| |
Through their four books,
authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen
Page have offered a unique chef’s-eye view of the
contemporary American culinary world. Their first book,
Becoming a Chef, is a realistic look at what it takes
to become a chef and the routes that various well-known chefs
have traveled; it won the 1996 James Beard Book Award for Best
Writing on Food. (A technologically up-to-date second edition
of Becoming a Chef is already in the works.) Culinary
Artistry and Dining Out dealt with the working creativity
of chefs and food criticism, respectively. Their fourth and
latest effort, Chef’s Night Out (to be published
by John Wiley & Sons in March), is both a paean to the important
role that dining out plays in a culinary education and a city-by-city
directory of the restaurants where chefs most like to eat.
“Everyone always asks chefs the same question,” says
Page, “ ‘Where do you like to eat?’ We
wanted to gather the answers in one place.” Dornenburg
and Page stress the educational aspects of eating out, for culinary
students, home cooks and even for chefs who are already at the
top of their profession. “The more we spoke with chefs,
the more we heard that eating out is as important to their education
as going to cooking school,” says Page. “Eating the
best version of something, whether it be pizza or oysters, is
an education for the palate.” Chefs also credited dining
out with teaching them to see their own restaurants from the
customer’s perspective.
Even chefs with elaborate styles look for inspiration in a wide
range of restaurants, often eschewing the haute in favor
of the offbeat. Dornenburg explains, “Chefs do eat at four-star
restaurants, but they usually visit the big guns, such as Restaurant
Daniel, only once a year or so, to see what people at the top
are doing.” The chefs’ choices bear out Dornenburg’s
observation. While Paul Bertolli of San Francisco’s Oliveto
names Chez Panisse as an inspiration (as does nearly every chef
interviewed), he also recommends a taco truck in Oakland, and
George Germon and Johanne Killeen, chef-owners of Providence’s
Al Forno, enjoy lunching at Mike’s Kitchen in the VFW hall
in Cranston, Rhode Island. “Uglesich Restaurant in New
Orleans is supposed to be a total dive,” says Page, “but
it’s famous for its oysters and seafood. Everyone, from
Chef Todd English [Figs and Olives] to Chef Charlie Trotter
[Charlie Trotter’s] to Chef Anne Rosenzweig [The Lobster
Club] drools over it.”
Many of the chefs interviewed for Chef’s Night Out
recall seminal restaurant experiences at very early stages in
their lives. A 12-year-old Rick Bayless saved up his own money
(“The notion of eating in a really fine restaurant was
beyond the scope of my immediately family.”) and took the
bus to downtown Oklahoma City to eat vichyssoise and flank steak
in a meal he describes as “a benchmark.” For Cindy
Pawlcyn of San Francisco’s Real Restaurants, it was a soft-shell
crab sautéed table side when she was 16 that provided
the light-bulb moment. And at 17, Allen Susser of Miami restaurant
Chef Allen’s was inspired by a meal at La Grenouille in
New York to move to France and work in a restaurant kitchen.
Dornenburg and Page admit to being taken aback by the number
of chefs who cop to eating fast food. Picholine’s Chef
Terrance Brennan indulges in the occasional Big Mac, and Chef
Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington eats
chicken breasts from Burger King and baked potatoes from Wendy’s
(although he does so apologetically, noting that “When
you live in such an odd place [like Washington, Virginia], you’ve
got to make do.”) Still, Dornenburg hopes this book will
serve as an antidote to the last-resort stop at a drive-through.
“On the road, if there’s a family-owned restaurant
nearby, that’s always our choice. We’ll even change
our schedule to visit a pizza parlor owned by a family rather
than a chain. Lots of people don’t know about those places
though. Now they can use Chef’s Night Out to find
out about them.”
Chef’s Night Out works as a guide for just about
anyone traveling in the United States, but Page and Dornenburg
specifically address culinary students. Not only are they encouraged
to read the opening chapters on the importance of tasting food,
but some of the proceeds from the book will go towards Page
and Dornenburg’s dinership program: a series of mini-grants
designed to enable culinary students to eat at well-known restaurants.
After their meals, participants write brief essays in order
to share their experiences with other students and instructors.
Peter Kump’s graduate Renee Schuler was one of the first
dinership recipients, and her essay appears in the book. She
describes the details of her meal at Le Bernardin, from savoring
the richness of lobster bisque with truffles to learning that
two ingredients simply presented, in this case yellowtail tuna
and leeks in vinaigrette, can have an explosive effect.
“The dinership program was inspired in part by Julia Child,”
says Page. “She often tells a story about when she was
living in Paris and her parents’ friends would come to
visit. They’d go out to Michelin three-star restaurants,
and then they’d call her and say, ‘Take us to the
little places where you like to go.’ When Child tells the
story, she always says, ‘Think how wonderful it would have
been for me to go to some of those three-star restaurants.’
We’re trying to generate sympathy for the plight of the
aspiring chef, who doesn’t make a lot of money and works
hard and can’t have the experiences that other people take
for granted.” |
