghetti directly into the tomatoes and lets it cook that way. One pot cooking.  Tons of basil are added just before coming off the fire.  Sharp Pecorino cheese finished off the dish. Delicious! Cesare as usual charmed everyone.

Cesare Casella

Interview with Liam Mayclem, "The Foodie Chap"

Cesare and I were thrilled to be at the opening ceremony and help cut the cake, which depicted the skyline of this marvelous food city. It was fun to stand next to Mourad Lahlou from Aziza and our Dean and Pastry doyenne of SF, Emily Luchetti. Thank you San Francisco for welcoming us with open arms!

If you plan on visiting San Francisco for  a food experience, combine it with this event.  You’ll taste a little bit of foggy heaven in a few hours.  Just remember it is cold in San Francisco in August…great eating weather. Under the tent you’ll find an explosion of SF’s best restaurants and wines. You will bob from table to table in a sea of food and drink amidst an amazing and sophisticated crowd.  It is an event not to be missed!

Gary Danko and Joanne Weir

Chantal Keller, Kevin Stuessi, Hubert Keller, Dorothy, Gary Danko, Cesare

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A Woman’s Lunch with Ariane, Gabrielle, Helene and Barbara

July 23, 2011 in Events | 5 comments

And what it a lunch it was! Among the eaters were Ruth (Reichl), April (Bloomfield), Katy (Sparks). The chefs who were cooking were Arianne Daguin (D’Artagnan),Gabrielle Hamilton (Prune), Barbara Lynch(Menton) and Helene Darroze, the famed two Michelin starred chef of Paris. Here it was sweltering July and we all turned out to eat foie gras, quail, roast pork and drink wines of the South of France and Armagnac. Only maddogs and foodies down that kind of lunch in the noon day sun.

We were celebrating the women chefs and the talk at our table turned to the question of the place of women today in the professional kitchen.   Women have made immense inroads in the last  20 years, that’s for sure.   Back in the eighties it was impossible for women to be hired in the top kitchens. Not because of any regulation but a prejudice that women weren’t up to the job. That attitude has changed in spades. Who is the most famous chef in America? Probably Alice Waters? One of the best known food producers? Ariane Daguin. And we were celebrating the Michelin two star doyenne from Paris, Helene Darroze. Twenty five years ago this would never be.

Arianne Daguin's foie gras, three ways

So are women now on equal footing with men in the kitchen? Not so fast. The barriers to entry are certainly trodden down but the sustaining factors to becoming a great chef are still a challenge for women. It is no secret that balancing a home life and the life of a chef, restaurateur, sommelier or anyone in the hospitality business is a challenge. This is the profession that works while others celebrate…New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day. The work day is actually better described as the work evening. There are positions that are day friendly but for the most part work is for the dinner shift and weekends. A woman with a biological clock does not have to drop out but needs to be crafty in fitting family and profession. Even male chefs have to juggle this one.

Another issue is financing a place of your own. Women entrepreneurs often are confronted with more skepticism. It is hard for any chef trying to find funders, but anecdotally I have heard more war stories from women than men.

All the more reason to celebrate Helene Darroze’s visit to New York, Gabrielle Hamilton winning the James Beard award for best New York Chef and Barabara Lynch for taking Boston by storm. Let’s hope all the women who have found success are as generous as these role models to mentor the next generation.

Joshua Skenes and Saison: Food & Wine Best Chef

July 10, 2011 in Events, Restaurants, Travel | No comments

Chef Joshua Skenes

We are so proud that our grad, Joshua Skenes was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs this year.  FCI then had two things to celebrate on my visit to San Francisco last week.  We took the opportunity to toast the birthing of The French Culinary Institute/ICC (at the International Culinary Center) of California and Joshua’s great achievement.

Jacques Pepin and I hosted  a grand dinner for press and the San Fran chef community on June 20th, at Saison, Josh’s restaurant.  The menu was as exciting as delicious.  I love the simplicity of the restaurant and the fact that you not only peek into the kitchen but feel an extension of it.  One lusts after the Molteni stove. In the entrance alleyway, there is an outdoor bar with a brick pizza oven-like fire raging. (In San Francisco that is welcomed year round.) Josh loves to control the fire and play with it.  He started the menu with a slightly smoked California caviar. The bounty of the California farm basket was weaved in every dish.  Just look at the presentation!  And my favorite was the roasted popcorn ice cream. If you can get in, go there, it is fantastic.  And tell Josh Dorothy sent you!

(photos Marc Fiorito, GammaNine.com)

The pizza oven

Dorothy, Dean Jacques Pepin, Joshua Skenes

The French Culinary Institute of California Media Launch Event

Saison, San Francisco, June 20, 2011

Menu

Caviar

Wild Spot Prawn

Brassicas

Crustaceans

Pasternack’s Rabbit

Preserve Lemon

Popcorn Ice Cream

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Decoding Ferran

April 1, 2011 in Events | No comments

In March I had the opportunity to attend an event at The Council of the Americas in NYC that featured Ferran Adria. He was there to speak of his collaboration with the communications giant Telefonica.  As all foodies now know Ferran will be closing his restaurant, El Bulli in Spain in July 2011. He is no longer inspired by restaurant food creation. He is tired of visiting around the world and have people plague him with the question, “Can I get a reservation?”  He has the classic questioning mind of an originator.  He wants to explore  his passions and food is his medium. His collaboration with Telefonica will allow him to do just that. It sounded to me that he will be almost like a child in a playpen. Between now and 2014, Ferran and Telefonica will build a laboratory, a foundation and yes, another restaurant at the site of Il Bulli. This restaurant will not take reservations. Ferran will work on his ideas in the lab and the foundation will allow cooks to come and work with him. The by products will be served in the restaurant.

Befitting a telecommunications giant the presentation of Ferran’s ideas was splendid. Highly produced videos with gorgeous visuals helped explain how Ferran interprets and thinks about food. His basic premise is that food is just another language in which to communicate with people.  He interprets the cooking of the product as a word, the plate concept  as a sentence and the menu as a paragraph. Technological machinations are more simple than high tech.  His cuisine is more evolution than revolution. He plays with textures and the eye, not for sensational effect but for depth of gustatory enjoyment  for a thinking diner.

Since this is a blog, I am not going to go into a in-depth analysis of his iconic techniques. I encourage everyone to read his books but quite frankly you will not even have to find his books. For above all, Ferran is a missionary.  He wants to share his knowledge and so his partnership with Telefonica is a perfect fit.  He plans to put all his research online so that every chef or cook in the world can have access to his methods as well as his mind.  He is committed to helping people with food restrictions to eat better, to find ways to deliver wholesome food more efficiently and work in his ingenious way  either whimsically or practically to a more delicious world.

Ferran at his book signing October 2010, The International Culinary Center

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The Secret Life of Lobsters

March 9, 2011 in Events | No comments

I read  The Secret Life of Lobsters a few years ago.  I raved about it to anyone who would listen. I even shared the book with my lobster fishermen/women friends in Nova Scotia.  They loved it. They found the facts eye popping.  Oldtimers said they learned lots they did not know.  Some of them had been fishing 60 years.

What kind of facts grabbed them?  How about reading that lobster eyes are highly evolved long mirrored tubes?  If an eye is lost, another grows back…as a foot!  One tagged lobster walked over 500 miles in a season across the peaks and valleys of the ocean floor.  But the most intriguing reading was about their sex lives!  It’s all about alpha males beating out beta males while the females sit on the sidelines and wait to go seduce the winners.  One poor male not only  lost all his limbs but also his little feet and finally had to drag himself around by his teeth.  Admittedly there is not a romantic moment in this book.

Jean-Geroges calls me the Lobster Mobster, so I was over the moon when I read that Trevor Corson, the author of The Secret Life of Lobsters was to give a lecture at The Lotos Club in NYC.  I invited a partial crew from The ICC to join me. The lure of a dinner with 2  1/2 pound lobsters served as my lobster pot (that’s the vernacular for a lobster trap).

Trevor’s family had a place in Maine where he grew up surrounded by lobster lore.  He graduated from Princeton, studied philosophy in China, resided in Buddhist temples in Japan (check out his other book, The Story of Sushi) and worked on commercial fishing boats off the Maine coast.  His gentle demeanor and erudition finally gave way when he turned to the video portion of the talk.  It was lobster porn.  Chefs Alain Sailhac and Andre Soltner have worked with lobsters all their lives but they had never seen anything like it.  As appropriate for lobsters, it got pretty steamy!  Read the book. You won’t be disappointed.

Author Trevor Corson

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